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Anyone who attended the Oshawa town fair in the year 1907 might possibly have caught a glimpse of three dignified men in a carriage driving from the railway station toward the McLaughlin Carriage Company's office and looking a little bewildered at the large crowds abroad so early in the streets of the little city.

The onlooker could not know that the pleasant-faced man with the dark brown penetrating eyes, sitting in the middle, was carrying Oshawa's destiny in the portfolio he balanced on his knee. The man himself, William C. Durant, did not know it. And certainly the McLaughlin partners with him did not know it.

The day before, I had wired Durant, head of the young Buick company in Flint, Mich., to ask for help. The McLaughlin automobile, which we had started to make ourselves after I failed to arrive at a co-operative manufacturing arrangement with Durant and other U. S. car makers, had run into trouble. Two days before, with the parts on our first car laid out ready for assembly - and the components of one hundred more in various stages of completion - our engineer had suffered a severe attack of pleurisy. In my wire I asked Durant to lend us an engineer until our own man recovered.

Durant arrived, not with an engineer but with two of his top executives. He took up the discussion of our last meeting - when we had failed to get together on a manufacturing arrangement - just as if we had merely paused for breath. "I've been thinking it over," he said, "and I have the solution to the problem we couldn't overcome in our figuring." The deal he suggested was pretty close to what I had had in mind in the first place, and I said: "That will work." Durant nodded. "I thought it would," he said in that voice of his that was always so gentle - and always so much to the point.

We went into my father's office with my brother George and Oliver Hezzlewood, who looked after our books, and in five minutes we had the contract settled. It ran just a page and a half and was a model agreement for lawyers to study. Chiefly it covered the terms under which we had 15-year rights to buy the Buick engine and some other parts. We would build and design our own bodies as we had always built carriages.

Nothing was said about the McLaughlin car, the hundred cars lying stillborn in the Mary Street building. Our contract with Buick meant, of course, that we would have to abandon those plans - and the partly built cars. We sold off the lathes and some other equipment, but much of the material and parts we had invested in had to be scrapped.

I have heard people regret that the coincidence of an engineer falling ill should have put an end to the project to produce an all-Canadian car. I may say that any regret on my part is tempered by the hard facts of the automobile industry, by the very great probability that if our engineer Arthur Milbrath had not become ill and we had proceeded with our plan to make our own cars, we almost certainly would have taken a header; and once having failed in our first effort we might never have got back into the automobile business.

No, the coming of Durant to Oshawa, not with an engineer to lend us but with a plan for co-operating with us in building cars, was a blessing. Even with the Buick connection we had to be lucky to succeed. We just happened to pick a car that was destined to make good. I have often wondered why some cars succeeded and some failed. One of the strangest facts about the automobile business in North America is that in its fifty-odd years no fewer than 2,400 different makers have manufactured and offered cars for sale; in each case the designers and engineers put the best they knew into the car; each was launched with high hopes - and today you can count on the fingers of two hands the car manufacturers who have survived.

A contract with an American manufacturer was no guarantee of success in Canada, either - a few names that no longer exist are the Briscoe, made by Canada Carriage; the Everett, made by our good friends and competitors the Tudhopes of Orillia, and the Gray-Dort, made by the Gray Carriage Company of Chatham. In the carriage business Gray was actually bigger that we were at first, but we soon passed it.

The motor business is a volume business. If you don't have volume you're sunk. And that's as true today as it ever was. It is unfortunate for the smaller auto makers, but it is a hard fact that can't be overcome. In that first year that we made McLaughlins cars with Buick engines - it was only part of a year really - we turned out 193. That's not a high figure in terms of 1954 production, but it was quite a feat for a bunch of carriage makers who were just cutting their teeth on automobiles.

Not long after he made his agreement with us Durant started to parlay Buick into General Motors by taking over or buying control of Oakland, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and other companies making cars or car parts. Incidentally, in answer to people who sometimes wonder nostalgically "Whatever happened to the good old Oakland?" I would like to mention that nothing happened to it - except that a particularly popular model of the Oakland, produced in 1926, happened to be named the Pontiac and the company started concentrating on that model.

To me personally the arrangement with Durant meant much more than making cars in Oshawa. I was made a director of General Motors corporation, and took part in the adventurous events of the early years of the industry - events largely sparked by the energy and enterprise of William Durant.

