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