User:Admiral Digby Museum Genealogy Dept/sandbox

Hubert Tupper Warne & the Defiance Truck in Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada

Hubert Tupper Warne (aka HT or Tupper) lived and conducted business in Digby, Nova Scotia. He was known as Digby’s premier industrialist. Some of the information regarding Tupper Warne and his business was gathered in the year 2000 from his 96 year old daughter-in-law, Edith Louise (Morse) Warne (known as Louise).

Tupper Warne was a fourth generation Loyalist, born 1868 and died 1952. His family moved from the United States and settled in Hillgrove, Nova Scotia just outside of Digby. At age fifteen, he left school to work several years in a lumber camp in Weymouth, Nova Scotia. On weekends, he often walked the several miles to his home in Hillgrove. After several years, Tupper built his own lumber camp near his home in Hillgrove.

On 15 April, 1891 he married Ida May Bacon. They had a daughter, Theodosia (Dora) born 9 November,1894. After his wife, Ida May, died [25 April, 1897], Tupper married a local schoolteacher, Alice Wilson [9 March, 1898]. They had a son, Hubert Morse Warne (born 4 July, 1902 & died 7 July,1980).

On 9 September,1925 H.M. Warne (the son) married Edith Louise Morse, West Paradise, (born 24 February, 1903 - 3 February,2004). After hearing about the tall timber in British Columbia [1906], Tupper rented a train car for his family plus an entire crew and headed out to BC to see the timber for himself. After a winter in an isolated area in B.C., the family decided to return home to Hillgrove where their business was not doing well. A few years later, he again ventured out to a timber lot in Hants County, Nova Scotia for the winter. When his business outgrew the rural location in Hillgrove, he bought a large piece of property in south end Digby. It was here, that he built his small empire including a saw mill and lumberyards. Requiring office space, he also erected a large three-story building which also contained a grocery store on the main floor, offices on the second floor, plus an apartment for the family on the third floor. To the locals, this area was known as the Warne Block. Eventually, the family purchased a house at 76 Montague Row at the corner of Warwick Street, Digby Nova Scotia.

Tupper incorporated Tupper Mill as H.T. Warne Ltd. with his son, Hubert and daughter, Dora as partners. They diversified into pulpwood and pit props, which they shipped from the busy Digby Wharf. Later, he added a box factory to manufacture shooks or wooden boxes which were used for shipping local dried fish to the West Indies.

Transporting timber and lumber, eventually changed from using oxen to the use of trucks but the rough terrain and large, heavy loads were hard on the trucks resulting in costly repairs. Maintaining a fleet of vehicles, was one of the largest expenses in the lumber industry. Tupper was fascinated with cars and trucks in his teen years, and it was then he built his own car using bits and pieces of machinery and some additional material to create his car. His wife thought it looked like a racing car but she said its real beauty was in the smooth running engine and performance on the local roads.

With Tupper's fascination with building vehicles, he eventually decided to build his own trucks and according to daughter-in-law, Louise, Tupper went to Defiance, Ohio in the 1930's to observe the assembly of the "Defiance" trucks. Shortly after his trip to Ohio, two or three American mechanics arrived to help Tupper’s master mechanic, Reg Weir, to begin building trucks in Digby, Nova Scotia. With the arrival of the mechanics, the machine shop was partially filled with mounds of unopened boxes and equipment. In a matter of time, a shiny Defiance truck drove out of Tupper's building and it was said the truck's performance equaled it's looks. They built several more for Tupper’s needs and a few for local customers and the engines were shipped in from the United States. Even though Tupper Warne proved that building his own trucks was possible and although a mechanical success, it eventually proved to be a financial failure.

While H.T. Warne Inc. struggled through WWII, Tupper struggled with the effects of Alzheimer's disease so his son (HM) and daughter (Dora) took over the business. Fortunately, after working so hard to build his business, Tupper was oblivious to the challenges that followed. Government orders for gunpowder boxes and the new Cornwallis operations created problems and stresses for Hubert and Dora (including long promised government subsidies)so under the advice of their auditor, they declared bankruptcy in 1940.

The banker, Vanderwald, who earlier loaned them money to stay afloat, bought it, closed the businesses,and kept the woodlots. It was later discovered that Vanderwald did this with the Weymouth Mill and one other mill in New Brunswick.

“When Tupper Warne died in 1952 after single handedly building up an industry employing several hundred of the local people and having become well known in the business life of the province, it was indeed good that he would never know the results of his life’s work had been lost because of some uncaring federal politicians and some very unscrupulous business tactics.” (Quote from Louise Warne’s Story)

A 1995 newspaper article written by Arthur Johnson an employee of HT Warne in 1937,sheds some light on working in the mill during those years. He looked after 40 head of cattle for ten dollars a month plus room and board. People knew H.T Warne would hire anyone and everyone - the young, crippled, the half-blind, regardless of age, color or race. The mill, box factory, cookhouse, bunkhouse (with straw tick beds), warehouse, machine shop (Defiance trucks made there), ox, cow,and pig barns employed people of all skills. When the steam whistle blew, all were welcome to eat there. He fed over 300 employees (900 meals a day) and helped look after the welfare of many people who lived within the town of Digby.

Following the Great Depression, life was tough and there is little proof about the Warne Defiance trucks after fire destroyed the Warne Block in 1935 and all records were lost. Yet still today [2015], the people of Digby remember the premier industrialist Tupper Warne and how he provided work and helped get the Town's people through the hard times especially after the Great Depression.