By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal

To the strains of a highland piper on a glorious autumn afternoon, Tom Belton led the
procession down Lochiel Street to the waterfront.

There were more than 60 of them in all. Family, friends, and former employees of Belton
Lumber – they were all in Sarnia to dedicate a Belton Family bench on the waterfront. They
came from across Ontario and from as far as Golden, B.C. to remember a family, a company,
and their long association with Sarnia.

Their names reflected memories of old Sarnia – Belton, Kenny, Cowan and Pardee.
“Sarnia has been good to the Belton’s,” Tom Belton told the small crowd.
But the Belton name was also very good for Sarnia. By the time of the Second World War,
Belton Lumber had over 100 employees in Sarnia.

Robert Laidlaw founded the Laidlaw-Belton Lumber Company in London in 1874.with partner
James H. Belton. Twenty years later, James’ son George H. Belton joined the business.
In 1898, the Belton family established a company in Sarnia, planning to take advantage of the
Northern Ontario forests, shipping massive log rafts down from Lake Huron to Sarnia Bay. In
1901, Chester H. Belton arrived in Sarnia to run the operation. Mills along the Great Lakes
shipped lumber by sailing vessels to Sarnia.

In 1911, the company moved to the foot of Devine Street. The Laidlaw-Belton Lumber Company
flourished, and in 1926, Thomas D. Belton, the grandfather of the Tom Belton who organized
the October 21 bench dedication, took over operations as the third generation of Belton’s in the
lumber business.

The company expanded its operations throughout Canada during the 1930s, and in 1946, while
embarking on a busy period of postwar construction, the Belton’s bought out the Laidlaw
company interests and the firm became the Belton Lumber Company Limited. It finally ceased
operations in 1984.

The Belton family’s mark on Sarnia went far beyond the company’s 86 years of success in our
community. Belton family members were associated with Lambton Loan and Investment
Company, the Sarnia Chamber of Commerce, the Sarnia Cemetery Board, Sarnia Humane
Society, the Sarnia Golf Club, Sarnia Riding Club, the All-Ontario Sarnia Juvenile Hockey team
(1971-72), the All-Ontario Champion Sarnia Knight Junior ORFU Football team, the SMAA and
the Sarnia Sports Hall of Fame.

The stately old Belton family home at 312 London Road remains today; recalling a time when
the Belton family “did business with a handshake.”

The Belton Lumber Company may be gone and the Belton family disbursed across the country,
but they gathered here, on the banks of the St. Clair River, on a sunny fall afternoon. They
gathered to remember one company, and one family’s, indelible legacy to a city they still look on
as home.