Durant was a daring, farseeing man, in my opinion the greatest in the auto industry of that time. Perhaps he was too advanced for his day, for his great plans and even greater forecasts of things to come often scared the bankers. "The day is not far off when the United States will be producing 300,000 cars a year!" Such a "fantastic exaggeration" convinced the bankers that the man was irrational, and the loan was refused.

I suppose it is not generally remembered that Durant came within an ace of adding the Ford Motor Company to the General Motors family.

On October 26, 1909, Durant called a meeting of the General Motors directors. He told us that he had called on Henry Ford and James Couzens, the Canadian who has been called the organizational brain behind Ford, at the Belmont Hotel in New York. Ford was ill with lumbago, so Durant talked business with Couzens. After the latter discussed the proposition with Ford, Durant came away with a 48-hour option to buy the entire Ford business for about $9,500,000.

In advance, Durant had lined up a group of bankers who had tentatively agreed to back him with a big loan, not only to finance the purchase of Ford but also to put the expanding General Motors empire on a stable financial footing. In the two or three years since he had taken over Buick, Durant had added not only Oldsmobile, Oakland and Cadillac to his new General Motors Corporation but a number of other businesses in the automobile and allied fields: Champion Ignition Co. of Flint, organized by the pioneer French spark-plug designer, Albert Champion; Weston-Mott Co. of Flint, maker of auto axles; Reliance Motor Truck Co. of Owosso; Ranier Motor Co., of Saginaw; Michigan motor Castings Co. of Flint; Welch Motor Car Co., of Pontiac, maker of large powerful luxury cars; Welch-Detroit Co.; Rapid Motor Vehicle Co., of Pontiac; Cartercar Co., of Pontiac, makers of a patented friction-drive car, and several other companies.

When the Thomas Flyer was bigger than the Ford

We voted approval of the Ford deal and Durant went back to the bankers, only to be informed: "We have changed our minds. The Ford business isn't worth that much."

Actually the statement "General Motors nearly bought Ford for $9,500,000" sounds far more spectacular in 1954 that it did in 1909. At the time Ford was just another motor maker trying to establish a foothold in an industry filled with expendables. It is putting it mildly to say that in 1909 the auto industry was in a state of flux, that today's sensation might become tomorrow's bankrupt. At the time of the Ford negotiations, for example, General Motors was also considering the purchase of the E. R. Thomas Co., makers of the then-famous Thomas Flyer, and in automobile circles this deal was considered a much more important and promising one than the Ford negotiations.

In the early days of General Motors - I am speaking of the U. S. company of which I was a director before there was any General Motors of Canada - Durant was frequently in search of bank backing. Alexander Hardy, a General Motors director, used to tell of a meeting he had on a train with Durant and A. H. Goss, a large shareholder in the company. The latter two had visited bankers in the east, and then in the west, with little success.

"The train," Hardy related, "stopped in Elkhart, Indiana, in a pouring rainstorm". Far down the dark and dismal street shone one electric sign: A BANK. Durant shook Goss, who was dozing dejectedly in a corner. "Wake up, Goss," he said. "There's one we missed." Mr. Hardy liked to cite that incident as an example of Durant's sense of humor and resiliency of spirit under pressure.

In the end a group of New York bankers agreed to lend us $15 million, enough to straighten out the affairs of General Motors. But they did it on condition that they be permitted to name the chairman of the board and appoint the directors, which let the venturesome Mr. Durant out. He had to agree that he would not concern himself with the affairs of the company for five years.

But the bankers could not keep him out of the automobile business. He had Louis Chevrolet, an expert mechanic and daring racing driver, design a new car for him. Durant then formed the Chevrolet motor Company, bought a plant on Grand Boulevard in Detroit - and started to make automobile history afresh.

One day I was in Durant's office with Dr. Edwin Campbell, a lifelong friend of mine who was born in Port Perry. Edwin had graduated in medicine in Canada while still too young to practice, so he went to Michigan and got a job doctoring the men in a lumber camp. While vacationing at Mackinaw Island he met, and later married, William Durant's daughter. So it was that we both were interested when Durant raised the question of a new general manager for Buick to replace William Little, Buick's original chief who had been forced to resign because of ill health.

