by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Canada West’s Last Frontier (1982) With Lake Huron on the north side and the St. Clair River along its western border, Lambton County owes its early development and ensuing prosperity in large measure to its position on these waters. The first settlers came into [...]
by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Upper Canada’s Last Frontier (1982) The opening of a line between Port Huron and Chicago in 1879 brought a great increase in traffic to both the Great Western and the Grand Trunk. Three years later, the two lines amalgamated under the Grand Trunk name [...]
by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Canada West’s Last Frontier (1982) Nothing could look better to the pioneers of Lambton than a railway when what roads they had were almost impassable and water transportation was halted by ice for months on end. In 1836 with commendable optimism the settlers of [...]
by H.F. Holland for the Sarnia Gazette (1960) James Flintoft Sr. came to Sarnia in 1844. He was the third son of Christopher Flintoft, a Yorkshireman who, in 1810, settled near Perth. It was from the district that Malcolm Cameron came and he was instrumental in bringing a number of [...]
by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Canada West’s Last Frontier The earliest ferry to run between Sarnia and Port Huron was a sailboat. A Sarnia named Crampton got a license to run her in 1836. In the 1840s a horse-powered ferry began to run with George Moffat in charge. Julius [...]
by George Mathewson for the Sarnia Observer (2003) Imagine Sarnia without Canatara Park. No sandy beach. No leafy paths. No bandshell or animal farm. Well, the crown jewel in Sarnia’s park system would likely be a gaping crater or buried under a sprawling subdivision today if it hadn’t been for [...]
by George Mathewson for the Sarnia Observer (2003) Malcolm Cameron was already an energetic member of the Upper Canada legislature when he moved to Sarnia in 1834 in search of new opportunities. The 27-year-old quickly found them. Before he was through, Cameron helped launch the Observer, named Lambton County, built [...]
by George Mathewson for the Sarnia Observer (2003) The boisterous crowd of merchants and farmers who assembled in downtown Sarnia the fateful afternoon of Aug. 21, 1872 were itching for a bare-knuckles political fight. They weren’t disappointed. Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, had arrived in [...]
by Karen Robinet for the Sarnia Observer (2003) “I have always held those political opinions which point to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter in what rank of life he may have taken his origin.” Alexander Mackenzie, Canada’s first Liberal prime minister and editor of the Lambton Shield newspaper, [...]
by Paul Morden for the Sarnia Observer (2014) William and Maud Hanna was a Sarnia power couple when the community celebrated becoming a city a century ago. William Hanna was born in Adelaide Township in 1862 but moved with his family in 1871 to a farm in what was then [...]
