By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer
He may have been the most intriguing character who ever wielded a gavel at Sarnia City Hall.
Thomas Dohefty, who was elected our 36th Mayor in 1916, was nothing short of a genius when it came to the creation of mechanical devices.
Indeed, he was a member of the Parisians Inventors’ Academy, a self-taught engineer and a Pioneer car builder of note. Along the way he also found the time to create devices that helped with everything from home heating to farm work.
During the last years of the 19th century he modelled and constructed his own automobile. Powered by a coil spring, it was one of the first cars ever seen in Canada. A few years later, in 1901, he introduced Sarnia’s first gas-powered auto. Unfortunately, the ‘horseless carriage’ frightened local residents so much that Council ordered it banned from the streets.
Born in Perth in 1843, Doherty moved to rural Lambton County with his family at age six.
As a young man he set up his own factory in Watford, where he built state-of-the-art agricultural equipment.
Moving to Sarnia in 1882, he set up a stove-building foundry and designed a hot water boiler that dramatically improved home heating systems, He was also responsible for the development of a new iron casting process that led to the construction of more durable stoves.
After serving on the local Board of Trade, Doherty was elected Mayor in the middle of the First World War.
Once in office, the innovative Doherty set about to bring hydro-electric street lights to the City and to find solutions to a nagging problem with the Municipality’s waterworks.
Indeed, new pumps were installed at his suggestion in a bid to make the waterworks system more effective.
Tragically, the 73-year old father of eight became the Community’s first Mayor to die in office, dropping dead on September 7, 1916, moments after delivering a speech at the opening of a new Sunday School.