1890s Hamilton

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.    ...

During the cold weeks of March, 1897, a rumour was circulating all over the City of Hamilton to the effect that there were gypsies in the vicinity.         In response, the Spectator sent out a reporter to investigate. He indeed did find a band of Scotch gypsies camped on the tree road off Main street, near the Delta.         First spotted near the eastern limit of Hamilton, the gypsies were supposedly on their way to Albion Mills.         In the camp, the man from the Spec found men, women and children In particular he noticed three women squatting around a fire of brush at the side of the road.         One of this group, the youngest, was feeding her baby in a manner the reporter described as “in the good old-fashioned style that antedates glass bottles and rubber tubing.”         This yo...

On November 28, 1893, the following article appeared in the Hamilton Times, written by an unnamed writer who occasionally put together historical articles for that paper’s Saturday editions. At the time, the city of Hamilton was the hub of a network of roads, mostly toll roads, each with an interesting history. Hamilton’s position at the head of Lake Ontario, with the Niagara Escarpment to the south, the waters of Burlington Bay to the north, made the surveying, construction and maintenance of these roads a challenge. The article, reprinted as a whole follows:         “ In the map of Upper Canada prepared by surveyor D. W. Smith in 1798, there was no county of Wentworth. The townships of East and West Flamborough and Beverly belonged to the West Riding of York, and the townships of Saltfleet, Barton, Glanford and Ancaster belonged to the First Riding of Lincoln. Peel, Halton, Wentworth, Brant and Elgin were not then organized. The e...