On the 26th day of July, 1859, the
good ship Union set sail from the port of Hamilton, laden with a cargo of staves
for Liverpool. The Union
was built in James Little’s shipyard, down at the foot of Bay street, and was as trim a little
vessel as ever unfurled a sail to the breeze on a Canadian lake. Hamilton was quite an
important shipping point, there being a dozen or more vessels at the docks
taking in cargoes of staves and lumber on the day the Union
set sail, and a number of lake steamers called at this port everyday with
passengers and freight. Ah! those were the days when travel was a pleasure; and
while people might run the risk of a steamboat explosion or the vessel going to
the bottom they went out of the decently and in order, not like when smashed
out of all shape in a railway accident. But let us get back to the Union and to Capt. Zealand, her young commander, and her
brave of ten brave sailors, nearly all of whom were Hamiltonians by birth. Mr.
White, the builder of the Union, went as the
only passenger. Just before the Union set
sail, the Belle, another Hamilton
vessel laden with lumber, scudded past from the railway wharf toward the canal.
The wind was blowing what the seaman call half a gale, and the Belle was making
from ten to twelve knots an hour. Then the Union
was ready to unfurl her sails and start out on her long voyage across the big
pond. Capt. Zealand and his passenger and crew were all in the best of spirits,
and as they pulled aboard with a cheer, all rejoicing that within a month, they
would float into Liverpool, the first vessel that ever made the trip direct
from the port of Hamilton. The Union Jack, which had been floating down from
the peak, was hauled down, and the Union,
turning her prow to the east, was soon running down the bay toward the canal at
a lively rate. Hamilton
vessel owners looked upon the Union’s trip as
the opening of direct trade between this port and the world beyond the sea. The
great difficulty in the way was in getting return freight to make the voyage
profitable; but the dream was that our lake craft would get cargoes in England for the
Mediterranean or the West
Indies, and from those countries get cargoes of raisins, figs and
sugars for Canada.
Then would hundreds of vessels sail not only from Hamilton, but from other ports on Lake Ontario
to Europe every year, and Hamilton would become the great receiving
port for all of Western Canada. The dream was
never realized, for Canada
had the railroad building fever about that time, and steam was being used as
the motive power instead of sails to do the carrying trade across the Atlantic. Hamilton
was quite a ship building town half a century or more ago, and down the bay
front was a scene of activity with the arrival and departure of vessels. One of
the finest excursion steamers in the Niagara river
fleet was built in the ship yards of the Hamilton Bridge
company, but now when a Hamilton
company wants a new steamer for the lake trade, it goes to Scotland to
have it built. Loyalty to Hamilton
might build up a shipyard.
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Thirty-eight years ago Hamilton, with less
than half its present population, had three times as many drinking saloons as
it has now, of which, less than one-third were licensed to make drunkards. The
chief of police reported upwards of 200 places where liquor was sold without a
license, and many of them were the lowest dives in the city. The police were
powerless to put a stop to the illicit sale, not having the legal right to
enter unlicensed groggeries; and whenever a conviction was had against the
liquor sellers, through private citizens causing arrests, they were invariably
annulled on appeal to the recorder’s court, and generally the prosecutor had to
pay the costs. Things have changed for the better in this respect, for the
thirsty must now get their drinks from about 100 licensed boozeries.
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When the machinery in the waterworks power
house, down at the beach, are completed and in running order, John Gartshore,
in whose foundry in Dundas the engines were built, invited a large number of
his gentlemen and lady friends to visit the works. The party sailed from Dundas to the Beach and
the band played during the trip, adding to the enjoyment of the occasion. The Dundas artillery company,
under the command of Major Notman, accompanied the party, and on arriving at
the wharf fired a salute in honour of Mr. Gartshore. Isaac Buchanan, M. L. A.,
and Mayor McKinstry went down from Hamilton
to meet the party. Among the distinguished guests from Dundas were Mayor McKenzie, T. Robertson, Mr.
Begue, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Quarry and Mr. Thornton. That was only 46 years ago, yet
if the roll was called of those who were present, how many would answer “Here?”
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The old landmarks are giving way to twentieth
century enterprise, and the business centre of Hamilton is benefited by the change. For
nearly seventy years a frame block of houses stood on the northwest corner of
James and Main streets, and it has been torn
down this week to make place for a skyscraper office building to be erected by
the Federal Life Assurance company. It will be a grand change in the appearance
of that corner. The old building had no history connected with it that will
cause a pang of regret that it has been blotted out, and merely as an event of
the day is it worthy of mention. The oldest inhabitant cannot tell when it was
built or by whom, but the first information we can get is that it was owned
between sixty and seventy years ago by a man named Hiram F. Clark. Some say he
was a tailor by trade; others that he was a tinsmith. The preponderance of
evidence favors the tinsmith, for we find in the first directory of Hamilton,
printed in 1853, that Clark and Whitney had a tinsmith shop in the room on the
corner of James and Main streets, and that Hiram Clark’s residence was on Main
street, where the public library stands. The Clark
family, of which Hiram F. was a member, came from the other side of the line
early in the thirties and located in Hamilton;
and it was about that time the block of frame buildings was erected. One old
citizen gives it as his best recollection that the buildings stood on the north
side of King street,
opposite the Gore park, was moved to make place for the stone edifice in which
A. Murray & Co. so long carried on the dry goods business; but this must be
a mistake, for somewhere about 1846-47 a fire cleaned out all the frame buildings
in that King street block, and all between the Stanley Mills & Co. and the
Thomas C. Watkins building were erected of stone before 1850. The businessmen
who occupied the west side of James street, from King to Main, as late as the
year 1850 have long since passed to that bourne from whence no traveler returns
to tell the story of the land beyond. Beginning at the Bank of Hamilton corner
and going southward we give the names of the firms: A. A. & A. Wyllie, dry
goods; J. Osbourne, grocer; R. & J. Roy, dry goods; R. Osbourne,
watchmaker; and in the building over R. Osbourne were R. Milne, daguerrean; J.
