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AT THE FORKS OF THE GRAND apples, grapes, and hybrid wheat; and was paid $2,000 by Bliss of New York for his America Wonder Pea. He lived at 7 Elgin Street. Of the business men who came to Paris between 1845 and i86o, Charles Whitlaw, a native of Montreal, was pre-eminent. In 1846, when only 22 years old he bought the grist mill on Grand River Street from Robert Kirkwood. By I86o he had made it the leading industry of Paris. Whitlaw was a number of times a member of the school board; he was for many years a director of the Mechanics' Institute; he was a warden of one of the fire-fighting companies; he was a member of the first town-council, and was elected as mayor fifteen times; and for many years he was superintendent of the Congregational Sunday School. His mansion still stands on the north-west corner of Banfield and Grand River Streets. Few men have been so important in the civic life of Paris. The dominating figure after I865 was John Penman. His parents, both from Scotland, lived for a time in New York City; but about i86o they migrated to Woodstock, Ontario. There the father estab- lished a small textile mill; and there, too, he set his son up in a business by placing him in charge of another mill containing only three cards, one jack for spinning, and two knitting heads. In i868, since their business was growing rapidly and they needed more water-power, the Penmans moved to Paris, rented water rights and a building on the Nith from Charles Whitlaw, and established a mill. After this mill burned down, they built a larger one, which is today Penmans No i. In 1883, two years after his father's death, John Penman re- organized the business and re-named it the "The Penman Manufac- turing Company." Then he and the company began to buy up a number of shops and mills on the Willow Street race, together with their water rights. In 1887, for example, they bought the Adams Hackland Textile Mill, and renamed it Penman's No. 2. In 1892, they bought the buildings of the Maxwell Agricultural Works and renamed them Penmans No. 3. John Penman lived for some years at 42 East Broadway Street. Later he bought the stone house that was built by Hiram Capron and re-modelled it into "Penmarvian". Penman was keenly interested in civic affairs; but since he refused to renounce his American citizenship, he could not hold public office. At a board of trade banquet, it was said of him that "his purse was always open in a most unostentatious way to aid any worthy cause, either public or private, which stood in need of assistance." In I905, he donated a Y.M.C.A. building (now the Community Building) to the town; and in 1917, the present Y.W.C.A. 64