In the twenty-eight-year span between 1891 and 1919, seventeen patents were filed and received by different parties from the Chelsey-Elmwood area, all named either “Clothes Dryer” or “Clothes Reel”. While researching patents from Bruce County people, that many patents for the same thing, in such a short time span, stuck out. One individual, William James Coulter, received six of those seventeen patents, dated from 1891 through 1902.
W.J. Coulter arrived in Chesley ca. 1887. In 1891 he purchased the rights to own a patent for a “Clothes Reel” originally created by John E. Merriam of Harriston. Coulter must have purchased ownership rights to this patent (Canadian Patent 37654) as he is listed as the last person owning the patent. The 1891 Canadian Census lists Coulter as a furniture agent, and it is likely that Coulter was an agent for this clothes reel design. This clothes reel would likely now be called a clothesline and looked similar to a modern patio umbrella – a central post with arms that could be lifted and lowered up and down the central post so the user could easily place clothing on the arms and then push the arms up away from the ground. The arms also rotated around the central post, so the user did not have to move from arm to arm, but rather could have the empty arms move to them.
The November 5th edition of The Chesley Enterprise mentions that Coulter was the patentee of the Chesley Clothes Reel intended to start selling rights to his patent. The item goes on to mention the paper was “simply charmed with the design” and that the ease of use and advantages of the design would make it an easy sell. The Chesley Clothes Reel as the best in the Dominion. If you ordered one at his home in Chesley, on the corner of Adolphe and High Streets, he waived his agent’s fee and it only cost three dollars as can be seen in this advertisement from the April 7, 1892, edition of the Chelsey Enterprise.
In 1893 he purchased the ownership rights of another clothes reel created by Albert F. Smith. The ownership rights purchased were to last for 12 years. This design was similar to the first, but the arms of this clothes reel could drop towards the centre post, like the arms of an umbrella. The Chesley Enterprise mentions that this style of reel was known as a Clothes Drier, was superior to the old design, “and in the hands of a pushing patent-right man will soon pay the patentee for his time and expense connected with it.”
Another patent was issued in 1894, and then two more in 1897 and 1899. The 1897 and 1899 designs featured a metal or gas pipe central post. A July 1899 edition of the Chesley Enterprise mentions the new design, once again praising it as better than the last, mentions the new design could be seen at his home and lauding Coulter as a genius.
Coulter travelled extensively through the United States and Canada selling the rights to his designs and appears he was incredibly successful. The “Personal” section of the Chesley Enterprise throughout the 1890s and into the early 1900s mention him frequently either on a business trip or returning from one. A “Personals” from an October 1899 edition of the paper mentions that Coulter had returned from a successful trip through Minnesota and North Dakota, and they could stereotype “successful” as Coulter never had another kind of trip. It mentions that Coulter fell while travelling through Manitoba the year before, and still “managed to do a stroke of business” before leaving the hospital. The 1901 Directory of Bruce, Grey & Simcoe has “Clothes Reels” beside his name.
In August of 1902, Coulter rented the grain elevator at the Chesley railway depot and began being a grain buyer. Though Coulter seemingly changed businesses, from the newspaper it seems he continued to sell the rights to his clothing driers/reels as well as run the grain business. Coulter was also a town councillor for some time and in 1903 ran for the Reeveship of Chesley but was unsuccessful. That same year, Coulter and his family left Chesley and moved to Drayton, where they had come from almost twenty years earlier. Coulter died December 25, 1933, while living in Toronto, and is listed on his death record as being a retired woodenware traveller.
As for the other eleven patents for clothing reels or dryers, all but one date between 1905 and 1919, almost as if to fill the void left by Coulter. The designs either continue along the same vein as Coulter or focus on a design with arms branching out from a central semi-circular head. One of this second style of rack, patented by Harry Stevens in 1919, is part of the museum’s collection. It is not known if any of these subsequent designs had the commercial success of William Coulter and the Chesley Clothes Reel.
Sources:
The Chesley Enterprise Volume 16, No. 4., Thursday November 5, 1891
“Local News” The Chesley Enterprise Volume 16 No. 23, Thursday January 7, 1892
Advertisement “The Chesley Clothes Reel!”, The Chesley Enterprise Volume 16, No. 36, Thursday April 7, 1892
“Personal” The Chesley Enterprise Volume 17 No. 44, Thursday June 8, 1893
“Village and Vicinity” The Chesley Enterprise Volume 17 No. 48, Thursday July 6, 1893
“Personal” and “Purely Local”, The Chesley Enterprise Volume 23 No. 50, Thursday July 6, 1899
“Personal”, The Chesley Enterprise, Volume 23, No. 51, Thursday July 13, 1899
“Personals” The Chesley Enterprise Volume 24, Thursday October 5, 1899
“Personal” The Chesley Enterprise Volume 26 No. 50, Thursday August 28, 1902
Advertisement, The Chesley Enterprise, Volume 27 No. 16, January 1, 1903
“Personals”, The Chesley Enterprise Volume 27 No. 39, Thursday May 21, 1903
“In Memorium”, The Chesley Enterprise, Volume 29, No. 2, Thursday September 4, 1904
Canadian Patents Database – https://www.ic.gc.ca/opic-cipo/cpd/eng/searchMenu.html
William Coulter Household, Canadian Census 1881, Drayton, Central Wellington. Ancestry.ca, accessed January 2023
William Coulter Household, Canadian Census 1891, Chesley, North Bruce. Ancestry.ca, accessed January 2023
William Coulter Household, Canadian Census 1901, Chesley, North Bruce. Ancestry.ca, accessed January 2023
William James Coulter, Ontario Death Registration 007557. York, York Township. Ancestry.ca, accessed January 2023
Union’s Farmers and Business Directory for the Counties of Bruce, Grey & Simcoe. Vol. XII, 1901. Accessed January 2023 https://archive.org/details/unionpublishingc12uniouoft/page/n3/mode/2up,
