Cornwall Street Railway Light and Power Company Limited, operating as Cornwall Electric, is an electricity transmission and distribution utility, licensed by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) to operate in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. Originally established in 1887 as the Stormont Electric Light and Power Company and merged with the Cornwall Electric Street Railway Company in 1905, it is one of the oldest utilities in Canada.
The company supplies electricity to approximately 25,365 customers in the city of Cornwall, the townships of South Glengarry and South Stormont, and on a portion of the Mohawk people's territory of Akwesasne, all located in Eastern Ontario. It crosses provincial boundaries to obtain the bulk of the power it requires directly from Hydro-Québec, while generating a small amount of its own, using a cogeneration system, a first such use in Canada.
Thomas Edison visited Cornwall in 1883 to see his electric incandescent light system illuminate a local factory. The incorporation of the Stormont Electric Light and Power Company followed in 1887. Since then, the company has undergone several ownership changes during its history, transitioning from a private company to a municipally owned utility to one that is owned and operated by a multinational publicly traded company.
History
Name
Cornwall Electric is the amalgamation of two companies that were first established in the late 19th century in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. Stormont Electric Light & Power Company, which was formed in 1887 to supply Cornwall with electric light, and the Cornwall Electric Street Railway Company, which incorporated in 1896 after receiving a franchise to operate a street car service in Cornwall.
In 1905, the two businesses merged under the name Cornwall Street Railway Light and Power Company Limited, which was a combination of the two original business names. Even though the company eventually divested itself of all of its railroad operations, it has retained its full corporate name.
In 1972, the company branded itself with the orange "CE" logo and continued doing business as Cornwall Electric. While the company was attempting to incorporate provincially using the name Cornwall Electric, a newer company which manufactured small electric appliances, was also incorporating federally with the same name. Executives from both companies held meetings and made arrangements that allowed the utility, which had proceeded further in obtaining the name, to continue operating as Cornwall Electric. It agreed to provide the other firm with compensation for any problems that arose after it decided to forgo the use of the name Cornwall Electric in lieu of another.
Early years
In the early 1880s, the owners of the Canada Cotton Manufacturing Company invited employees of Thomas Edison to Cornwall, to install the inventor's direct current (DC) system of incandescent lights, to illuminate their new weaving shed. H.M. Billsby, director of the project, hired local Cornwall workers, including John MacMillan and Wilbur Reuben (W.R.) Hitchcock, who installed six boilers, six generators, and one hundred carbon filament bulbs connected in series and suspended from the shed's ceiling. Edison himself went to Cornwall on April 4, 1883 for the weaving shed's opening, as did politicians, scientists, industrial leaders, and dignitaries. He activated the system and saw for the first time in Canada, factory illumination using his patented invention of electric incandescent lights. This was a significant development in the utilisation of electricity in industrial and commercial applications.
John MacMillan was placed in charge of the generators at the textile mill by H.M. Billsby, and after two years there, he went on to install generators at various locations for the Edison Company, which became part of the General Electric Company. He returned to Cornwall to work for Stormont Electric before purchasing his own electric shop.
W.R. Hitchcock, who in 1883 at the age of twenty-one, moved to Cornwall from Massena, New York, worked as an electrician for the Edison Company for a few years, and later joined Billsby who became the first manager of the Westinghouse Electric Company. He became a partner at the construction firm Glover, Davis and Hitchcock of New York, installing plants for Westinghouse that produced electricity using an alternating current (AC), which allowed it to travel longer distances, compared to Edison's DC system.