The
writer came across an old book the other day, from which we gather some facts
of the early history of Hamilton, the district town of the Gore district, in
the township of Barton and county of Wentworth, situated in an extensive valley
on the western extremity. It was laid out in the year 1813 by Mr. Hamilton from
whom it derived its name. On account of the swamp in the vicinity of the bay,
the principal residence and business part of the town was located about a mile
south from the bay. Behind the town rises the mountain to a height of 150 feet,
or more correctly speaking, the high table land which stretches away to the
Niagara river. Previous to the completion of the Burlington canal, vessels
could not approach nearer than Burlington beach, where a customs house and
warehouses were established. After the opening of the canal, the trade of the
town increased rapidly, being the head of navigation on Lake Ontario and the
principal market for the western merchants. The excellent freestone and
limestone hewn out of the mountain was made use of in building business houses
and the Gore Bank and the Bank of British North America were among the first of
the substantial buildings on King street. The old Gore Bank building, now the
Bank of Commerce, is an evidence of the skill of the stonecutters and masons of
sixty years ago. The Bank of British North America has been changed by a new
front of more modern architecture. Early in the forties, someone offered to
supply the town with water from a spring on the mountain top, which would have
carried the water to the top of every house, provided the monopoly was secured
to him for a certain number of years. The offer was refused, and while it would
have been of great advantage to the town at that time, it was against the
sentiment of the people to give a monopoly on a public necessity. It was twenty
years later before Hamilton introduced its present excellent system of pure
lake water.
The first district council held in
Hamilton was in the year 1822. The town was incorporated in 1833, and in the
same year sent a representative to what was then called the house of assembly.
The population of the town, according to the census, was 6,475. Fourteen years
later, (in 1847), it was incorporated as a city, the population at that time
being about 8,000, though it was padded out by the census takers in order to
secure city incorporation. That was long before railways and stages left daily
in every direction from Hamilton for London, Port Stanley, Chatham, Detroit,
Port Dover, Galt, Paris, Guelph, Niagara, St. Catherines, Toronto and Goderich.
Every country town within a radius of ten or fifteen miles from this city had
its own special stage coach, and indeed relics of the old days can now be seen
any day in the streets travelled with the names of the towns from which they
hail. Old Nelson Able had his semi-daily line of stages between Dundas and
Hamilton, always arriving in town on time for the departure of the early
morning boats, and being on hand at the docks when the evening boats came in.
Two steamboats, the Eclipse and the Queen, plied daily between Hamilton and
Toronto, and the Express made daily trips to Niagara and Queenston. There were
schooners and one bark owned in this city. It cost more to travel than it does
now, the fare by stage to Toronto being $2 and by steamboat $1.50. Now one can
make the round trip to Toronto during the season of navigation for 50 cents. It
may be interesting to give the rates of fare from Hamilton to other points :
Port Dover, $1.50; London, $4.05; Galt, $1; St. Catherines, $2.50. It is 32
miles to St. Catherines and 39 miles to Guelph, yet it cost a dollar more to
ride in the stage coach the shorter distance.
The public buildings were the jail and
the court house, two market houses, over one of which was the town hall. The
hall was full size of the market house, 50 by 20 feet, and a 15 foot ceiling.
Then there was the custom house, post office, engine house and theatre. The
theatre was an old barn-like building on the corner of John and Rebecca
streets. There was a diversity of religious denominations, and for the small
population in the town, eleven churches for public worship – Episcopal,
Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Free Church, Secession, Congregational, Wesleyan
Methodist, Ryerson Methodist, Canadian Wesleyan and a Methodist and a Baptist
church for colored people.
There were only two charitable
societies, the St. George’s and the St. Andrew’s. Probably it might be better
for Canadian manhood and womanhood if there were fewer charitable societies,
not that the worthy poor should not be helped, but that healthy, strong, men
and women be taught to save and make hay while the summer sun shines, and then
when the storms of winter come, they would be independent and self-helpful.
There would be less poverty if there were no breweries or distillers.
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Hamilton, in 1844, had three
newspapers – the Gazette, the Journal and Express and the Herald – and four
printing offices. It had a Mechanics’ Institute and two reading rooms, one of
the reading rooms being established and supported by a few of the merchants,
and the other called Bull’s News Room, in the Gazette office, which was supplied
with all the exchanges. Mechanics’ Institute seem to have dropped out
altogether now, as it is a rare thing to hear one mentioned. The Old institute
in Hamilton developed many bright young men in its debating clubs and its valuable
library and reading room were the resort of young mechanics and clerks in the
evening. We have a public library in its stead, but the intellectual training
of the debating clubs is now con fined to a few churches that are doing good to
its young men in that line.
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A list of the professions and trades
will give an idea of what Hamilton was like sixty years ago. There were2
physicians, 10 wholesale importers of hardware, 49 stores of all kinds, 2
foundries, 4 printing offices, 3 booksellers, three chemists (we call them
druggists now), 65 taverns, 2 tanneries, 3 coach makers, 2 soap and candle
factories, 4 auctioneers, 5 saddlers, 14 cabinetmakers, 6 bakers, 10
shoemakers, 3 gunsmiths, 3 confectioners, 14 groceries; 11 beer shops; 6
builders; 5 stonemasons; 5 tinsmiths; 4 hatters; 14 tailors; 8 painters; 1
marble and stone works; 13 blacksmiths; 3 ladies’ seminaries; 2 schools for
boys; 4 banks – Gore, Commercial, Montreal and Bank of British North America.