I suggested that Charlie Nash, who was then general manager for Durant-Dort Carriage Company, would be good for the position. Dr. Campbell interviewed him and eventually an agreement was made for Nash to become general manager of Buick, and after a holiday in Europe he started his work. But, as events turned out, because of the new financial arrangements and Durant's temporary departure from General Motors, Charlie Nash was to operate under a new financial committee headed by the late James J. Storrow, head of Lee, Higginson and Company. A year or two after taking over the Buick works Nash became president of General Motors Corporation.

Almost immediately he engaged Walter P. Chrysler as factory manager of Buick. On Durant's resumption of control, Chrysler was taken to Detroit as chief operating vice-president of General Motors. Then, owing to a misunderstanding with Durant, he left General Motors and took on the job of rehabilitating Willys-Overland Company, receiving a stupendous salary, one unheard of before in the motor industry.

Later Walter Chrysler designed his own car and launched the Chrysler Motor Car Company. Charlie Nash left General Motors when Durant again resumed control and, with the aid of some prominent bankers, formed the Nash Motor Car Company.

Meanwhile in Oshawa production and sales of the McLaughlin models were rising steadily. There is some interesting history connected with the naming of our car, which I don't think, has ever been told publicly. When we started making cars in 1907 the name on the radiator was, simply and justly, McLaughlin. There was more McLaughlin in the car than anything else. But in three or four years the Buick started to take a big place in the U. S. public eye.

How Durant Won Control

In 1909 Bob Burman, the famous driver, at the wheel of a Buick, won the first Indianapolis speedway race. An elaborate advertising campaign followed. Our own advertising men in Oshawa decided that it would be smart business to cash in on the fame of Buick, so they asked that the name of our cars be changed from McLaughlin to Buick. Not wanting to stand in the way of sales, I agreed.

To the great chagrin of our "idea men" sales declined considerably. It was therefore, some small recompense for the lost business for me - and particularly the Governor - to be reminded that the name he had built on quality vehicles meant more to Canadians than the name of an American car. Thereafter we compromised on the respective advantages of both named, and our cars became McLaughlin-Buicks. They remained that until General Motors of Canada came into being and the McLaughlin Motor Car Company ceased to operate.

A big event in the lives of the McLaughlins occurred in 1915. I went to the auto races at Sheepshead Bay, N. Y. But it rained so hard that the races were called off, so I went on to New York City. It was my custom whenever I was there to have lunch with Edwin Campbell. On this day in 1915 I found myself lunching not only with Dr. Campbell, but with Mr. Durant and another Chevrolet stockholder, Nathan Hofheimer. Durant owned the Dominion Carriage plant in West Toronto and right then it was in the process of being converted into a plant to make Chevrolet cars. I had been interested - perhaps concerned is a better word - in that project since I heard it was under way. It sounded like strong competition, for Chevrolet had gone over big from the start. In fact, a few months later when Durant's five-year banishment was up he was back in control of General Motors. The newcomer Chevrolet Company actually controlled General Motors, through the holdings of Durant and his friends.

So this day at lunch I asked Durant casually how the Chevrolet project was coming in Canada. Before he could answer Hofheimer shot at him: "Why don't you give that to the McLaughlin boys, Billy?"

Durant and I looked at each other and we both laughed. "Well, Sam, do you want it?" He asked.

I certainly wanted it. But there were two obstacles that had to be overcome. First, how did we stand with our Buick contract if we took on another line of cars? More important, could we persuade the Governor to sell the carriage business? Certainly if we undertook to make a car with the volume Chevrolet promised in Canada we couldn't go on making carriages. And if the Governor decided against abandoning the business that was his life we couldn't take on Chevrolet.

George and I would abide by the Governor's decision. Apart from any considerations of filial loyalty, Robert McLaughlin was still the boss. Sam might be the president of the McLaughlin Motor Car Company but the McLaughlin Carriage Company - and the carriage company owned the motor car company. As a matter of fact, by buying up the stock of our outside shareholders I actually owned control of the McLaughlin Carriage Company but that fact was not considered for a moment as my father, George and I always worked as a team. There was no doubt that, from a business viewpoint, it would be a smart move to drop carriages and take on Chevrolet. By 1915 carriage sales were declining steadily, automobile sales were rocketing. I calculated that there would be only three or four more years in which carriage production would show a profit.

