1890s Hamilton

“From far and near and early and late came the buyers, and as was to have been expected, the market today was very large.” Hamilton Spectator.    December 23, 1893. As it had been for many years before, and would be for many years to come, the Hamilton Market square was a very popular location the days before Christmas. As Christmas day in 1893 was on a Monday, and as the market could not be active on a Sunday, the last Market day for the year was on Saturday December 23. The Hamilton Times assigned a reporter to go to the Market Square and make a report on conditions there for the afternoon edition of the paper: “There appeared to be unlimited supplies of all kinds of produce and the attendance of buyers was such that between 9 and 10, the huge square presented a very animated appearance. “Loads of evergreens, holly and plants and flowers suitable to the season gave the market a decidedly Christmas-like appearance.” 1 1 “The Christmas Mark...

At 4 p.m., Monday March 14, 1892, Jack Bartram and his nephew, Jack Lottridge, arrived at the Wentworth County Court House to formally enter their pleas to the murder charges they faced.         Knowing that the prisoners would be making an appearance, a reporter for the Hamilton Spectator was on hand to describe the event:         “Bartram was ushered in so quietly that few people noticed him until he was seen sitting behind the bars. His hair is quite silvery, and he looks like a man of fifty-five or sixty. He wears a short, grey beard now, but his moustache is a reddish brown.         “If it was not for the alleged cancerous eye, Bartram is rather benevolent and inoffensive in appearance. His right eye is nearly closed, and seems to be almost blind, and he kept continually wiping it with a handkerchief while in the dock. In fact, he kept furtively rubbing at it, a...

The day after John Heslop was murdered in his Ancaster Township home, the provincial government assigned one of its detectives to take over the investigation into the crime.          On his arrival in Hamilton, Detective William Greer was described by a Spectator reporter as a young man “of very uncommunicative disposition, leaving the reporter to “sigh for the oratorical powers and dramatic appreciation of the value of facts for which some other members of the provincial detective force are noted.”         Greer was a good-looking young man, with rosy cheeks and a blonde moustache.         As Greer refused to divulge the direction his investigation was taking, the press and the public began to wonder if the detective was actually working hard enough to solve the crime.         In spite of substantial rewards offered by...