'The city was on the way': What Hamilton was like 150 years ago
Hamilton was 'quite nuts about joining Canada' — Margaret Houghton
In 1867, around the time of Confederation, the seeds were being planted for Hamilton to become an entrepreneurial, connected and ambitious city.
"They weren't doing too badly — there were bigger cities, but Hamilton was important," said Margaret Houghton, one of Hamilton's knowingest local history experts. Now retired, Houghton was Hamilton Public Library's archivist for nearly 40 years.
In 1867, the city was home to around 21,000 people, Houghton said.
It stretched from Dundurn Street in the west to Wentworth Street in the east, from the bay in the north to a street called Concession that wound its way along the base of the escarpment where Aberdeen Avenue is now, and connected to what we now know as Concession St. on the Mountain.
A decade earlier, in the 1850s, Hamilton got a big boost. It was connected to the Great Western Railway, a vital link to Toronto and Niagara. Sir Allan MacNab had pulled some strings to be sure Hamilton would be a stop – original plans called for bypassing the city.
By the 1860s, Hamilton had commercial ventures like W.E. Sanford's ready-to-wear clothing factory – the first in North America.
And also the factories of Richard Wanzer, who swiped the designs for popular Singer and Wilson sewing machines in the U.S. and set up shop in Hamilton, where Canadian courts didn't mind his American patent infringement. One of his factories was at James and Vine streets, near where the CBC Hamilton newsroom now sits.
And the city was attracting tradespeople from Britain and the United States.
And it was situated perfectly, Houghton said, with the railway and the port on the Great Lakes, making it possible to ship goods by lake that could then go on to other places in Canada and the United States.
On Dominion Day itself, July 1, 1867, Hamilton heard the ringing of church bells first at midnight, then at 4 a.m. They held off on firing artillery until more people would be awake, at the hour of 6 a.m., to officially mark the start of the celebratory day.
There was a march from Gore Park to beyond the Crystal Palace in Victoria Park. The mayor read a proclamation from the queen, and guns were fired in celebration.
Hamilton was "quite nuts about joining Canada," Houghton said. Hamiltonians showed themselves to be Canadian patriots early on, even erecting the first statue anywhere in the country of Sir John A. Macdonald upon his death in 1891.
Hamilton was one of the first cities to have electricity.
"The city was on the way," Houghton said. "The really huge expansion happened later but you could see the beginning of it in 1867."
Hamilton in 1867 is the subject of a song-and-story presentation Houghton is involved in including folk singer Ian Bell and Hamilton Spectator reporter Mark McNeil, next Thursday, called "Songs for the Sesquicentennial."
McNeil has written a number of songs about Hamilton history, including an ode to famed killer Evelyn Dick, and a song about his grandparents' homicidal monkey, Jacko.
They'll gather at the Hamilton Spectator auditorium on June 29, a couple of days before Canada's big 150th birthday. The event, sponsored by the Head-of-the-Lake Historical Society with support from the City of Hamilton, is sold out.