Durant asked me: "How long will it take to make up your mind?" I asked him for two days. I telephoned George in Oshawa and asked him to come down immediately to New York. Durant and I went to his office and talked to John Thomas Smith, later to become vice-president of General Motors in charge of the vast legal office. Smith gave us his opinion that the Buick contract would not be affected by an arrangement to make Chevrolet.

Boldly, on the chance that the other obstacle - the Governor's attitude toward selling the carriage business - could be overcome, we went ahead and drew up a tentative contract. Our experience in arriving at the Buick contract eight years before made it not too difficult to reach terms. The Chevrolet contract wasn't quite as favorable as the Buick deal - but then both Durant and Smith thought the McLaughlins had got much the best of that Buick deal.

My brother George traveled all day by train and got to the Vanderbilt Hotel on Sunday evening. Tired as he was, we talked into the early hours of Monday, mulling over the agreement with Durant. In the morning, we went to see Durant again, talked over the contract again, suggested a couple of changes, then we agreed to it all around. We got on the train that night and came home.

George said to me on the way to the office in Oshawa: "You will have to talk to the Governor." I knew how he was feeling - I was feeling that way myself. I said: "We'll both talk to him." George looked unhappy at that. "I know what a shock this will be to him," he said, "and I can't face him." So I was elected.

I walked into the Governor's office and told him all about my trip and what was in the wind. I said we couldn't run three businesses, and that the carriage business was dying. I quoted him our own figures to prove it. It hurt to have to do that. But to my surprise he took is calmly. "Sam," he said, "I'm about through. George is thoroughly in accord with this?"

"Absolutely," I assured him. We called George in and reviewed the whole matter briefly. We assured the Governor that if he said the word we would abandon the Chevrolet project; after all, he had started the business and felt a deep sentiment for it. We shared that sentiment too. The Governor shook his head.

"Do what you think best," he said.

As soon as I left his office I put in a telephone call to Jim Tudhope, president of Carriage Factories Ltd., in Orillia. That company, an amalgamation of five or six carriage companies, had tried to buy McLaughlin's many times. It had never been for sale.

I said to Jim Tudhope right off: "Do you want to get rid of your largest competition?" "Do you want to sell the business now?" he asked in reply. I said, "Yes, she is for sale if we can get quick action." He asked what had happened and I told him. We agreed to meet next morning at the Queen's Hotel in Toronto, as soon as he could get his directors together.

We met and arrived at a tentative agreement, which was signed two days later in Oshawa. The terms included the right to use the McLaughlin label on the carriages for one year. We started shipping stuff out within twenty-four hours. We had to finish three thousand sleighs, which were under construction, but all the carriage material and equipment were out within three or four weeks.

The McLaughlin Chevrolet operation was as successful on its own scale as Mr. Durant's enterprise was in the U. S. As with Buick, we made our own bodies to my designs - and we always tried to design and finish them just a little better than those across the line. I remember once a General Motors executive visiting in Oshawa was particularly impressed by one model of Buick. He asked us to send one to the New York office to let the boys there see what we were doing in Canada. We sent it and before long it came back. Presently we learned why. Alfred Sloan had seen it parked in front of the New York showroom and ordered: "Get that thing our of here, and quick. It's gathering crowds - and it's no more like one of our Buicks than St. Bernard is like a dachshund!"

The year 1918 saw our final big decision - to sell the McLaughlin business to General Motors. There were a lot of factors involved: My wife and I had been blessed with five daughters, but we had no son to carry on. George was anxious to retire; he had never been strong and he had worked hard all his life. His sons had tried the business but had not taken to it. Those were the personal reasons. On the business side there was the fact that if we decided to stay in the automobile business we should almost certainly have to make our own cars from the ground up. As I have said, I had managed to make an agreement with Buick that was too favorable to us for them to renew on the same terms - when the 15-year agreement was up in three or four years. Chevrolet was now part of General Motors - their best seller - and we could scarcely expect GM to allow us to continue making just one of their models.

The McLaughlins Had to Stay

Those were our business reasons. Equally important was the fact that McLaughlin's had become by far the largest employers in Oshawa. My father had always felt, and George and I had come to feel, that the business was as much Oshawa's as it was ours. If Oshawa's motor industry became a General Motors operation, expansion and employment opportunities were assured. If we had to venture into making a car of our own in Canada, failure and unemployment might well result.

