“If these walls could talk” takes on new meaning when exploring the Emmett / Damude / Lampman Building—a structure whose history mirrors that of an entire town.
The August 29, 2025 Friday Flashback article in PelhamToday was a reprint of an article by Catherine B. Rice about Old Pelham Names, first published in The Pelham Historical Society Calendar page for April 1997. It provided a great overview of the founding and naming of the original villages and communities which now make up the Town of Pelham. The PelhamToday reprint was illustrated by a photo of a store titled A. Damude & Co., Fonthill, date unknown, Niagara Falls Public Library. This image did not accompany the original 1997 article.
Reading “date unknown” on a local history photograph was a challenge I could not easily ignore. This was just the type of mystery which I love to investigate while studying the history of Pelham and Fonthill. Not only was I curious about the date of the photo, but who was A. Damude, where was this store, and what did it sell? It did look familiar and I’m confident that longtime residents will have no problem identifying it. A close examination of the photo shows that there are two entrances and perhaps two businesses operating and that there is an upper level with parts of the word Millinery printed on a window.
The name Damude is very common in the old records of the Townships of Thorold and Pelham, beginning with Henry Jacob Damude (1758-1839) and Anna Housely (Winger) Damude (1759-1832) who emigrated from the USA in about 1788. They settled in the western part of the Township of Thorold. The Damude family were initially Tunkers, of German heritage, and successful farmers. The family multiplied during the nineteenth century, inter-marrying with many of the early Thorold and Pelham families. At one time David Albert Damude (1806-1899) and his descendants owned much of the land from Pelham Street to Rice Road along the south side of Regional Road 20 East, where Pelham Municipal Building, St. Alexander church and school, retail malls, restaurants and the Meridian Community Centre are now located. D.A. Damude married twice and fathered at least twelve children.
Arthur Byron Damude (1889-1941) was a major force in early twentieth century Fonthill. He was Reeve of Fonthill from 1924 to 1929, Warden of the County of Welland in 1927, and Liberal Member of the Parliament of Canada from 1935 until his death in 1941. He was also a member of the Masons, Orange Lodge and Foresters (often a prerequisite for high office in early Ontario) and a director of many companies. From about 1922 onward his principal business was as an insurance broker, but not at this location.
I initially trusted Snow’s assertion that this had been A.B. Damude’s building, but wondered if A.B. was the proprietor of the store at the time of the photo. The clothing worn by the men in the image led me to guess that the photo was pre-WW1, when A.B. Damude was still a young man. Examining his genealogy, I could find no close ancestor with the forename initial “A”.
Access to the historical archives of local newspapers finally led me to an answer. A.B. Damude, in partnership with Ridgeville merchant Frank C. Williams, purchased the retail business in January 1910. The seller was his second cousin, once removed, Arthur D. Damude (1883-1961), who had operated the store as A. Damude & Co.
Arthur D. had acquired the business on January 10, 1908 from Martha E. Root, widow of Henry Maxwell Root, allowing us to fairly safely conclude that the A. Damude & Co. photograph was taken in either 1908 or 1909.
Max Root had come into this story in January 1901 when he purchased the store from A.A. Lymburner & Son, and began operating it as H.M. Root & Co. Sadly, Max died under tragic circumstances in the barn behind the store in March 1907, which is why his wife was selling it the following year.
January 18, 1901 Advertisement in a local newspaper
By accessing early property records I determined that Dr. James O. Emmett (1843-1914), another prominent figure in early Pelham, and subsequent to his death, his daughter Kate Muriel (Emmett) Pitkin (1884-1963), were the owners of this property from 1888 until 1930. Dr. Emmett purchased the property from Sarah H. (Rice) Thorn, widow of Joseph Thorn (1805-1879), who had acquired the property from the estate of John Smith Price (1808-1860).
