by the Sarnia Gazette
(1970) When General Ulysses S. Grant stayed overnight in Point Edward [Editor’s Note: in 1865] he had a choice of six hotels…one of which was the Holder’s Hotel on Michigan Avenue…still going strong today as a popular oasis for village and other beer drinkers.
Built in 1865 on land purchased by the Grand Trunk (and bought in English pounds in the late 1830s) the original brickwork of the present day Balmoral still stands today.
Inside would not be recognizable to the stage coach travellers who made Point Edward their ferry-crossing point to the United States. Air conditioning and complete renovations have altered the one-time hostelry, bought in 1965 by John Kowalyshyn. Recent owners have been Claire Lannon and Freddie Mara but little is known of the original Holder after whom the hotel was named and donor of the name to Holder’s Lane adjacent to today’s building.
In the 1800s, Point Edward far outstripped Sarnia in both size and potential. The river was at its narrowest at the lake’s mouth and it was the main crossing point between Montreal and Chicago.
Countless thousands of immigrants, too, went to Canada’s far west after crossing at The Point. The village boasted not only 6 hotels in the railroad centre of Lambton, but things as diverse as a Swift Canadian abbatoir, a marble works, an ice house showed all the signs of being the centre of the County. When the St. Clair Railway Tunnel was built, the village collapsed… hundreds of homes were moved by horse and wheeled floats to Sarnia where many still stand today along Confederation, Campbell, South Vidal and South Christina.
Even into the time of 20th century world wars the Point played a role in unique manufacturing. It was the centre of a munitions plant up to 1919….a well-kept secret from the Kaiser’s spies, and in the 1940s, minesweepers were manufactured in the Point.