Years before I had had to sell George on the idea of going into the automobile business. Now I had to sell him on the idea of going out of it by selling to General Motors. My argument took this form: "We are through when the Buick contract expires. We could go on until then, but I wouldn't have anything to do with attempting to make a new car when that time came."

I didn't have to argue much with George before he agreed. So I went down to New York and saw the top men of General Motors: Mr. Durant, Pierre DuPont, of the great American industrial family, and John J. Raskob, the noted financier. I told them the basis on which we would sell. As had happened so often before in our major deals, this one was closed very quickly. It was no more than five minutes before Durant, DuPont and Raskob said, "Sold."

But the three men added: "We will buy on one condition, and one condition only - that you and George will run the business." I cannot deny that it was wonderful to hear those words of confidence from those great figures of the automobile world. Their proposition suited me; I was young and vigorous and full of energy, and certainly, at forty-seven, had no inclination to retire. I told them how I felt;, but added that I could not speak for George, who I believed did not want to carry on much longer. I became president, and as a result of the condition of sale George accepted the position of vice-president of the new General Motors of Canada and remained in that capacity until his retirement in 1924.

When that happened I felt a sense of shock. We had worked and fought together for so many years. His going left me lonesome for someone to scrap with. But by scrap I do not mean quarrel. Long ago we had made an agreement never to quarrel with each other, no matter how great the pressure under which we worked - and we never did.

In 1924 I became the last McLaughlin active in the business my father had founded in his driving shed at Tyrone fifty-seven years before. For in 1921 we had suffered a grievous loss in the passing of the dear Governor. He had been active in an advisory capacity until the end. When he knew at last that he had only three or four days to live, he did something which was characteristic of him: He sent for fifteen of our oldest employees, men who had worked for him and with him for the greater part of their lifetimes, to bid them farewell.

My father Robert McLaughlin was a remarkable man. I refer not only to his achievements but to his character. He was one of those rare men who could be called, in the truest sense of the word, a good man. And he was incapable of doing anything into which he did not put his honest best.

Not long after George retired I reached a decision. I had worked hard for many years; the growing business with its ramifications was becoming a great load. I wanted to ease off a little. I told Alfred Sloan, president of the parent company, that I wanted a general manager - and selected my own choice for the position, K. T. Keller, who later went from Oshawa to become president of the Chrysler Corporation.

For many years now I have been chairman of the board of General Motors of Canada, in addition to being vice-president and director of the parent company. For many years I have been telling my associates that I would stay at my desk only as long as I could be of some value to the company - only as long as I did not get in the way. I would not be human if I did not appreciate the fact that in my 84^th year they will seem to think that I have a contribution to make.

A World Record

It is almost half a century since I first put my hand to an automobile, so I suppose that gives me the longest experience of any living man with all phases of the motor age - from designing cars to forming a company to make them. I have been intimately concerned with their growth from converted carriages in which a single cylinder delivered uncertain power to an exposed chain which in turn drove carriage-type wheels with solid rubber tires, up to the present magnificence of the all-automatic car which practically drives, stops and steers itself. But if I were asked to name the one development that more than any other contributed to the incredible growth of the industry, my answer might surprise most people, for it has nothing to do with the advance in engines or the design and structure of the car, great as the developments have been in those fields. My answer is - the development of Duco finish by Charles F. Kettering, general Motors' great research chief, who also, of course, invented the self-starter, Ethyl anti-knock fluid, and designed the first V-8 engine in America as used in Cadillacs as well as Diesel locomotives.

Up to 1914 automobiles were finished with the same paints and varnishes used on carriages, which required up to fifteen coats of paint. That finish took up to three weeks to dry in fine weather, as much as a month when the climate was humid. The magnitude of that paint-job bottleneck can well be imagined and the present huge production would have been an utter impossibility, because there would not have been space enough to store the bodies during the drying process. Undoubtedly Kettering's development of a finish that could keep pace with production lines was, more than anything else, what made possible the motor industry, as we know it today.

