1890s Hamilton

It was a looming, foreboding presence dominating the west end of the city.       It was a place from which unsettling sounds would occasionally emanate, day or night. It was a place to which ordinary citizens would give a wide berth.           In 1893, it was still officially known as the Hamilton Asylum for the Insane.           However, on Christmas Day, 1893, many charitable Hamiltonians went up the James street mountain road to help the staff at the asylum bring some Christmas cheer to the over 1,000 patients confined in the institution.             For many days, staff at the Asylum, assisted by those patients were able, went to great lengths to decorate the halls of the immense building, and it was those decorations which a reporter for the Hamilton times described in great detail for the readers of that paper on Boxing Day, 1893:           “Many and varied as have been the schemes invented for the diverting of the mind diseased, the Christmas decoration

During a lovely summer evening, August 19, 1896, a crowd of about 1,000 Hamiltonians gathered at Dundurn park to witness, and in many cases, take part in one of Professor Jesse Gant’s wilder ideas.           It was a money-making scheme, basically, but also was intended to be a lot of fun for all involved.           Dundurn park was still not a public park, but an area that could be leased Admission was then charged by the lesse who choreographed events for their entertainment of the ticket buyers .           Professor Gant’s programme looked very enticing to those thousand people who were willing to pay to see the wedding, the watermelon eating contest and the cakewalk.           The crowd was in a boisterous mood as the professor’s programme was about to unfold.           First on the schedule was a wedding involving Miss Annie Johnston of St. Catherines who was to be joined in matrimony to Hamilton’s Professor Campbell. There would be about 1000 witness

It was raining heavily during the afternoon of September 22, 1894, so heavily that William Lottridge and his friends sought shelter in the road house of the Hamilton Jockey Club.           The grounds of the Hamilton Jockey Club included the race course, paddock and stables directly associated thoroughbred horse racing and, in addition, a road house which provided food and beverages. The Jockey club house had a first floor section for the general public, and upstairs, there was a section only available for use by paid up members. A stairway from the main entrance hallway connected the two sections. William Lottridge and a few others sought shelter from the wet weather in the hallway, when Alexander David Stewart, secretary of the Hamilton Jockey club, and then the current mayor of Hamilton, was told that one of the group was sitting at the base of the stairwell, blocking access to the private club. Stewart then went to hallway to confront Lottridge and the rest of group abo

      During the month of February, 1895, there was a tremendous surge of activity in Hamilton’s music circles.           A locally-written operetta was to be performed at the Grand Opera House with the purpose of raising funds for the charitable work of the Ladies’ Benevolent Society.           On February 11, 1895, a reporter from the Hamilton Spectator was permitted to attend a rehearsal of the comic operetta, Ptarmigan – music by J. E. P. Aldous, libretto by J. N. McIlwraith (better known by her pen name Jean Newton.)           The reporter, although realizing that the under-rehearsed musicians were still unfamiliar with the score, was still delighted by Mr. Aldous’ compositions:           “It is far and away the best music of a similar character that has been composed by a Hamiltonian – perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to say by a Canadian.”           Even the members of the cast applauded the score at the end of the rehearsal. The choruses of the second a