Now Published: James Stubbs, the Peterborough "Entertainer"
I’m pleased to say that my article on Peterborough’s itinerant motion picture exhibitor, James Stubbs, has been published in the spring 2022 edition of the journal Ontario History.
A typical James Stubbs appearance, this one in Richmond Hill, as reported in The Liberal, Dec. 20, 1906.
The article tells the story of one of Ontario’s lesser-known, and independent, travelling “showmen” –James Stubbs, of Peterborough, Ont. Taking his regional and religious bandwagon on the road for almost fifteen years (c.1900 to 1914), Stubbs contributed as he went to the growth and acceptance of motion picture exhibition in the province.
From “Park Street Sunday School,” Examiner, March 9, 1907, p.16. “ . . . a prophet in his own country.”
Stubbs’ work, like that of other travelling exhibitors of the time, was to offer people a chance to see, sometimes for the first time, the new technological phenomenon of the age. With his stereopticon, phonograph machine, and motion picture projector he travelled here and there by rail — from Ottawa to Orillia, Kingston to Kinmount — drawing large crowds wherever he went.
Peterborough Daily Review, July 26, 1906, p.7. Stubbs is putting up two new houses on Water St.
Peterborough Examiner, Nov. 26, 1906, p.9. Mrs. Stubbs has a bit of an accident in the new house, and two of the dailies reported on the incident.
Peterborough Review, Nov. 27, 1906, p.8. Husband James was off via train on one of his many trips.
Around July 1906 James Stubbs, a master carpenter, bought three empty lots on Water St. south of Smith Road (or Parkhill). In that same year he began building two houses, at 659 and 661 Water Street. James and his wife quickly moved into no.659. It appears that one of the houses was meant for James’ son William, but around that time William was working in Toronto; when William and his wife did move to Peterborough they also lived in 659. Around 1912 the family moved into 661 and were living there when James died in 1917. That house, no.661, has been designated as a heritage property, said to be “a good example of an Edwardian Classical house.” The city of Peterborough’s “Listed Heritage Properties” site acknowledges that the two and a half story dwelling was “home to James Stubbs, a lecturer” and cites its shingled gable and entrance porch with pediment.
The James Stubbs houses, 659 and 661 Water Street, June 2020. Construction of the houses began in 1906, although no.661 was not occupied (and perhaps not finished) until around 1912. Originally, according to reports from the time, there was a ravine in the area between George and Water streets, which had to be filled in before lots could be sold. Stubbs bought three empty lots and (it seems) originally his son William was going to live in one of the houses, but that never happened. “Many Lots Are Changing Hands,” Daily Review, July 4, 1906, p.4; “Several New Houses Are Being Erected,” Daily Review, July 26, 1906, p.7.