When in 1924 I decided to "ease off" I found there were many avenues of new interest. From my bicycling days I had loved speed - competitive speed. When I grew up I became the proud possessor of a fast motor boat - fast for those days, because it would speed from the Oshawa waterfront to the Royal Canadian Yacht Club in Toronto in an hour and a half. Late in 1925 I commissioned an R-class yacht to be built in an attempt to bring the international Richardson Cup, emblematic of the championship of the Great Lakes in that class, to the Royal Canadian Yacht Club of which I was a member. She was designed by Bingley Benson, built at Oakville, and named after my youngest daughter, Eleanor. Norman Gooderham skippered Eleanor in the 1926 races against yachts from Chicago and Cleveland, and won handily.

Later that year I bought a big beautiful three-masted schooner, the Azura, which led to a strange incident. Azura was registered in the U. S., and since that country was in the throes of prohibition we were liable to seizure if we sailed into any American port with liquor aboard. This put a crimp in entertaining on cruises so my lawyer, Strachan Johnson, tried to have Azura's registration changed to British, but failed. Finally we learned that the only way to get the registration changed was to have the ship "libeled" for non payment of a liability, put up for sale, and sold to a British subject.

By coincidence the captain of Azura decided about that time that I owed him $140 for some reason I cannot remember. I refused to pay; Azura was "libeled" and put up for auction. A British subject by the name of Sam McLaughlin was the successful bidder - at $140. Then I could fly the blue ensign and carry supplies for the sick and ailing into any port I chose.

The man from whom I had bought Azura, Jesse Metcalf, head of a large American industry, was away when all this happened. When he returned and heard part of the story, he was deeply concerned that the McLaughlin fortunes had fallen so low that I had lost the schooner for a $140 debt.

For many years up to 1950 the name McLaughlin was probably known to as many people interested in horses as in automobiles. The family had always owned horses; I had spent thousands of boy-hours feeding and grooming our horses in the days before we got a hired man. During World War II, when most executives were fretting over the difficulty of driving even to their offices with a small gasoline ration allowed, I solved that problem by putting up my car and driving to the plant in a carriage.

Horses Are Main Hobby

It was logical, therefore, that when I decided to "ease up" one of my hobbies should be horses. At first they were show horses - hunters, jumpers, saddle horses. I had the advantage of a fine team of riders that I had raised in my own home - my daughters Eileen, Mildred, Isabel, Hilda and Eleanor.

We first entered the Cobourg Horse Show in 1926, and thereafter for more than ten years my horses - and daughters - competed at shows and fairs throughout Ontario and Quebec, as well as in the U. S. The names of some of my best horses revive memories for me, and perhaps for others - My Delight, Sharavogue, Sligo, Michael, Punch, Rathmore, and El Tigre.

The racing stable came later. It wasn't a case of dropping show horses in favor of racers at once, but in the Thirties the change gradually took place. For one thing, my daughters we getting married and I felt it wasn't fair to take them away from their families to ride; for another, I had a neighbor, Charles Robson, who was a persuasive advocate of horse racing.

Success in the show ring, Robson maintained, depended too much on the judge's personal opinion about conformation and performance; judges were only human, and humans were fallible. Now horse racing, he insisted, was the real sport - "when a horse gets his nose under the wire first - he's won!"

We could scarcely complain that we had suffered at the hands of the judges, considering that our horses had won a total of 1,500 ribbons and more than 400 pieces of plate. But there was much good sense in what Robson said, and I proceeded to build up the breeding and racing stable known as Parkwood.

I love horses and racing, but in 1950 I sold my farm, racing horses and all equipment with the understanding that the beautiful farm that had given me so much pleasure would continue as a stud farm for the promotion and improvement of the thoroughbred. My horses, of course, had not always won, but I believe the public knew they were trying all the time.

One of the Parkwood Stable's feats in racing was winning the Golden Cup and Saucer stake three times. The prize for this race is a solid-gold cup and saucer. After I had collected three, Fred Orpen, owner of Dufferin and Long Branch tracks in Toronto, rounded out the set with a gold teapot and cream and sugar pieces. Now who can own a gold tea set and resist having a tea party? So we held one.

For the benefit of anyone who would like to know what it's like to drink tea out of a gold cup, I know the answer. It's terrible. The precious metal conducts the heat and burns your mouth painfully. Tea drinking is pleasanter out of a ten-cent china cup.

