ARTHURS, LFT. COL. JAMES M.P., O.C.
Lt. Col. James Arthurs enlisted at Parry Sound on July 23, 1916. He identified his next of kin as Elizabeth Priscilla Arthurs of Powassan. He further noted that he had previous service in the 23rd Regiment for 6 or 7 years.
While accurate, the preceding summary provides an incomplete and inadequate account of Arthur’s service.
We begin our story with an excerpt from John Macfe’s book “Up The Great North Road:
“In 1884, 18 year-old, high school-educated James Arthurs of Hamilton, Ontario headed for the frontier and set himself up in business in the fledging village of Commanda, set in s deep valley where the Rosseau-Nipissing Road bridged Comanda Creek. Commanda was the northern terminus of the Great North Road (the two colonization roads merged immediately to the north of Commanda) and the commercial and transportation hub of the surrounding region in the early settlement years. Until the northern railway reached Trout Creek 20 kilometres to the east of Commanda, Arthurs, who kept a team of horses for the purpose, hauled his store supplies all the way from Rosseau, 100 kilometers to the south” his trip taking him through Magnetewan on the Nipissing Road.
“As transportation patterns evolved, Arthurs, now a family man (he married Elizabeth Gillespie in 1887), saw that the Toronto-North Bay railway corridor offered an ambitious entrepreneur greater opportunities than Commanda, so he opened a hardware business in the budding trackside community of Powassan. He entered the political area, wininng the Parry Sound seat in the House of Commons on the Conservative ticket in the federal election of 1908, a victory he would repeat six more times, the last being in the election of 1930.
At about the same time as he threw his hat in the political ring, Arthurs joined and soon took command of the Powassan company of the 23rd Northern Pioneers, a militia unit embracing Parry Sound and Muskoka Districts. Late in 1915, Ottawa chose him to raise and lead an infantry battalion, the 162nd, for overseas service in the Great War….
In late October 1916, Col. Arthurs embarked for England with his 800-odd woodsmen, townsmen and farmers turned warriors. There the 162nd Battalion was broken up to reinforce other Canadian army units whose ranks had been depleted in that summer’s Battle of the Somme.”
It is here we see part of the measure of the man.
Despite age restrictions on senior officers, the fifty-year old Arthurs joined the 1st Battalion on the front.
After the disorganization of his battalion, Arthurs wrote to Frank Macfie about his sons who had been transferred from the 162nd, “I am now on my way up to the front to join the 1st Battn. and will at once look up your son.” Arthurs also admitted, “I regret very much that the authorities found it necessary to break up the 162nd as I had hoped to go through with them.”
Encouraged to hear about Arthurs’ arrival on the front, one of Macfie’s sons wrote to his father: I understand that our Colonel is a major in the 1st Battalion, Foxy Jim, as the Timber Wolves call. I hope it’s true as he was a good old Scout, and if it is so he has more sense than a lot of them, as it seems they cannot compel them to reduce their ranks, therefore a lot of the higher ranks go back to Canada as there are not so many of them needed, but if old Foxy is doing his bit in France all honour to him.
Suffering from the physical and mental effects of four months in the field, Arthurs returned to Canada in May 1917. Throughout the war, he tracked the welfare of his original volunteers by recording those wounded, missing or killed on the 162nd nominal roll.(The preceding is from ‘Patriots, Crooks and Safety-Firsters, Colonels of the Canadian Expeditionary Force by Mathew K. Barrett.)
Arthurs’ appointment to the rank of Lt Col was January 1, 1916:
The actual record of service for James Arthurs:
On 4 October 1937 Arthurs fell ill and died three days later at his home at 222 Bessborough Drive Leaside (now part of Toronto). He and his wife had moved there from Parry Sound in the previous month.
James and Elizabeth had 7 children.
