1890s Hamilton

A full reprint of an article appearing in the Hamilton Herald on November 26, 1892. A Herald reporter spending an hour at the Stuart Street passenger station of the Grand Trunk Railway.           Are you in the habit of visiting the Stuart street railway station on a Sunday afternoon? If not, try it sometime. A pleasant hour may be spent there, especially if you are a physiogemist; if perchance a mind reader, you will be more than repaid for the time devoted to the study of many phases of character to be met. To fully realise the scene, arrange to be on the platform half an hour before the train is due. Lots of time will then be afforded for observation, for the trains are, as a matter of course, always behind. The crowd you will find there present as many views as do the prismatic rays of the crystal in a kaleidoscope.           One group is standing around the scenery of some dramatic compa...

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, Anglican churches were sometimes afflicted by bitter controversies to do with the rites and ceremonies used in their worship services. Commonly known as the ritualists and the memorialists, the contending sides polarized, even divided both the various Anglican churches in Hamilton, but sometimes even pit the congregations of individual churches into battlegrounds.         Hamilton's Church of the Ascension, John street south, was the scene of one of the most bitterly divisive outbreaks of hostility relating to the attempted introduction of ritualistic practices into a congregation primarily known for its memorialist leanings.         The congregation of the Church of the Ascension had traditionally been known as a “low” church, and its members generally had little regard for such ritualistic practices such as surpliced choirs, the chanting of litanies, processional hym...