Many towns have been named after men, but Englehart is a lasting memorial to one of the most dynamic  characters ever to have a lasting influence on his country.

Jacob Lewis Englehart

Jake Englehart was American by birth, born in Cleveland Ohio, on November 2, 1847, the son of S. John Joel and Hannah E. Englehart.  Jacob Lewis Englehart came to Canada at the age of 19.  Little is known about how he first acquired the money to set himself up in business, but at an age when many men were still in college, he set up the J. L. Englehart Company, with a refinery at London and an office in New York.  The oil refining business was just then getting into high gear, as people across North America clamored for kerosene for their lamps to replace the smokey whale oil and lard that had been used for centuries.  Young Englehart traveled through the oil fields of Southwestern Ontario, persuading the oil well owners, mostly farmers to let him handle their products.  Despite two explosions that wrecked his refinery, Englehart's business prospered.  His ability to overcome difficulties was illustrated in 1870 when he landed an order for kerosene worth some $30,000 to be shipped to Germany.  When the kerosene arrived at Germany it was found to be below standard and the buyers rejected it.  The cost of bringing it back, refining it and returning to Germany would have been ruinous.  Englehart cut his losses by shipping a small refinery to Germany, and re-processed the kerosene.

Jacob L. Englehart

Englehart acquired wells at Petrolla, then the centre of an oil boom, and there he established an oil refinery which was reputed to be the largest and most efficient in the world.  In 1880 he played a leading part in the formation of Imperial Oil, a company with the financial resources needed to meet American competition, and provide national and International distribution of Canadian oil products.

Charlotte Eleanor Englehart

Englehart was married in 1891 to Charlotte Eleanor Thompson, the daughter of Thomas Thompson, a prosperous farmer of Adelaide, near London.  After her death in 1908, Englehart gave Petrolla his red brick mansion as a town hospital, and endowed it with Imperial Oil stock so that it has never cost the Petrolla taxpayers a cent.

Great as Jake Englehart's contributions were to the development of the Canadian oil Industry, to the people of Northern Ontario he is best remembered as the builder of the Ontario Northland Railway, then know as the 
T. & N. O.  In 1905 when Sir James Whitney became premier of Ontario he found that the then three-year-old Temiskaming and Northern Ontario was in a sorry mess.  He called Jake Englehart. "Will you come and rescue the T. and N. O. for me" he is reported have said.  "I'll be happy to" Englehart is said to have replied.  "What is it".   Jake Englehart pushed the railroad north and untangled its affairs.  His private car was constantly on the line and Jake Englehart put the railroad on a paying basis.  

Jake is best remembered in the north for his efforts after the great bush fires of 1911.  Englehart worked day night organizing relief, and T. and N. O. trains carried hundreds of refugees.  He spent his own money freely to buy food for people who had been left penniless, and at the height of the disaster he tacked up a sign on the station at Englehart.  It read simply: "No one need pass here hungry."  J. L. Englehart.

Jake Englehart

He died in Toronto April 6, 1921, at the age of 73.