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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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CASSIDY, CHARLES A. (1841-1916)

CASSIDY, CHARLES A., soft drink manufacturer; b. Scotland, c1841, s/o Charles Cassidy Sr and h/w Margaret; m. Mary Hanlon, of Saint John; d. Chatham, 15 Nov 1916.

Charles A. Cassidy was the eldest child of a laborer of Irish ancestry who came to the Miramichi about 1843, probably from Scotland, with his wife and two children. In the census of 1851 the parents and four children under ten years of age were enumerated at Douglastown. The family would not appear to have been living in Northumberland County in 1861.

Cassidy was married around 1868 and settled first at Milford in West Saint John. He and his family were enumerated there in the census of 1881, but he moved to Chatham soon afterwards as branch manager for the Saint John brewer James Ready. Tradition states that he first bottled lager beer which was shipped from Saint John in ten-gallon kegs and did not enter into the soft drink business until several years after his arrival, but the Union Advocate reported in May 1876 that an establishment "for the manufacture of soda water, ginger beer, ginger ale, and other temperate drinks" was soon to open in Chatham, eliminating the need for these beverages to be "imported" from Saint John. No names were mentioned in the newspaper, but the item may refer to the opening of Ready's first soft drink plant. This was located about a mile west of town on the road to Nelson until 1881 and was then removed to downtown Chatham. The following advertisement was carried in the Union Advocate in 1892: "JAMES READY, manufacturer of Soda Water, Ginger Ale, Lemonade, Champagne, Cider, Ginger Beer, &c., &c., Chatham, N.B. Charles Cassidy: Manager." Cassidy later bought out James Ready's interest in the branch and renamed it Cassidy Ginger Ale Works.

Cassidy continued in the soft drink business until his death in 1916. His widow, Mary Hanlon, was his legal successor, but the business was managed by their eldest son Charles Cassidy Jr, who took it over formally after his mother's death in 1926. When he died in 1929 his brother William F. Cassidy took charge. When the 'Works' passed to a nephew, Joseph William Walsh, in 1939 it consisted of "a building used as a shop, an ice shed, a washer and filler, bottles and cases, two trucks, one horse, a sloven, and two paid employees." Cassidy's Beverages Ltd, the somewhat larger concern which Walsh headed until his death in 1967, bottled drinks under the company's own name. While this is no longer done, Cassidy's Beverages, one of Canada's oldest bottling firms, remains in operation in Chatham.

Charles A. Cassidy and his wife, Mary Hanlon, had three sons and three daughters. The son not named above was David Cassidy, who moved to the United States. Their daughters were Margaret Cassidy, the wife of Richard D. Walsh; Ellen Cassidy, the wife of William N. Walsh; and Mary F. Cassidy, the wife of John S. Martin.

Sources

[d] World 18 Nov 1916 / Advocate 10 May 1876, 1 Jul 1892 (ad), 23 Nov 1916; Fraser (C); MacMillan; News 29 Oct 1980

Remarques

A birth date of 2 Sep 1838 is given in one or more of Cassidy's obituaries and on his tombstone, but his age was shown as nine in 1851 and as twenty-nine in 1871. In the 1901 census, "1844" was written in the space for birth date together with the words "don't know."


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