The principal taverns were Week’s, Royal Exchange containing 60 rooms, and the
Commercial. There were three land agents, and two commission and shipping
firms. The ratable property in Hamilton was assessed at $439,295.
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The exports from the port of Hamilton,
for the year 1844, did not amount to much more than the shipments for one day
now by the railroads. We wll give a few of the shipments as a matter of
curiosity : 81, 597 barrels of flour, 1,172 barrels of pork, 1,252 barrels of
whisky, 420 kegs of butter, 18,430 bushels of wheat, 329,647 feet of lumber
(boards), 196,245 staves shipped to the West Indies, 26 barrels of beer.
Considering the fact that Hamilton had three breweries, the small shipments
would indicate that the product was principally used for local consumption.
Evidently, there was not much demand for apples, or there were not many
orchards, for only 26 bushels were shipped from town. Hamilton manufactured
nothing, therefore it had nothing to export. Could the men and women of those
days visit the city now, they would rub their eyes in astonishment at what the
N. P. has wrought for the elect, for evidently Hamilton has been abundantly
blessed during the past quarter of a century, and its cup of bliss is filled
and running over. If the spiritualist doctrine has any foundation, , probably
those who lived in the early forties, and have been gathered in by the
undertakers and the graveyards sections, can see with spiritual vision, the
whole east end of the city, and on nearly every other street, massive buildings
filled with thousands of working men and women. The tolls collected on vessels
entering the Burlington canal in 1844 amounted to $11, 733.
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In digging back to the early
settlement of Hamilton, we find that Ancaster was the important village in this
section of the country in the beginning of the last century. A historian in
writing of Ancaster in 1845 said of the village : “It was formerly a place of
considerable business, but the rapid growth of Hamilton has thrown it in the
shade. It is, however, beginning partially to recover itself through the
enterprise of some of its inhabitants.” Part of the village was destroyed by
fire in 1845, and it was intended to erect a cloth factory during the same
year. It had a population of 1.500 and one Episcopal and a Presbyterian church.
There was a grist and saw mill, one physician, one lawyer, one tannery, a
foundry and a manufactory for making carding and other machines, two stores,
two groceries, two taverns, one blacksmith, two tailors and two shoemakers. In
the township of Ancaster, 41,850 acres of land had been taken up in 1844, of
which 17,952 acres were under cultivations, and the historian tells us that the
township and the combined population in 1841 was 2,930. Evidently there was
good water power in the township, for there were located along the streams two
grist and six saw mills.
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This brings us to the first court
house in Wentworth county, and also the first in this part of the country. In
the year 1816, on the north part of lot 52, first concession of Ancaster, between
the villages of Dundas and Ancaster, was erected a one storey log house, in
which George Rolph, first clerk of court, had his office and the books and
records of the court and district, and in which the first quarter session and
surrogate courts were held. Judge Snider has in his office a photograph of the
old log court house, which he was fortunate in procuring before the building
was destroyed. He has also excellent likenesses of all the judges of the county
and surrogate courts from the first appointee down to his immediate
predecessor, which are valuable now, and will be of greater value in the
distant future. The court house was in keeping with the log cabins of the early
settlers, and the only external sign of its official character was an elaborate
window. Richard Hatt, a man of wealth and who had large milling interests, was
the chairman of the quarter sessions – there was no judge at the time – from 1816
to 1819. Although he was not a lawyer, nor had he legal education, his
decisions gave universal satisfaction for fairness and justice, and when he
retired it was to give place to Col. Thomas Taylor, who was the first judge
appointed in this county. Col. Taylor was in command of the Forty-First
Highlanders, and at the time of the War of 1812 was detached from his regiment,
and with other commissioned officers, sent to Canada to organize aqnd lead the
militia. He was detailed on the staff of General Vincent and served through the
war with great bravery. His last military exploit was with the army at the
Battle of Stony Creek, when his body was perforated with seven bullet wounds.
Being unfit for further military duty, he resigned his commission and settled
in Hamilton, and devoted himself to the study and practice of law. He was
appointed judge in 1819, and held his first term of court in the log court
house, between Dundas and Ancaster. In 1822, the first court house built in
Hamilton was completed, when the log house was abandoned, and the offices and
records removed to this city. Judge Taylor was a man of many accomplishments.
He was an artist, and some of his pictures are still in the Royal Academy in
London. He was a graduate of Oxford University, and was well-learned in the
classics and the literature of his times. In law, he was an ardent student, and
was one of the first Benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Taylor’s
Reports are standard authority today in the courts, and are quoted by hundreds
of lawyers who have but little knowledge of who Thomas Taylor was. Hamilton
McCarthy, the sculptor, living in Ottawa, is a grandson of Judge Taylor, and is
probably the last of his line in Canada. Judge Taylor died shortly after he
retired from office.
The successors of Judge Taylor were
Judge Miles O’Reilly, who served from 1837 to 1854, Judge Alexander Logie,
father of Col. Logie of the Ninety-First Highlanders, from 1854 to 1873, Judge
William Ambrose from 1873 to 1876, Judge James Shaw Sinclair from 1876 to 1891.
Judge Colin G. Snider was appointed in 1891, and being a man of robust
constitution, none of the present members of the bar have any great expectancy
of sitting in his judicial chair.
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