FORGOTTEN STORIES FROM ATLANTIC CANADA'S PAST

• This story appears in the third Backyard History book 'Rebellious Women In The Maritimes' ... order it here! 

“Among those who are making their names and reputations for business capacity there is probably no woman in the country who is a more striking example of pluck and intelligent perseverance than Mrs. Georgeianna Whetsel,” wrote The Women’s Era in 1895, the first national newspaper published by and for Black women in the United States. 

The Era wrote that the Black Saint John businesswoman was “a young woman and a widow. … Her husband carried on the business during his life with the aid of three partners, three wagons and four horses. A year after his death she took matters into her own hands and has managed so well that she now owns the entire business and has increased her working force by doubling the number of horses and wagons.” 

The Daily Telegraph wrote in 1887: 

“In St. John there is but one notable instance of an extensive and active trade managed solely by a woman. Mrs. R. W. Whetsel has supplied the city and suburbs with ice – the one indispensable commodity of the summer season.” 

Ice was used to keep food cold before the invention of refrigerators. The article went on to describe how in winter her crews cut blocks of ice out of Lily Lake and stored it in her three large warehouses, located on Duke St, Leinster St, and Sandy Point Rd. It stated that 30 tons of ice were consumed every single day in Saint John. 

Whetsel did not shy away from publicly defending her businesses’ reputation. In 1890, when a rival accused her company of providing poor quality ice, she went on the offensive. She invited celebrated chemist W. F. Best, accompanied by reporters, to test its quality. Best declared that her product was “perfectly free from objectionable substances, and … in every way suitable for drinking purposes.” 

Her company’s media profile certainly seemed to increase under her leadership, and we find it adapting to a changing world. Newspapers carried stories that her business was one of the first to get a telephone, and she embraced some unconventional publicity efforts such as taking reporters ice cutting. 

She had taken over the business after her husband, Robert Whetsel, died in 1885. According to his obituary in the Saint John Daily Sun, he had lived in the city for 30 years and was its “representative of colored citizens.” 

Originally from Moorfield, Virginia, he had escaped slavery with his first wife, settling in Chicago. In 1852 they had to flee the United States entirely to escape the fugitive slave law, arriving in Saint John. 

There he attempted to launch a couple of unsuccessful business ventures, including a barbershop and an oyster saloon.  

In 1872, two years after his first wife died, he married a young Halifax woman named Georgeianna Mingo, and together they started the ice business she would later take over and turn into a rousing success story. 

Georgeianna Whetsel was also a strong and outspoken leader of the Black community in Saint John. 

This is illustrated by her intervention after Saint John’s first ever winter carnival parade. 

The event took place on February 27th of 1889, and according to the Daily Telegraph: “the entire population turned out.” 

The centerpiece of the carnival was a massive parade, featuring nearly 100 fully decked out floats.  

At least four floats included use of blackface. 

Blackface was grotesque stereotyping of Black people. In the parade the white actors and actresses in blackface were doing fairly ordinary everyday activities as cruel and exaggerated parodies. 

One float involved a hill with characters tobogganing down it. The blackface actors, on the other hand, slid without slides, tearing their pants and rolling around on the street. 

Another float by a local laundromat featured blackface actresses struggling in over-the-top ways with old fashioned washboards while white women used new washing machines.  

Meanwhile a duo “made a decided hit in their colored characters” who were simply struggling to navigate the everyday occurance of driving a wagon. 

Notably, the language used in media reports simply describing those particular floats and skits would definitely not even be close to being publishable in a newspaper today. 

The day after the carnival, Georgeianna Whetsel penned a letter to the Daily Telegraph calling out the depiction of Black Saint Johners in the parade. 

She wrote: “One noticeable feature in the St. John procession was that the larger part was taken up with the African caricatures, and always in the lowest and most degraded state.” 

She concluded by declaring: “This may be a mark of culture and refinement, but pardon me if I don’t think so.” 

In the days after her letter was published, the Daily Telegraph noted that Whetsel “has evoked … favorable comment,” and acknowledged that her comments were “entirely justified.” 

One white reader wrote in to the newspaper to say “the frequency of the representations complained of was, to say the least, unfortunate. One lady in our party had remarked that she feared that our colored fellow-citizens would be annoyed.” 

Georgeianna Whetsel’s business would continue to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years, despite personal tragedies including the death of her nine year old daughter Christina from tuberculosis. 

In 1900, with her surviving daughter seriously ill, she sold her local business to a consortium of businessmen for what would have been millions of dollars today. 

The Daily Telegraph lauded her, writing “Her energy and business ability have made it the success it had been. She assumed it in 1886, a widow with comparatively little means, and gradually has worked it to its present extensive proportions, gaining for herself affluence, [and] a name to be envied in business circles.” 

She moved back to Bedford, near Halifax, where she had a massive mansion built.  

While vacationing in Bermuda she met successful businessman Eggerton Moore, and they were soon married. After a honeymoon in Washington state, he sold his business at her behest –she didn’t care for Bermuda’s weather– and they lived the rest of their lives in Halifax. 

• This story appears in the third Backyard History book 'Rebellious Women In The Maritimes' ... order it here!