Information from The Galt Reporter Files

Author: Unknown

Publication Date: 1964

Edited: 2021

 

Contributed by Hugh Douglass who came across the following information when going through the Galt Reporter files. The Galt Reporter on Friday, July 27, 1866, gave the following information:

 

"On Sunday, July 22, a violent windstorm passed through this area. The 'tornado' struck Guelph and completely destroyed Mr. McCrae’s coal-oil refinery. The Grand Trunk freight station was hit by lightning. Sheriff Grange’s barns were destroyed. The roof of Mr. Holliday’s brewery was blown off and one end of Mr. Kirkland’s brick house was blown in, and the roof blown off.

Further excitement in the town was caused when a tent of a miniature menagerie, a satellite of Don Costello’s circus, pitched in Guelph’s market square, was torn from its moorings. A black bear, a span of wolves, half a dozen monkeys, and a number of guinea pigs and other 'small deer' were freed. They seemed to be more amazed at their liberation then the humans were. The women members of the show were in a precarious position because they became entangled in the shreds of the circus tent. The bear 'bobbed around' the fire station for a quarter of an hour to the amusement and occasionally to the terror of a group of boys who had gathered on the scene. Finally, he was lassoed, and was returned to his crib. The wolves and monkeys were captured more easily than the boar."