By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer
His name was Ebenezer but he was no Scrooge.
In fact, when it came to caring for the sick and the poor, Sarnia Mayor Ebenezer Pool Watson never asked, “are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?”
Instead, the Community’s 19th Chief Magistrate was forever asking why there wasn’t a public hospital in a Town with a population of 6,000 people.
Born in 1831 in Lincolnshire, England, Watson came to Canada at age 20, settling in Sarnia.
He was elected to Town Council soon after that, serving a record 34 years before finally leaving municipal politics.
Watson was a crusty, colourful character. After winning the 1882 election he declared, “I’ve done more for the Community than all those old roosters who opposed my election”.
A plumber by trade, he won the Mayor’s chair in 1890, defeating merchant Richard LeSueur by 637 votes to 347. The 290 ballot margin was considered a major landslide in those days.
Unlike Ebenezer Scrooge – the miserly penny-pincher in author Charles Dickens’ ‘A
Christmas Carol’ – Ebenezer Watson was a man who cared for his fellow human beings from the start. Indeed, within days of taking office he was pushing for creation of a public hospital.
There were several doctors in Town but anyone needing hospitalization had to travel to London.
Six months after his election, in July, 1890, a public meeting was held in the Town Hall to discuss the hospital issue. As a result, a fundraising committee was set up and, by 1895, some $13,000.00 had been donated. A year later, Sarnia General Hospital was officially opened.
Mayor Watson also beefed up fire protection and launched a crackdown on drunks downtown during his two years at the helm.
The father of eight children (including a son, Fred, who became Sarnia’s 24th Mayor) left public life at the end of 1897.
He died in September, 1899, at age 68.