One of ‘em, well-liked Carl Borntraeger, would come into our newspaper office on Dominion Street in Bracebridge, lean on the front counter, and chat about events in the community. A convivial man, he’d support local causes, voluntarily writing big cheques on his local account. When leaving he’d toss off a cheerful, “Come out to my cottage at Cinderwood Island for a visit.” Bracebridgites held Carl in awe. The invitation was flattering, but seemed like a British monarch saying “drop by my place sometime,” meaning Windsor Castle.
Happily making his town run, Borntreager would next visit Russell M. Best, Q.C. whose law offices were just steps away at the top of Chancery Lane (the red-brick building of today’s Griffin Pub.) “R.M.” handled Muskoka real estate affairs for a number of Beaumaris millionaires, and administered their Ontario assets. Especially good, he had a telephone before the islands did.
“Offer them $10 million and not a cent more,” a client instructed, then hung up the phone. W.L. Mellon moved about town casually dressed in slacks, sports shirt, and sweater. He was “a large man with heavy face, amiable but not jovial,” recalled lawyer Gordon Aiken, who worked with Best (and later became Parry Sound-Muskoka MP.)
In 1947 Aiken was present with Borntraeger and Best when the door opened and in walked Mr. Mellon. Carl got up from his chair, said “Good morning, Sir,” and guided Aiken by the elbow as both exited to the waiting room. After Mellon departed, Best commented on Borntraeger’s use of “Sir” to a fellow millionaire.
“Beside him,” replied Carl, “I’m just a two buck gambler.”
W.L. Mellon’s father, Andrew Mellon was born in Pittsburg in 1855. By age 17 he owned a lumber company, and two years later, a bank. Unstoppable, he built up a financial and manufacturing empire in steel, oil, shipbuilding, and construction, emerging wealthiest American after John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. He served as United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1931, under three different presidents.
As befitted a man of such standing, Andrew Mellon established himself in a majestic island estate where the whole Mellon family summered. When he unassumingly dropped into a Bracebridge bank, the clerk asked for some identification to process his transaction. In the days before people carried photo ID, Mellon paused. “Do you have any American currency here?” The puzzled clerk produced a high denomination bill. Mellon pointed to his signature on it, then his signature on the document at hand. The “local” in the Bracebridge bank was none other than America’s Treasury Secretary.
The Pittsburg plutocrats and folks of Beaumaris and Bracebridge, in the pattern common across Muskoka, mixed in a variety of ways, often down-to-earth and nuanced. Tradesmen respected the practical men who’d started early in life working with their hands. They’d knowledgeably discuss together the requirements for a stone retaining wall, or a particularly challenging plumbing job. This is by no means the entire story, but it is an authentic part.
