Ambrose Pilon's Reminiscences
about Pilon's Bakery
Pilons of the Pike Road
Amherstburg, Ontario

Louis Victor Pilon is sitting in a buggy in front of the Pilon homestead on the Pike Road (at its intersection with the 9th Concession Road). This crossroads used to be known as Vereker.

The building in the right of the photograph is the back end of the A. & V. Pillon Carriage and Wagon Makers blacksmith shop. It is long gone and has been replaced with a home.

October 19, 1913
December 13, 1918
 In the 1911 census, Louis Pillon was listed as living with his mother Olive Pillon and his siblings Rosa, Donald and Eugene. His occupation was given as 'carpenter'.

Newspaper ads in the Amherstburg Echo show that L.V. Pilon sold farm equipment for Massey-Harris during most of the second decade of the 20th century.


June, 1920
October 20, 1922
November 17, 1922
By 1920, L.V. was selling Gray-Dort cars. Two years later he was the man to see if you wanted a Star Car or any other Durant Motors vehicle.

December 26, 1924
 L.V. returned to what might have been his first love, farm machinery, by 1924.

This is the Pilon homestead at the intersection of the 9th Concession Rd and the Pike Road. A front porch and new siding have been added but the distinctive gabled window on the second floor stands out as a hallmark of the earlier photo above.

The Pilon homestead, with its distinctive gabled window facing the concession road, is still standing although it has been added to. There is still a Pilon living in this house to this day.
A. & V. Pillon Carriage and Wagon Makers (ca. 1908)

Victor Pilon and his brother Antoine worked together as blacksmiths and wheelwrights in this shop located immediately beside the Pilon homestead on the Pike Road near Amherstburg. This photograph of the A & V Blacksmith shop was taken about 1908. Note the double LL spelling of their last name.

According to the City of Windor website that present this photograph, "the Malden Council met in this building before erection of the township hall in 1861".

See another image of the blacksmith shop in this episode of Sketches of Our Town - Amherstburg (at the 12:58 mark).

In this Google map image we can see the location of the original Pilon homestead on the 9th Concession Road where it meets the Pike Road. The A & V Pillon blacksmith shop is long gone, replaced by a large and spacious modern home.
L.V. owned a small, 1901 edition of "Webster's Self Pronouning Vest-Pocket Dictionary". On the inside cover, he had identified himself as the owner when he still lived in the Amherstburg area. Later, when he moved to Vankleek Hill, he added his signature with a flourish!

He may have left southwestern Ontario but his heart was always there.



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