Everything you need to know about the Hurleyville Taxi

The Hurleyville Taxi and its two Tamworth hogs, Rusty and Red, are quite famous around these parts.

They've had songs written about them.

One by Russ Gurr, the singing farmer from Brandon, Manitoba (see video above).

Another by the Sault's own Wild Turkeys - (Mr. Howard Hurley's Hogs).

The Hurleyville Taxi apparently transported Lester B. Pearson.

It was once featured in a Ripley's Believe It Or Not cartoon.

Now, Rusty and Red have a book written about them.

Clare McCarthy, a cartoonist and columnist at the Orangeville Banner and nephew of Howard Hurley, recounts the tale of the Hurleyville Taxi in his newly published 97-page book The Hurleyville Taxi: Two Thousand Pounds of Bacon and Bone.

Based in Echo Bay, the Hurleyville Taxi travelled the country visiting fairs and community celebrations through the 1960s.

While the Hurleyville Taxi was mostly a positive business venture for Howard Hurley, it unfortunately also resulted in animal cruelty charges against him.

The charges were later dismissed.

“In the book, I included three different versions: Howard’s personal view with what happened, which was very colourful, the Sault Star with the newspaper coverage and the lawyer who defended him,” stated McCarthy in a recent interview in the Orangeville Banner.

Published by Sault Ste. Marie's own Moose Enterprise Book Publishing, The Hurleyville Taxi: Two Thousand Pounds of Bacon and Bone began as McCarthy retired from teaching and took up researching Hurley in 1995.

McCarthy celebrates the book's official launch in Orangeville on November 30.

“I think Howard’s story deserves to be told. Thousands of people around the world have pictures of him and I don’t think they know much about him,” McCarthy told the Banner. “The book itself, as far as what it is, I’m guessing you’d sort of call it a history book ... but I think of it as a snapshot of Canadiana. I’d like to call it the definitive book of the Hurleyville Taxi.”

Official Clare McCarthy bio

William Clare McCarthy, the youngest of seven children was born on April 19, 1939 in the Northern Ontario hamlet of Gold Centre.

Clare received his public schooling in Schumacher and Dunnville, both in Ontario, and graduated in 1961 with an honours degree in mathematics from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Clare has travelled extensively; the Amazon, Kenya, Iceland, Patagonia, the Seychelles, the Canadian Arctic, England, Wales and Ireland.

Following 34 years as a successful teacher of high school mathematics and math department head, with a smattering of art classes, Clare retired in 1995 to pursue his interest in life drawing and other forms of art.

He has dabbled in pencil and pen and ink drawing, egg tempera painting, acrylics, water colours, woodcarving and photography.

While exploring the artistic world, Clare identifies himself as MAC, and is presently exercising his twisted sense of humour as a freelance cartoonist creating one editorial cartoon per week for his hometown newspaper, the Orangeville Banner.

Each month for the same newspaper, Clare also contributes one column entitled Meandering, with a focus on human interest subjects, tongue-in-cheek humour, and at times thought-provoking topics.

In addition to providing pen and ink illustrations for The Hurleyville Taxi: Two Thousand Pounds Of Bacon And Bone, Clare is a member of the Headwaters Writer’s Guild, a member of the Dufferin Circle of Storytellers, and also attempts to remain physically fit while enjoying writing, which has a bent towards the lighter side of life.

An understanding wife, Dorothy, has spent almost half a century attempting to cure him of a habit of procrastinating, while daughter Margaret Anne continues to remind him of how little he actually knows about life.

In spite of an eventful life, Clare has compiled a family history of his ancestors and of the man Howard Hurley and the two hogs, Rusty and Red that pulled the world famous Hurleyville Taxi, thus this compelling book.