Crow’s Electric: A Second Life For The Brown Building
After Bernhardt Brown’s death, the property was owned by his daughter, Louisa Brown
and her husband George McLean until 1937, when it was sold to Elvin Elliot of Guelph,
who operated a restaurant. He sold the easterly portion of Brown’s Lot to John Pinkney,
who had purchased the adjoining property. Lawrence Huether bought the Brown building
in 1946 and rented it as three separate apartments.
In fall 1950, Ken Crow opened an electrial and plumbing business on the ground floor,
later acquiring the name “Crow’s Electric”. In time, he expanded into heating and
furnaces. The Crow family lived in the south apartment upstairs and the north
apartment was rented to the Morriston schoolteacher, Charlotte Torrance, her husband,
George and her mother. Ken and Margaret (née Patterson) were both raised in Puslinch.
Their children were Allan, Helen and Paul. The wee girl in front of the building in the
photograph is likely Helen and the photo probably taken about 1955.
Allan worked with his father in the business, which also employed Morriston residents,
Jim Kitchen and Wayne Quinn and Gordon Fielding from Puslinch village. It was that
successful that more working space was required and a new shop was erected on
Badenoch Street behind the Brown building in 1959. It was opened with a dance in
summer 1959.
Sadly, the Brown building was lost to fire on the night of June 5, 1965. Ken and
Margaret Crow and family built a new house across from Morriston Pond on Callfas Road.
Crow’s Electric shop was demolished later. Not a trace remains as evidence of either in
2019.
Much of this information is courtesy of the late Margaret Crow and the Morriston
Tweedsmuir Book.
