Ken Hall recently contacted us about some items from his father’s things. He has a couple of cheques from the early 1900s issued by the Cochrane Creamery. We jumped at the chance to save another relic of the history of our town.
What we didn’t realize was that these are some well-travelled cheques. Ken’s great grandfather operated a trucking business in Edmonton. Ken now lives in Yellowknife.
Also, the cheques are in pristine condition. I’ve included a couple of photos in this blog. This is not how we store our exhibits, it’s just me taking a couple of quick photos.
Ken's explanation follows:
Greetings from up North!
Enclosed are the old cheques about which we recently corresponded. I spoke with family members but we could not glean much information.
These cheques were amongst my Great Grandfather’s effects. His name was Thomas James Hall and he lived in Edmonton. He would have been about 40 years old when these were issued. No one recognized any of the names. The best they could surmise is that he had came by these as a result of some of the business dealings he had in the area over the years-amongst other ventures he had a trucking company.
We would be very interested in hearing any information related to these that folks may recall.
We will be doing some research on the cheques and will report back.
I have a couple of quick observations:
- The cheque from 1912 is for $73.00 which sounds like a lot of money for the time.
- It was cashed at Union Bank of Cochrane on June 21. We’ll have to research banks in town at the time to see where it was.
- It’s signed by J. Cook and the name of the secretary-treasurer I can’t make out.
- The second cheque was issued April 13, 1918, which was during W.W. 1 (ended Nov 11, 1918)
- We have some newspapers in our collection on these dates. I wonder what news of Cochrane was on those days?
If you can make out or know any details please get back to us.
We’ve written about the Cochrane Creamery in a previous blog. Cochrane Creamery Association
