Students from the Confederation Street School Rhythm Band pose for a photo while competing in the 1953 Lambton County Music Festival. This image, courtesy of the Lambton County Archive, is a contender for a Centennial book celebrating Sarnia’s first 100 years as a city. Churches and schools will rings with [...]
Phil Egan The year 1866 not only brought the threat of a Fenian invasion to Sarnia, it brought smallpox. Soldiers of Irish origin had fought on both sides in the recently ended U.S. Civil War. In 1865, many of these men united under ‘Fighting Tom’ Sweeney and the Fenian Brotherhood, [...]
Phil Egan The early inhabitants of Sarnia had an up and down affair with alcohol. Up and down – but mainly down. In a letter by the Reverend John Douce to his missionary predecessor, James Evans, dated ‘Port Sarnia, March 1, 1839, Douce wrote, “The swearing, drunkenness, and wickedness on [...]
316 Christina St., built in 1861 by Alexander Mackenzie, Canada's second prime minister, master builder and mason. 234 Front St. North, Old Western and Sarnia Hotel built in 1850. 301 Front St. North, built in 1862 as a brewery, later Silverwood's Dairy. 361 [...]
Phil Egan Few areas of Sarnia have changed as much over the past 150 years as Ferry Dock Hill. Today, it’s a relatively tranquil section of the downtown business district and home to one of the city’s best-known law firms. For much of its existence, however, it was the busiest [...]
Phil Egan Its grandeur was captured forever in a sketch by Canadian artist J.C. McArthur. It depicts a group of 266 Icelandic immigrants leaving Point Edward’s impressive Grand Trunk Railway station in 1875 as they prepared to board the steamer, Ontario. Driven from their homes in Iceland by an erupting [...]
Phil Egan As a boy growing up in the 1950s I was acutely aware of the fear known as the Red Menace. Worries about communist influence as the Cold War grew in the years following the Second World War were rampant everywhere. In the U.S., it was the time of [...]
David D. Plain In the 1830s, the United States complained bitterly to the Government of Upper Canada about payments it was making to “Indians” living in the U.S. for their service to the British in the War of 1812. The Americans believed Upper Canada was using the annuities to pay [...]
Phil Egan Daniel Mackenzie’s Dry Goods Store on Front Street was one of the most popular shopping venues in the town in 1866. Just north of Mackenzie’s sat a two-storey frame building. It was shared between Mr. Cotter, who operated an Exchange Office, and Mr. R.B. Brown and his wife, [...]
Phil Egan At the time of Confederation fewer than than 3,000 people lived in Sarnia, which was a smaller town than the City of Port Huron across the St. Clair River. And few people here worked as hard or as tirelessly as the wives of the many farmers who lived [...]
