Francis Clergue:
Early 20th century Canadian industrial buccaneer – and a surprising golf legacy (Part 1)
Photo courtesy of Tagona Creative
The Francis Clergue story does not resonate with modern Canadians in the same way that Jim Baislie (Blackberry), Kevin O’Leary (Dragon’s Den), the Weston grocery store empire, or Rogers Communications have achieved mainstream public recognition. In the North American steel and paper industry histories, American-born Clergue (1856-1939) is regarded a secondary player on a late 19th and early 20th century industrial stage where Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Rockefeller were among its titans. Canadian politics was dominated by the Liberal party and its popular Prime Minister Sir Wilfred Laurier. New commercial enterprises were tapping seemingly limitless Canadian potential as the transcontinental railway opened the West to Eastern business interests. A nascent Canadian cultural identity would also soon emerge, as Stephen Leacock (Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town), Lucy Maude Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), and indigenous poet Pauline Johnson captured imaginations everywhere. Clergue’s name is not closely associated with this history, either – a footnote at best.
Clergue arrived in the struggling village of Sault Ste. Marie in late 1894 as a self-proclaimed entrepreneur and industrialist whose career to that point was littered with near misses and ‘what might have beens’. He left the Sault in 1908 defined by a remarkable economic boom and catastrophic bust – with a subtler but important golf legacy that has endured to the present day.
Clergue had recently returned from the Middle East where he had unsuccessfully tried to gain control of the newly discovered Persian oil fields for American interests. He had overheard conversation on a train that Sault Ste. Marie had a half-built St. Mary’s River hydro-electric power plant that its citizens could not afford to finish. Clergue arrived in the Sault a few days later under an assumed name, determined to exploit the small settlement’s desperate financial circumstances to his advantage. The rest is history – by 1903, Clergue’s initial $260,000 investment backed by Philadelphia money was a $190 million, 19 industry colossus. In 2021 terms, Clergue had amassed $5.8 billion in Sault region paper, steel, transportation, mining, and timber holdings – the fastest rising entrepreneur in North American history.
Clergue’s reach ultimately exceeded his grasp. His new and hugely expensive Lake Superior Consolidated steel plant (1902, today’s Algoma Steel) was designed to supply the entire, rapidly expanding Canadian railway network. Backed by enthusiastic New York and London financiers, Clergue and a rapidly growing Sault community seemed poised to become what Clergue had proclaimed would be ‘New Chicago’, a gateway to riches powered by electricity and limitless natural resources. A single steel shipment that the Canadian Pacific Railway rejected for having too much nickel alloy (increased brittleness) set in motion a sharp, swift May 1903 domino effect where Consolidated payrolls were not met, workers rioted, the militia was called in to restore order – and Clergue was finished. It would be Sir James Dunn (1874-1956) who would pick up the Consolidated Superior pieces and remake them into Algoma Steel. Dunn became one of world’s richest men after World War II when Algoma coke ovens and production lines had churned out munitions-grade steel for the Allied war effort.
In the conventional Sault city histories, Clergue is hailed as a visionary, the imaginative industrialist whose genius set in motion an entire city. Clergue’s relative anonymity as a national historical figure stands in sharp contrast to his Sault celebrity that persists over 80 years after his death. A Parks Canada historic site, power plant, street, school, and City park each bear his name. Yet … the truth is far less flattering. A closer study of Clergue’s Sault career reveals corrupt financial practices, environmental destruction, a disregard bordering on contempt for indigenous peoples’ treaty rights, and a cutthroat capitalism that was shocking even for the boisterous age when Clergue was at his Sault peak.
Clergue’s unique Sault Ste. Marie home circa 1900. The former Hudson Bay Company blockhouse adjacent to the Lake Superior works was converted into Clergue’s residence where he lived with a Japanese manservant ... and three bears. (Photo courtesy of Tagona Creative)
Hero or villain, visionary or fraudster, intrepid builder or self-interested rogue – Clergue remains one of the most intriguing characters in North American industrial history. Until recently, the ways in which Clergue profoundly, if almost accidentally influenced regional Sault (Ontario and Michigan) golf history were not fully appreciated. Our recent book (Breaking A Hundred: A Century of Sault Golf) presented an interesting opportunity to take an idea that the Sault’s Andrew Traficante and I developed when we began our research for a first ever Clergue biography (we will publish this work no later than early 2022). For better or worse, Clergue’s capitalism injected new money into the Twin Saults – it was no accident that the 1901 Sault Michigan Country Club was established at this time. Golf was sweeping North America, and its association with financial prosperity would naturally encourage leading citizens in any locale – even remote Sault Ste. Marie, to look at golf as exemplifying their town’s economic coming of age.
It is what Clergue did as a golf course co-founder in his years after unceremoniously departing the Sault that provide the second part of Clergue’s unknown and until now, unappreciated North American golf legacy. I explore it in my next Breaking 100 blog post.
…. And Ford, Edison, Rockefeller, Leacock, and Laurier? Francis Clergue was good friends with them all.
