Maxwell

(from newspaper clippings)

David Alexander Maxwell (1861–1930) came to Watford when he was ten years old. He was born near St. Thomas. In 1890 he married Mary Jane Mitchell. They had no children.

David was very active in his church community as a Sunday School teacher, orchestra leader and treasurer. Interested in local affairs, he was a member of the board of education for several years. He was also a member of the town band and of the Independent Order of Foresters.

Although he started as a blacksmith, Maxwell was known in the area for his work as a mechanic. He had the first service station in Watford, selling White Rose gasoline. He hand built the first car of the countryside in 1900. The “Maxmobile” was steered with a tiller bar, had the engine mounted in the rear and had rubber tires on buggy wheels. It is now on display at the Watford Museum.

According to Franklin Taylor, grandson of T. B. Taylor, a Watford businessman in the early 1900s, Dave Maxwell had a two-storey shop about a block south of T. B.’s drugstore. At the back of Maxwell’s shop there was a ramp from the ground to the second floor by which a car could be hoisted to the second floor. Mr. Maxwell took Franklin upstairs and showed him a second automobile that he had made. It had a 4-cylinder engine block that had been cast in London and looked like a square box. It had a distributor, the first car in Canada to have one. It was an open touring car with leather upholstery. After Maxwell died, the ramp rotted away and the contents of the second floor were pushed out the door, and no-one seems to know there was a second car.

David Maxwell became the Maxwell Auto Dealer in the early 1900s. The Maxwell dealership was not connected to the Maxmobile that he had built himself.

Chapter 24 of 25 - Maxwell Family

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