Robert Vance and James Dominey: Early Ingersoll Bakers

By Alayne Fulton Kleser, author

I was once told that the Olde Bakery Café in Ingersoll got its name when the new owner was painting the building’s exterior after numerous passersby commented “so, you bought the old bakery”. The townsfolk were referring to Zurbrigg’s Bakery, which operated out of 120 Thames Street for close to 90 years. When Bud Bowman, the last of the Zurbrigg bakers, passed away earlier in 2021, artifacts from the early days of the bakery began to surface. Among them was a small handwritten book full of recipes, its cover aged with time and use. Curious, I began researching and it wasn’t long before I learned that the history of bakeries at 120 Thames Street went back much farther than I originally realized. But how did this book come into Bud’s possession?

It turns out that a man by the name of Robert Vance once owned a bakery in the same building. Like his uncles before him, Vance emigrated to Oxford County at some point before September 18, 1860, when he married Janet McKay in Ingersoll. Just ten days later, an advertisement appeared in the Ingersoll Chronicle stating that Vance had “commenced business in the building lately occupied as a bakery by Mr. Samuel Poole Jr., Thames Street, where he intends to carry on the baking and confectionery business in all of its branches”.

Business boomed and on August 20, 1868, Vance announced he was moving into a new, three-story brick building, located “first door north of Mr. C.P. Halls Jewelery Store”. The Masonic Lodge located on the upper storey of the building was reported to “be fitted up in the most elegant and elaborate style”. The second story was occupied by the Chronicle Printing and Publishing House and was described as “well adapted for the purposes” being “light, airy, and centrally located”.

Courtesy of the Ingersoll Cheese and Agricultural Museum

Vance appears to have been a true entrepreneur and was always ready to try new things - it has been reported that it was while under his proprietorship that “the first ice cream in Ingersoll was made”. While the truth of this claim cannot be verified, it is true that there are two recipes for ice cream in Dominey’s book.

Vance also believed in the community and was involved in local politics, serving as a town councillor in the late 1870s and, perhaps spurred on by his experiences during the fire of 1872, as Fire Chief from 1883-1888. The Bi-Centennial Issue of the Ingersoll Times, published in 1993, listed him as an original brigade member having served previously under Chiefs James Brady and R. H. Carroll.

On the morning of Wednesday, May 30, 1890, Vance passed away at the age of 54 after suffering from three weeks of paralysis. He was buried at the Ingersoll Rural Cemetery and 120 Thames Street passed into the hands of his son-in-law, a merchant by the name of Louis Chapman.

James Dominey, on the other hand, was born in Dorset, England on September 17, 1859. His parents, Martin and Louisa brought their small family to Oxford County in 1869, where Martin obtained a job with Noxon Brothers Manufacturing Company in Ingersoll. The Vance’s eventually became friends of the Dominey’s, with James Vance acting as a pallbearer at Martin’s funeral. It is, therefore, possible that James Dominey was apprenticed to Robert Vance due to these family connections.

A verse located near the beginning of Dominey’s recipe book suggests that it wasn’t long after entering the baking trade before love entered his life. At the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Stallen, on June 17, 1880, he was listed as a baker and confectioner by trade. I could find no evidence of the young couple living in Ingersoll after their marriage and can’t help but notice that Vance placed an advertisement in the Chronicle just two weeks after the wedding, looking for “A steady young man to drive bread wagon and make himself generally useful”.

By April of 1882, the couple had settled in Woodstock and were renting a three-storey brick building on the south side of Dundas Street. Over the next five years, Dominey was able to put enough aside to purchase 698 Dundas Street East on September 30, 1887. Located at the corner of Dundas and Wilson, the couple lived above, with the shop on the main floor. A two-storey brick baking house and brick oven were in the backyard, with the oven overlapping onto the neighbouring property.

 Dominey ran the Woodstock bakery until his sudden death on September 21, 1907. He began his day, as usual, at 7 am, working until 9:30 that morning when he was “stricken by a pain in the head”. Despite the medical care of doctors, he passed away “half an hour later due to a cerebral hemorrhage”.

Looking at Dominey’s handwritten recipes all these years later opens a door to another time. One cannot help but wonder how they survived. While we may never know if Dominey did, in fact, start out his career with Vance, it makes sense based on the information I have. In the end, I can’t help but think that Dominey started out as Vance’s apprentice, moving on when the time was right. Sam Zurbrigg came to Ingersoll in 1908 and, as business picked up, began purchasing the assets of other local bakeries. It is entirely possible that when Dominey’s wife sold the business, some of the assets of Dominey’s bakery were purchased by Sam Zurbrigg. While it is unlikely that we will ever know the whole truth, I would like to think that Sam unwittingly brought the recipes back home, to the bakery of their origin. And by doing so, intertwined the stories of these two men with those of the Zurbrigg bakers that followed them.

Visit author Alayne Fulton Kleser's website for more information on the bakeries and the "Zurbrigg Bakeries" book at: zurbrigg.webs.com