CAREW, John

John Carew built the lumber business that bore his name for two generations at Lindsay, presided over the Lindsay Central Fair through the First World War, and represented Victoria South in the Ontario Legislature through a single term that spanned the conscription crisis and the armistice.

Early life

Carew was born on 5 January 1862 in Emily Township, Victoria County, Ontario — a farming township north-east of Lindsay in the Kawartha Lakes region. Emily Township had been settled in the 1820s and 1830s by Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant families, and the lumber and milling economy of the area was part of the Kawartha stand of white pine that was then still being commercially logged.

The John Carew Lumber Company

Carew established his lumber business at Lindsay in 1891, when he was twenty-nine. The firm dealt first in cut lumber from the Trent watershed. Over the next two decades it expanded into building supplies, sash-and-door work, and contracting.

In 1911 Carew took the formal titles of President and General Manager of the newly incorporated firm. His son, Francis John Carew — later a Canadian Forestry Corps lieutenant-colonel and Mayor of Lindsay — would eventually succeed him as managing director.

Civic life at Lindsay

Carew sat on the Lindsay Board of Trade and the Lindsay Board of Education. From 1910 through 1915 he served as President of the Lindsay Central Fair, the agricultural show that drew farming exhibitors from across Victoria County.

Orange Order

Carew’s lodge affiliation was with Loyal Orange Lodge No. 557, the Lindsay-district lodge. His son would also carry a membership in the same lodge.

Ontario Legislature

Carew contested the Victoria South seat in the 1914 Ontario general election as the Conservative candidate and won. He served through the 14th Parliament of Ontario, across the entirety of the First World War and into the post-armistice demobilisation. He did not seek re-election in 1919 and returned to full-time management of his lumber firm.

Later life

Carew died at Lindsay in the mid-1930s. The firm passed to his son Francis, who kept the Carew name on Lindsay commercial signage into the mid-20th century.