John Ballantine began as an employee of the Goldie & McCulloch works in Galt, then spent 20 years as superintendent of Cowan & Co., also in Galt. Then, in 1894, he started John Ballantine & Co. in nearby Preston. The company incorporated in 1904, and the name became J. Ballantine & Co., Ltd. In 1907 their revenue was $70,000. In 1910, the company suffered a major fire at its factory. Shortly afterward, the company merged with MacGregor, Gourlay Co. Ltd.; Hespeler Machinery Co.; the woodworking machine division of Goldie & McCulloch Co., Ltd.; and Sussex Machinery Co. of New Brunswick. The resulting company was named Canada Machinery Corp., Ltd., or CMC.

Preston is now part of the city of Cambridge, which was formed when Galt, Preston, and Hespeler merged in 1973; all three of these places hosted woodworking machinery manufacturers at some point.

Do you have more information?

I am especially interested in woodworking machinery manufacturers from Ontario, and particularly Cambridge, so if you have any information on relevant woodworking machinery companies and products, I strongly urge you to contact Jeff Joslin.

Information Sources

• Thanks to City of Cambridge archivist Jim Quantrell for providing most of the information given here.
• A 1910 issue of American Machinist has this news snippet: "Fire damaged the plant of J. Ballantine & Co., Preston, Ont., to the amount of $60000. The concern builds woodworking machinery."