Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 7.
Barbed Wire
Lillian Walton
The scenery was beautiful! We had driven up the Gatineau to take a picture of the red covered bridge over the Meach Creek on the Cross Road. The rich surrounding land of rolling hills and valleys was stretched out before us, a panorama of colour bathed in warm sunshine. This site was chosen for the location of the proposed zoo. Then we noticed it a large roll of rusted barbed wire by the fence on the side of the road. I remembered what my newspaper clipping's headline read, “Barbed Wire worth $666. a foot in the States."
My great grandfather, Isaac Cross, had settled over these hills in the year 1841 Could this roll of barbed wire have belonged to him? And would it be valuable today? We took a "snip" off the end and l mailed it away to the address given in the article for identification.
This article revealed that there is a barbed wire club in the States with over 50,000 members, the majority of them women. They hold meetings and exchange their wire collections which number at least 500 different varieties. There are two monthly publications, The International Barbed Wire Gazette and the American Barbed Wire Journal which keep them abreast of what's going on.
The first U.S. patent was granted to W.H. Meriweather in 1853. One American writer claims that barbed wire was as important in the opening of the American West as the Colt pistol. By 1900 more than 400 U.S. patents had been granted and early production of 5 tons in 1874 had grown to 13,000 tons four years later.
A few weeks went by before I heard from my man in Springfield, Missouri. My wire was called the GLIDDEN WINNER. It was patented by Joseph F. Glidden of Dekalb, III. on November 24, 1874. My sample could be 75 years old. It has no value because so much was made.
I decided that being a collector of barbed wire was not going to be one of my hobbies. I mounted this piece on a cardboard with it's identification underneath and forgot about it.
A year later, in 1976, we stopped on the highway while driving through Lachute. There was a dilapidated fence at the corner of another side road with a couple of strands of barbed wire half buried in mud. It was different from my first find. Curiosity got the better of me so I mailed a sample off to the Club. The report on this was that it was known as ROSS FOUR POINT. It was patented by Noble G. Ross of Chicago, Ill. in 1879. This wire could be almost 100 years old. However, it has been found in every State in the Union and is so plentiful it has no market value. But he added, “Keep looking you may come up with a real goodie!"
I considered this the last of my wire collecting until we visited a cousin, Billy Cross and his wife Margo, in their new home at Cascades. On a wall was a framed display of 21 "snips" of barbed wire. Margo had it made up in the States as a birthday gift for Billy. The snips were mounted in rows on a suede background. The name of the inventor and year of patent was burned into a leather strap under each barbed wire sample. A beautiful conversation piece!
Billy then handed me another piece of barbed wire and asked if I'd send it away for identification. lt was unlike any on his display. This piece was very old and brittle so I wrapped it up and packed it in a small box. My husband, Fred, took it to the Post Office for me. The clerk said she'd have to put a declaration on it because it was going to the States. She filled out the form then asked him what value to put on it. He replied "no value". She hesitated, so he added "it's only a piece of old rusty barbed wire." She looked at him doubtfully. "You know some people will collect anything!’,' he said. Her quick reply was, "I GUESS SO!"
Later on I received the report which said that a lot of this barbed wire has been found in Canada. It was patented in 1876 by Cyrus Vosburgh. It also had no value.