Photo by Sherri Iona (Lashley) Carleton Place Canadian

Poppa, Burnett Montgomery. My cousin didn’t send entire article and unfortunately he wasn’t wearing his trademark Stetson. This was taken a couple years before he died I think.The Carlton Place Canadian June 1982-

Well-known Carleton Place Auctioneer Henry Burnett Montgomery died in Carleton Place and District Memorial Hospital following a short battle with cancer. He was 86. HB, as he was affectionately known throughout the Ottawa Valley, had a career which spanned 40 years in the auction sale business.

A former farmer and butcher he handled as many as three or four auctions a week for years and over his past years teamed with another well respected local auctioneer, Howard McNeely.

“I always said the auction sale was part of Burnett and he was part of the auction,” McNeely said Monday in reminiscing about his many years of working with Montgomery. “He was a good fellow to work with, a perfect gentleman with a great respect for everyone,” McNeely fondly recalled. “He worked hard for the person he was doing the sale for, but he was also fair with the person buying the item,” he noted. “In all the years together we never had a (bad) word,” McNeely stated. “We worked a system and he often said to me ‘Howard there aren’t two men in a million who get along as we do,’ and I’d tell him that it was because neither of us was power hungry and we worked for the betterment of all concerned.”

Despite his age Montgomery couldn’t completely quit the auction business. “He’d tell me many times he was going to quit, but he never really did,” McNeely mentioned. In a feature story with appeared in The Canadian in June of 1982 Montgomery said he began auctioneering to help “make ends meet”. At that time he was operating a general store in Ashton.

The largest sale HB and Howard McNeely did was when they sold the Mississippi Hotel- They sold all the contents , including pine and oka bedroom sets the same day.

The biggest farm sale they did was Sinclair Turner’s farm in Appleton. According to Montgomery the sale lasted two days.

When HB fist began selling china cabinets they went for 35 bucks– 35 years later they climbed to $1500. Now the antique furniture business has declined with said cabinet going for less that 200 bucks.

Dairy cows used to go for 30 bucks a piece and Montgomery and McNeely earned two percent commission on farm sales and 7 percent on furniture sales. When he first began there was only auctionees Clayton Hands around and when this article was written he said there were so many it was hard for younger lads to begin a business.

To be an auctioneer you have to be pretty good to catch the bids, plus have the gift of gab and know just about everyone. That was HB.