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EARLY ENTREPRENEURS – MINOR’S GARAGE, PELHAM
By Mary Lamb
[The Voice, 10 June 2009]
In Pelham, in the early 1900s, transportation was by horse and wagon or buggy. The roads were mostly unpaved. If you could afford a car, and they were beyond the means of the average family, the speed limit was 20 M.P.H., and you had to give way to horses. In the village of Fonthill there were four cars in 1918, and that was when Herbert Minor opened his garage. At the time it must have looked like a risky venture, but it paid off and the garage didn’t cease pumping gas until 1984.
Herbert Minor grew up on a farm, but he became interested in automobile engines and in 1910 passed his mechanic’s test. When he moved to Fonthill, the old registry office, built by Dexter D’Everado in the 1850s, was empty and unused. Mr. Minor decided to buy it and open it as a garage business, selling gas and servicing cars. He also provided a towing service for cars which broke down or got stuck in the Pelham’s roads. When the village fire service was organized, Herbert Minor was appointed chief, and the hand-drawn fire truck was kept next to the garage. Mr. Minor served as fire chief for 18 years.
When the time came for him to retire, Herbert Minor passed the business on to his son, Austin, who later took on his son, Wilfred, as a partner. Although the garage was sold to Cliff Moffat in the 1960s, the Minor family connection with Steve Milnor, Wilfred’s son working there as a mechanic. Herbert Minor’s risky enterprise lasted for 66 years.
*I took my car to Minor’s garage in the 70s and always found Cliff to be an excellent mechanic. Always felt confident he would see that my car left the garage in great condition.