And so it is, I've found through the years I've just told you about with all the rest of the business of living. The things I cherish are harder-wearing than gold: the solid worth of lifelong friendships with men of good faith; the men whose names have cropped up in this story and the others whose names would be here if the story were as long as my memory; the worth of a lifetime spent working at a job that drew the best from me and the men I worked beside - an association with a great industry and a great enterprise; a long life of good health, and sport in the outdoors. Above all these, I treasure the love of my wife and the affection of my family. Those are the things of real worth in my life.

I own a gold teacup, but I don't drink out of it.

PARKWOOD - an important place in Canadian history

Sam McLaughlin's home, Parkwood, is now a popular heritage attraction and National Historic Site, comprising a stately fifty-five-room mansion and gardens of outstanding design. It was a labour of love for Sam and his wife Adelaide, who collaborated with some of the most important artists, architects and landscape designers of their day to create the grand estate we enjoy now.

Parkwood is praised by Canada's Historic Site and Monuments Board "as a rare surviving example of the type of estate developed in Canada during the inter-war years, and is rarer still by its essentially intact condition, furnished and run to illustrate life as it was lived within."

Parkwood was built for Sam McLaughlin between 1915 and 1917, shortly before he became the founding President of General Motors of Canada. By 1915, the McLaughlin Motor Car Company was quickly surpassing the success of the earlier McLaughlin Carriage Company (already named the largest producer of vehicles in the British Empire).

The McLaughlins had achieved "First Family" status in Oshawa, and they purchased the former "Prospect Park" as the site for a grand new estate. Prospect Park was a large single property with many beautiful trees, and it had been used for many years as a public amusement park. It provided the perfect starting point.

Architects Darling & Pearson were commissioned to design the magnificent house, many of the outbuildings and many of the alterations which followed in the 1920s and `30s. No strangers to success themselves, Darling & Pearson designed the Centre Block of the Houses of Parliament, the Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto's Convocation Hall, among others. At a mere forty rooms initially, the house designs included many modern conveniences rare to the period, such as sophisticated water and heating systems, private ensuite baths, electric elevator, built-in vacuum cleaner system, and an inter-room telephone system. The house also contained a bowling alley with an early automatic pin-setter, a squash court, an indoor pool and a large greenhouse complex. Nearly all these features survive today.

Significant murals adorn the interior, including works by Frederick Challener and Frederick Haines, along with many other artworks, which remain today. The interiors are so complete, down to the family mementos and monogrammed linens, that visitors experience Parkwood almost as guests of the McLaughlins.

Shortly after the family took residence in 1917, landscape designers Harries & Hall were engaged to design a fitting setting for the mansion. Drawing on English garden traditions, they incorporated many of the existing trees and shrubs from Prospect Park into their work. The landscape was designed to beckon from every principal room of the house, to a terrace or garden area just outside, and finally out into the beautiful wooded park. Beyond - and screened by groves of trees and rows of cedars - were areas for recreation, farming and the production of fruit and cut flowers.

The grounds and gardens were further refined during the 1920s by the husband and wife team of H.B. and L.A. Dunington-Grubb, who added the Italian Garden, the Sundial Garden and Summer House, and the Sunken Garden. They also refined the South Terrace and designed intricate lattice fencing for the Tennis Court and the Italian Garden.

The Formal or "New Garden" was added in 1935-36 and was immediately hailed as an achievement of significance in Canada. Architect John Lyle was awarded the Bronze Medal from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada for its design. Lyle is also responsible for Parkwood's most modern interiors, the Art Gallery and Col. McLaughlin's bedroom suite, which were completed in 1941.

Parkwood remained the principal residence of the McLaughlins throughout their lives. Adelaide passed away in 1958, and "Colonel Sam" in 1972 - just four months after his 100^th birthday. Their appreciation of design and horticulture, and their love of beauty continue to be reflected in every room and garden space at Parkwood.

R.S. McLaughlin remains in our memory as a great Canadian industrialist and philanthropist. Among his many gifts to Oshawa, Ontario and Canada was the bequest to the Oshawa General Hospital of his beloved Parkwood. The Parkwood Foundation was established to operate and care for the property, and it has been enjoyed as a heritage site for nearly twenty-five years.

Guided tours of the mansion are available year-round, with grounds tours available through the summer. Many special events are offered at various times of the year. Parkwood continues to gain in fame and popularity, and has made numerous appearances in feature films, television movies and commercials.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three