More of Main Street comes to Collins Street

Adding to the hand-carved cabinets from the now defunct C.E. Dyke Jewellers’ store that were donated to the Yarmouth County Museum in 2008, this summer brings two more items from former Yarmouth Main Street retailers.

The museum is the new home of a 500-pound National Cash Register, dating from 1904, that once graced the desks of two of Yarmouth’s most popular hardware stores: S.A. Crowell & Co. and Guest’s Hardware.

S.A. Crowell seemed to sell almost everything for the home and office builder at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century. A calling card found in the museum’s archives states that his company was “Importers and Dealers in Iron, Steel, Tin, Lead, Chains, Cordage, Glass, Putty, Paint, Oils, Varnishes, Hardware, Sheathing Nails, Felt, Oakum, Tar, Pitch, Rosin, etc.”. The store was located at the corner of John and Main Streets in Yarmouth (now the site of a CIBC bank).

The old cash register was moved sometime in the 1940s or ‘50s to Guest’s Hardware on Main Street, which also does not exist any longer. It was purchased by retired chartered accountant Bill Bishop in the 1980s and was donated to the Museum by his son Bruce in 2009. Bruce is the director of the Museum and Archives.

The desk that the register rests on is from R.H. Davis & Co., which closed its doors in 2008. R.H. Davis, or Davis’s, was the leading stationer in Yarmouth for over 100 years. The desk was initially used in The Royal Store, which was one of Yarmouth’s first department stores, located on the western side of Main Street at the foot of John Street. The desk was donated to the museum by Jean and John Clulee last month. - 30 -