by Jean Turnbull Elford (1982) Beginning with British rule in the northern part of this continent, land was acquired from the Indians as it was needed for new settlers. Because of legislation passed in 1763, no Indian band forfeited their land without their own and the Crown’s consent. The Indians [...]
by Jean Turnbull Elford in Canada West’s Last Frontier (1982) Point Edward, Lambton’s largest incorporated village, placed where Lake Huron empties into the River St. Clair, made its way into recorded history earlier than any other part of Lambton. The first written account comes from the pen of Father Hennepin [...]
By Phil Egan, Special for the Sarnia Jornal, Then and Now (2015) He enrolled at Notre Dame at age 15, and went on to become president of a university. He rode with Union forces during the U.S. Civil war through some of its fiercest fighting in Tennessee and Georgia. In [...]
by Phil Egan In the middle of the 19th century, there were over 1,000 sawmills operating in Ontario. It had become the normal course of development when settlers began to establish new hamlets and villages. They wanted to build, and that meant they needed a sawmill. George Durand built the [...]
By Pat McLean, Special for The Sarnia Journal (2015) Ask anyone if they know who Malcolm Cameron was, and most won’t know anything but the name. But we should. In my opinion, he was the true founder of our city. In 1834, Cameron bought 200 acres from the Crown for [...]
By Jean Elford for the Sarnia Gazette (1961) Everyone familiar with downtown Sarnia refers to building number 176 on the east side of Front Street south of Lochiel as the Belchamber. It has been called that ever since James Belchamber had it built as a hotel in 1866. The name [...]
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 [...]
by R.W. Ford (1987) Stretching for over 30 kilometres along the St. Clair River from the southern tip of Lake Huron to the village of Sombra lies the largest concentration of petroleum and chemical industry in Canada. Some 25 kilometres inland ancient oil wells grudgingly yield a few barrels of [...]
by Lawrence A. Crich (1986) No history of early education in Sarnia would be complete without some mention of the efforts of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in Upper Canada on the St. Clair Indian Reserve. The Reserve then covered a much greater area than its modern counterpart stretching north [...]
by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Canada West’s Last Frontier (1982) With Lake Huron on the north side and the St. Clair River along its western border, Lambton County owes its early development and ensuing prosperity in large measure to its position on these waters. The first settlers came into [...]
