IN 1930, as the world teetered on the edge of an economic depression, Edith Marsh published “A History of the County of Grey.” One of the earliest and best accounts of Grey, it makes for interesting reading now, some eighty years later.
Grey County at the beginning of the late 1930s was a busy place, dominated by farming but still having a solid industrial base. The diary industry in the county alone was carried on by 3,050 farmers who supplies milk, cream, and butter to a value of over one million dollars. Sheep and hogs, once prey to bears and wolves in Grey’s early years, had reached a value of thirteen million dollars while Grey County’s horses were worth well over five million.
Sixteen thousand acres of apple tress grew in Grey, mostly in the Beaver Valley where Northern Spies, Baldwins and Snow apples dominated. The county was also famous for its honey industry with tons of the sweet substance being sent every year to Great Britain, France and other European countries.
By the beginning of the 1930s, Grey was home to nearly 15,000 automobiles that ran over smoothly surfaced roadways. And although the pioneer sawmill and flourmill were vanishing with the times, there were in Grey some 91 factories with a combined payroll of two and a half million dollars.
In 1930, seventy five percent of Grey County residents owned their own homes or farms. With the furniture industry flourishing, the county workforce was free of labour troubles. Still, there were bad years ahead but, Grey County, Edith Marsh claims, went on its relatively serene course, one that would get Grey through the worst of the Great Depression.
Originally aired April 5th 2016
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