By Phil Egan
From the very earliest days of the Sarnia community, people looked to the cool, clean waters of the St. Clair River for their daily needs. They would make the short journey to the riverbanks – short, because most of the villagers lived within a brief walking distance of the river. Dipping their wooden buckets into the water and making the journey home with the precious cargo was a daily ritual. Larger users would fill barrels or tubs, hauling them home on oxen-drawn carts or horse-drawn stone boats.
As late as the 1940s, there were citizens who could recall watching James Belchamber riding his cart down Front Street hauling his hotel’s cargo of water in multiple barrels.
It didn’t take long, however, for the daily drudgery of trekking down to the riverbank to result in people turning to less burdensome solutions. Above and below-ground cisterns, and household or neighbourhood wells soon were making life easier. Many preserved rainwater to conserve supplies in wells and cisterns.
Draymen used to drive their two-wheeled wagons to the foot of George Street, back them into the river, and fill barrels of water to sell around the town. This was life in Sarnia at the time of Confederation, but right up until the 1880s, draymen were relied upon to help the people of Sarnia maintain their water supplies.
In the 1870s, Sarnia remained a town principally clustered by the waterfront. Its business district, concentrated on Front Street, was still mostly constructed of wood. A census taken in 1871 showed that there were just under 3,000 citizens in the town, but public pressure began to mount for a water system capable of handling the needs of as many as 10,000 people. Sarnia was looking to the future.
This determination to create a city waterworks system was partially driven by fear. In the years prior to its installation, epidemics of ague, typhoid and malaria had struck the town, causing many deaths. Public opinion in the town blamed the suspect water system, particularly as the result of emissions from plants and factories fronting Sarnia Bay. In summer, the household well or cistern would often run dry, and occasionally this happened in winter as well. Citizens would then find themselves calling upon the two-wheeled platform drays that sold water drawn from the foot of Lochiel Street. The purity of the water drawn from Sarnia Bay was more than suspect.
In late summer, the townspeople voted 240 to 63 to shoulder a debt of $70,000 for a waterworks system. County Council agreed to back the debentures, and work got under way in the late fall of 1875. A new era for Sarnia lay ahead.