A roofing job at the Emmett Building in 1897 listed tenants of the building at that time as the A.A. Lymburner store and James R. Benson, harness maker. Benson had come from Dunnville and opened his business in this building in August 1891. Andrew Allen Lymburner (1842-1914) was enumerated in Pelham as a Merchant in 1891, but was previously from Caistorville.
A November 23, 1888 newspaper article indicated that J.E. Cutler of Welland was constructing a building block in Fonthill for Dr. J.O. Emmett for $1,800. The site of this new building had been leveled by a fire earlier that year (more on this fire next month). The fire started in the store of John James Savigny (1851-1914) which operated on the property.
The first general store in this central part of Fonthill was likely that of John Smith Price who moved his store and post office down the hill from Riceville (NE corner of Haist & Canboro) to the east side of South Pelham Street in 1841. The J.S. Price Riceville store and post office, which opened in 1836, is believed to have been the first retail operation in the Fonthill area. In about 1850 the Danson family opened their first store, also on the east side of Pelham Street.
Just before A.D. Damude sold his store to his distant cousin A.B. Damude, another cousin of both of them, Ella Elizabeth Damude (1873-1958), opened a millinery shop, a business she operated for 20 years in the east side of the building. Newspaper articles of the time describe the hats she made and sold in flowery detail. The dilapidated millinery sign in the upper window was not hers, however. That was likely a left over from the H.M. Root tenancy, as he had announced the opening of a millinery department on the second floor in a March 1902 notice. John C. Ebert had taken over the harness shop in the east half of the building from James Benson, but closed this business in 1906. In 1916 the Phoenix Lodge of the Masons was established in Fonthill and leased some rooms on the upper floor of the building for over 20 years. It is interesting to note that neither A.D. Damude nor A.B. Damude ever owned the building.
Returning to the west half of the building, in August 1922 Avery M. Clark (1871-1941) and Aylmer F. Lane (1882-1933) purchased a majority stake in A.B. Damude & Co., and renamed the store as the Clark & Lane General Store. Mr. Clark held the position of Clerk and Treasurer of the Village of Fonthill from its incorporation in 1921 until his death, and for a time also held the position of Treasurer for the Township of Thorold and many other local organizations.
A.A. Claire Lampman established a barbershop in the east part of the building just before 1930 and continued cutting hair there until about 1967. He purchased the building from Kate Pitkin on June 10, 1930. The structure was often referred to as the Lampman Building thereafter.
In an August 1967 article in the Pelham Herald, Hazel Blanche (Lane) Barnhart (1908-1996), niece of Aylmer Lane, provided some further detail about the store. She states that the main floor had groceries, meats, hardware, drugs, ladies wear and yard goods. There were open cookie bins, cheese barrels, and candy cases. Credit was liberal and there was a big delivery business throughout the townships. The second floor had the shoes, china, wallpaper, and men’s clothing. The store was also a central venue for political discourse.
Harold Reeves of Hamilton purchased the store in 1928 and ran it for a couple of years before druggist Russell P. Sharpe took up the tenancy. Sharpe eventually moved his Sharpe’s Drug Store to the building several doors west where Lewis Chiropractic is now located.
Other businesses which occupied the building during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries included Yesterday’s Gardens, the Louise Shop, Rural Roots Crafts, Amici Pizza, Ho Ho Chinese Restaurant (which closed in 2021), and no doubt others lost to the mists of time. The 1888 building at #8 Hwy 20 West has recently been renovated by new owners. An impressive 10 inch x 10 inch hand-hewn wooden support post and beam at the reception desk is a clue to its heritage.
The next time you sit in traffic heading down the hill on Hwy 20, fretting while you wait for the Pelham Street light to turn green, take a look to the right and pause for a moment to reflect on 137 years of Fonthill history.
This article was published in PelhamToday and ThoroldToday on November 27, 2025. Graham in a member of the Executive Committee of the Pelham Historical Society and author of The Land at the Crest of the Hill: Clues to Niagara History from Upper Fonthill which is currently out of print, but still available as an eBook at www.pelhamhistoricalsociety.ca.