R. Holder, C. G. Crickmore and W. Craigie, attorneys; George Sterling, shoe
store; Samuel & Co., commission merchants. Where the Spectator building is
was the site of the Commercial bank and the residence of Henry McKinstry, the
cashier of the bank. The Albion tavern, kept
by Owen Nowlan, came next and was torn down for the Commercial Center,
erected by the Canada Life company.
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There were four separate storerooms in the
frame building. J. H. Bland, the barber occupied the one next to Nowlan’s tavern,
and it was there that William Pease, the venerable barber who now does business
on Hughson street,
learned his trade. Mr. Pease came to Hamilton
in 1854 and, next to Charles Dallyn, is the oldest barber in the city.
Archibald McClary occupied the next room for a broom factory; and next to him
came James Peacock, a watchmaker and an umbrella mender. Peacock was a man of
good ability, sang a good Irish song, told a good story, and was no mean
orator. He used to speak from the court house steps on social and other
occasions, and was to some extent a leader among workingmen. In the early days
the practice of paying workingmen one half their wages by orders on stores
prevailed in every branch of business to the great detriment of the men, who
had to pay higher prices for everything they used because of the trading
system. Peacock made this a text for his speeches, and in the course of time
succeeded in educating the people to demand cash for their labor. The merchants
made a good thing out of the order system, for the employers gave their notes,
with big interest, for the accommodation and then the merchants had a second
pull by adding a large profit on the goods. Peacock was a typical Irishman –
big, warm-hearted, careless, laughing and good-natured; he was as genial a soul
as ever
“with a frolic fortune took
the thunder and the sunshine.”
Soon after the Great Western railway was
opened, he obtained a position with the company; was appointed station master
at Dundas, then
at St. Catharines,
and afterward became a purchasing agent for the company with headquarters at London, where he died. He
was the life and soul of a debating club, in which many Hamilton young men took their first degrees
in debate.
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The corner building was occupied by Clark
& Whitney as a tin shop. William McDonald who “fit” at the Battle of
Ridgeway when Canada
was invaded by the Fenians, has a dim recollection that in his youth he
attended a school that was kept in the second story of a room in the block.
However, we have given all the history that we have been able to dig out of the
old building, and if anybody can tell more, the columns of the Spectator are
open for facts. The new building that is to be erected by the Federal Life
company will be an ornament to the corner, and probably suggest to other
moneyed institutions that fine office buildings are a good investment.
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Mr. Clark, a Buffalo lawyer, was in Hamilton
one day this week in search of someone who knew a printer named Pearson, who
was said to have worked in the Times office sometime during the ‘50’s. A. T.
Freed is probably the only old printer who had any acquaintance with Pearson,
though two or three of the old-timers remember there was such a printer. When
Robert Spence, who afterward became postmaster-general of Canada, owned
the Dundas Warder, about 1847-1848, Pearson worked for him, and lost his job
for marrying Miss Lizzie Spence, the daughter of the editor. She was a bright,
well-educated girl, and her father’s social position in Dundas gave her entrée
to the most select circles; but love in those days counterbalanced society, and
although her father declared that she would be no more a daughter of his if she
married the poor printer, yet like Ruth, the Moabitess, she gave up home and
friends and said to her lover, “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou
lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Pearson
worked in several places after he left Dundas,
among others in Paris
on the Star, then owned by Blackburn. This was
about 1853-1854. If he ever worked in Hamilton,
it was only for a short time. A son was born to Pearson, and his wife, and he
also learned the printer’s art. The son worked for R. R. Donnelly in Chicago in
1878-1879. It may be that the woman who is now hunting for Pearson is the
daughter of the younger Pearson. She is about 33 years old. About the time she
was born, her father and mother separated. Recently her mother died in Buffalo leaving an estate
of $4,000 in cash, valuable diamonds and some real estate. The mother and
daughter, it seems, did not live together, and when the mother died, she willed
her estate to a sister. It is to break this will that the girl and the lawyer
are interested in, and the father becomes an important factor in the
litigation. This is why Mr. Clark visited Hamilton.
If this girl is the daughter of the younger Pearson, then she is the great
grand-daughter of the Hon. Robert Spence. Mrs. Pearson, the daughter of Mr.
Spence, died some years ago.
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