“Among the representative farmers of the former Township of Maidstone, who not only looked after their own interests, but were important figures in the development of the County of Essex, may be mentioned Peter Corbett.”
Peter Corbett was born in Tilbury East, County of Kent, on July 25, 1859, to Thomas and Janet (Grant) Corbett, who were among the early pioneers of Kent County. Thomas was born in Canada in 1827 and died in Tilbury West Township in 1880. Janet was born in Scotland in 1834 and immigrated to Canada with her family in the 1840s. She passed away in 1920.
Peter was the eldest in his family and grew up in his grandfather’s home in the Town of Tilbury. After completing his public-school education, he attended Canada Business College in Chatham and graduated at 16. His uncle Donald Coutts owned a general store in Puce and offered Peter a job. Although no remnants of the buildings that once occupied the Village of Puce remain, in the mid to late 1800s, it was a thriving community with several general stores, a hotel, at least two sawmills, a grist mill, a railway station, and a post office.
In 1883, Peter married a local woman, Mary E. Patillo, daughter of James and Mary (Struthers) Patillo. James was born in Perthshire, Scotland, in 1824, and his wife in Detroit in 1836. The Patillos, as noted in past articles, were among the earliest families to settle in Maidstone Township, with descendants of these early settlers still residing in the area on some of the same land first settled by their ancestors in the mid-1800s.
Shortly after their marriage, Peter and Mary acquired the Patillo family farm and raised their six children there. As the years passed, they continued to make numerous improvements to their homestead, including adding 300 acres to their original 90 acres. Peter gained a reputation in the County of Essex as a farmer always in search of methods to increase crop yields and to make harvesting more efficient.
Peter was a great believer in the saying, “Time is Money. Use it as efficiently as possible and hopefully your wealth will increase”.
With the advent of the gasoline engine in the early 1900s, tractors gradually replaced horses and mules on farms, thereby accelerating planting and harvesting. This enabled farmers to save time and, in many cases, increase their acreage. It’s said that Peter took whatever opportunity arose to improve his farming practices. Since the beginning of time, hay or dried grass, including alfalfa, timothy, orchard grass, and clover, had been cut and stacked in large piles on farms, known as hay-stacks, with little mechanical assistance, to be used as winter feed for cattle, sheep, horses, and other livestock.
Around 1915, the hay baler was invented. When hay was cut and raked into rows as it is today, the early gasoline-powered baler could be pulled to collect and compress the hay into square bales weighing 25 to 30 pounds, which could then be stacked on wagons and stored in barns. Many farmers saw this new device as overly complicated and likely to fail, but Peter was different. Oral histories all say that Peter was among the first, if not the first, in the county to buy and fully utilize one of these machines. His success with it was so great that within a few years, he had bought several and started doing custom baling for farmers across the county, hiring crews to operate the machines and bale thousands of hay,”
Peter was very community-minded and always looked for ways to help the Township and its residents, whom he believed had helped him succeed. In 1896, at age 37, he ran for Township Reeve (mayor), a role he held until 1901. He ran again in 1919, 1926-28, and 1933, winning each time. Like many early settlers of Maidstone Township, Peter and Mary were members of the Puce Presbyterian Church and supported it with their time and money. Mary died on September 15, 1924. Peter died at age 77 on December 18, 1936.
It was said at the time of Peter’s passing that, “As a farmer, business man and public official, Peter Corbett faithfully discharged every duty laid upon him, and proved himself a man well worthy of the confidence and high esteem of his fellow townsmen.”
The Biographical Commemorative Record of Essex County (1905), Maidstone Township, An Historical Review and the Walstedt Archives were valuable resources in the writing of this story.
Kirk Walstedt is a 4th generation Lakeshore resident born and raised on the family farm in the former Township of Maidstone. He is a historian, author, archaeologist, retired municipal lawyer and the Deputy Mayor of Lakeshore.