If you don’t have @thebugiq’s post In General open, you should go open it right now. In another browser window would be a good idea. I’ll be talking about some of the pictures he has in that post. He has written about the General Store that my parents owned from 1976 until 1988.

He didn’t know that until he mentioned having been up taking photos of the store when we were having brunch one Monday. He suggested that I weigh in on the post and give more information about the store. I started to and then realized, it was more post length.

So, like I said, go open the post in another browser so you can see the pictures and follow what I’m talking about. Don’t forget to drop him an upvote as well please.

Notes About the Store When My Parents Owned It

When we bought the store it was called “The Newman Company” after the founder Richard S Newman who moved the store to that location in 1891 after having opened it in nearby Morganstan several years before. My parents bought it from the grand-daughter of the founder and her husband in May 1976. We continued to operate it as an actual General Store. Now it is more a convenience store with post office, beer and liquor outlet.

There used to be two counters like the one in the picture second from the bottom (thebugiq’s post). The one shown here is where the cash checkout is. Note the counter finish? My dad stripped the paint off the counter when we had it and finished it with urethane, looks like that has held up which doesn't surprise me. I have a coffee table dad made when I was a kid with the same finish and it's still going strong

The wood for those counters was milled right there in Castleton. In its early days, Castleton supplied a lot of wood to the British military, with the milled lumber taken to Lakeport (near Colborne) for shipment.

The second counter was along where the racks are in the third picture up (thebugiq’s post). The bins that you see on the left of that picture toward the front of it were in the stock room. They housed a complete line of nuts, bolts and washers and nails of all sizes to service the local farmers. The smaller drawers further back in that picture were at the back of the store and held smaller nuts and bolts, electrical needs and horse tack.

What was originally behind the second counter was the dry goods department which included some basic clothing items as well as thread, crochet cotton, wool, material etc. When we bought the store there was a brand new pair of spats on the shelf in that department.

What are spats you say?

They were used to protect mens shoes in bad weather. Take a look at the gent’s shoe in this pic, he’s wearing spats:

Curved Glass Display Cases

On the cash counter and at one end of the second counter were curved glass display cases like this:

At the other end of the second counter was a display case like this:

We displayed gift items in the cases on the second counter. On the cash counter, the case was used to display chocolate bars and candy. Yes, when we had the store we used to sell penny candy.

The Original Phone Booth

When we bought the store, there was a wooden cupboard in the back corner of the store. It had a small window in it made me curious why a cupboard would have a window like that. I learned while the cupboard had shelves built into it, that was not the original use of the cupboard.

It was originally a phone booth before people had phones in their house. A phone call would come in and someone would be sent to fetch the person the call was for.

Operating a General Store

We continued with the product lines the original family had carried. There were groceries of course. Not much in the way of meat or produce as we didn’t have enough volume to not lose more than we sold.

We did sell cheese which we bought from a cheese factory in Warkworth that is since gone. The cheese was bought in 5lb blocks and customers would ask for a pound or half pound and we’d slice it off for them. My grandfather used to bring us cheese from Warkworth long before we moved to Castleton so selling it was pretty cool.

Of course we sold candy, pop and ice cream. Lots of ice cream and novelties during the summer.

In the spring we sold box plants and seeds to the local gardeners. We often had a chuckle when the first time gardeners would come into buy some of the bulk seeds we sold. When a customer asked for carrot or beet seeds as part of a pound, they were asked how many acres they were planting. The seeds are very small and sold by the ounce or fraction thereof. Corn, beans and peas were all sold by the pound.

We had a paint section in the hardware department where we mixed and sold paint for people. I’ve already mentioned the nuts, bolts and nails that we carried a complete line of as well as a selection of tools. We also had farm supply including farm fencing, wire, metal posts, baling twine and salt for cattle.

When we first bought the store we’d get a transport full of fencing shipped in the spring with the goal to sell it all during the summer. We reached a point where the cost of carrying the cost of a full load was too much.

So, we struck a wholesale deal with a farm supply outfit in Belleville. I’d spend my spring and summer dropping into local farms on a regular basis, getting their orders for what they needed, picking the orders up from our supplier and delivering to the farm. I learned how to load and unload 20 and 40 rod rolls of fencing on my own even though I lacked the male strength to do so.

I’ll finish up with a little story of sexism thwarted. On one of my early runs down to the farm supply the loading dock foreman thought he was going to have fun making fun of the young woman handling farm supply. I was there to pick up a 40-rod and a 20-rod of farm fence. A 20 was about 120lbs in weight and the 40 was 280lbs.

He had two guys move the 40 over to the tailgate of the truck and as they turned away to get the 20 he yelled over “Well if they had been bright enough to send a man instead of a girl this would go faster.” I never said a word as I pushed the top of the roll toward the tailgate, caught the bottom and using the tailgate as a lever swung the roll onto the truck.

He was standing on the dock with his mouth hanging open as the two returned with the 20 and put it on the truck. He never made another comment about the ‘girl’ getting farm supply. I didn’t need strength, just some brain power to understand how to leverage what I had.

There were many adventures and happenings during that period of time including explosive Halloweens, a hold up, bank alarms and headless horseman making the rounds. Maybe a story or two for another day.