PRESENTS
LEGENDS OF THE JUNCTION
The Case of James Bond vs. the Mountie
By Neil Ross
In the wild Boom Years of the Junction the railway town was
held in line by a former North West Mountie. Josiah Robert Royce was born
in 1854 at Eramosa Township, County Wellington, a distant relative of the
Royce family, which gave their name to streets and churches in the Junction.
His grandfather, the first Josiah Royce in Canada, had been a soldier in the
Upper Canada Rebellion and his namesake was eager to make his mark. Josiah
married Harriet Cobett in Toronto and joined the North West Mounted Police
in 1880. He served as a Mountie before and after the Riel Rebellion and for
a while he ranched on the Banff Road. Josiah Royce was a member of the NWMP
contingent that escorted the Governor-General across the West. In 1889, he
returned to Ontario and joined the Junction police force.
"He was a six footer who looked impressive in the town's natty blue uniform,"
journalist A.B. Rice tells us. Josiah was appointed Chief with responsibility
for five thousand souls, sixteen hundred acres, a piano factory, a billiard
factory, a mattress factory, seven taverns, multiple farms, and miles of railway
track. He was assisted by Deputy Chief Flintoff, and two Constables Graham
and Harper. But before he even got the job he was facing off with James Bond.
Although he had his share of run-ins with bootleggers, murderers and thieves,
Josiah Royce's greatest adversary was a bulldog of a man in the mayor's chair.
In 1893 the Junction elected a Toronto butcher named James Bond on a campaign
to rid the town of corruption and overspending. He won a majority on council
and started firing town officials. He secured the termination of the old chief
of police, Alexander Hay, and took over the position himself. Bond eventually
stormed out of a meeting when it was pointed out Royce was better qualified.
Notable among the firings was the street commissioner Amos Bean, one of the
town's oldest and respected citizens. Controversy reigned in the Junction
when the irrepressible A.B. Rice, editor of the town's York Tribune ran a
cartoon of the butcher Bond decapitating the street commissioner's head on
a chopping block. Bond's next moved shocked the whole community. He fired
the newly appointed Chief Royce without explanation hinting darkly at serious
charges which he would not specify. Even more bizarre: the Chief had recently
jailed a tramp who had assaulted Mayor Bond's daughter. The tramp had come
to her door begging for food. All she had to offer was toast and he threw
it at her. Josiah arrested the man, presumably for assault with toast.
We can imagine Josiah Royce, his moustache bristling, fuming at his fate.
Finally, the Mayor agreed to formulate charges against the Chief if council
would ask for an investigation before a county judge. And so they all assembled
at the old Adelaide street courthouse before an eminent judge with both sides
represented by famous lawyers. The prosecution's star witness was a former
Junction resident now abiding in Niagara Falls, New York, one Amelia Hartnett,
who claimed that she had witnessed the Chief visiting a house of ill repute,
while she herself had been "hiding under a lounge." How she got
there was never proven as the lounge in question was shown to be a few inches
above the floor with no room to hide a grown person. She also testified that
Chief Royce had made "overtures" to her on the promise if she accepted
the overtures she "would not have to pay a dog license." In cross
examination the witness was shown to have been paid for her testimony ($41.)
and she was later called a liar by no less a personage than former Mayor William
Pears.
In other testimony it was revealed that Mayor Bond had resented Chief Royce
who "voted and worked against him in the election of 1894," and
that the Chief had testified against Mayor Bond when the latter was charged
with assault. A petition containing the names of 190 Junction residents was
tabled demanding Chief Royce's return.
Judge McDougall threw the case out, noting that none of the charges were proven,
commending Chief Royce as a good officer and regretting that he had no power
to reinstate him. The Council did just that in a session packed with spectators.
The next year Bond, Mayor Bond, was defeated at the polls.
Josiah Royce continued to police the Junction until just before it became
a city when he returned to Alberta and became a Justice of the Peace and a
Juvenile Court Judge.