1890s Hamilton

It was an alarming, and very, very sad discovery.           On the north side of Hamilton Bay , on the sands of the harbour’s shoreline in a cove formed by the point jut of land called Willow Point, on a cold December day, there and then Tessie Henderson’s body was found.           Tessie Henderson was a handsome young lady who lived with her mother and uncle in an old frame dwelling near the Roman Catholic cemetery. She was a teacher in a Sunday School and a member of the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavour at a church near her home.           But on that cold December day, a Spectator reporter was alerted to the discovery at Willow Point. His poignant description of what he saw began by noting that the lifeless body that had been found had not been a victim of a drowning accident, but someone that had died of exposure to the frigid and wet weather of that time of year.           “No more pathetic picture could be imagined,” he wrote, “than the sight of that handso

1894 – Police Matron         In 1894, the Board of Police Commissioners in Hamilton decided that a full-time “police matron” should be hired to deal with females who had been arrested and held at the No. 3 Police Station awaiting an appearance at the Police Court and a potential transfer to the City Jail.           Hamilton ’s No. 3 police station was the biggest station in the city and was located at the corner of King William and Mary streets, just a few blocks east of the downtown core.           Across the street from the station, and beside the Bethel Mission, lived a woman named Mrs. Martha Lewis. Mrs. Lewis, a black woman, was often called upon by the police when the services of a police matron were required to deal with issues arising from the detention of female prisoners.           When the decision was made to create a full-time police matron job, Mrs. Martha Lewis applied.           Upon hearing that a woman “of colour” was in the running for the police matron position, a