by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Canada West’s Last Frontier (1982) Nothing could look better to the pioneers of Lambton than a railway when what roads they had were almost impassable and water transportation was halted by ice for months on end. In 1836 with commendable optimism the settlers of [...]
by Dan McCaffery for The Sarnia Oberver You might say he was the John A. Macdonald of Sarnia politicians. Or maybe the Richard M. Nixon. Thomas Forsyth was the community’s first Mayor, serving from March 28, 1857 until he was forced to resign under a cloud five months later. The Sombra [...]
by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Canada West’s Last Frontier The earliest ferry to run between Sarnia and Port Huron was a sailboat. A Sarnia named Crampton got a license to run her in 1836. In the 1840s a horse-powered ferry began to run with George Moffat in charge. Julius [...]
by Phil Egan Special for The Sarnia Journal He arrived by way of London and the old Errol Road, driving a team of oxen and a cart filled with goods he intended to sell. His destination was the collection of log shanties huddled together at “The Rapids.” He was 28 [...]
by Mike Bradley (2015) Poets in the 1800s were the rock stars of today. One of the biggest was Walt Whitman, whose most famous and controversial poetry collection was Leaves of Grass. He started writing Leaves of Grass in the early 1850s and was still working on and revising the [...]
by Phil Egan (2015) It sits quietly on the lawn in front of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 62 on Front Street. Its massive gun is silent, but the battle tank “Calamity” still carries an unmistakeable air of deadly menace. As you might expect, there is a story behind it. [...]
by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer (2003) In the spring of 1914, Sarnia finally shed its small-town image. It came on May 7 of that year when the community was finally given ‘city’ status. At that time, it adopted the nickname ‘The Imperial City.’ Mayor Joseph Dagan was the [...]
by Karen Robinet for the Sarnia Observer (2003) “I have always held those political opinions which point to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter in what rank of life he may have taken his origin.” Alexander Mackenzie, Canada’s first Liberal prime minister and editor of the Lambton Shield newspaper, [...]
by George Mathewson for The Sarnia Journal (2015) Froome Talfourd has a street, a hamlet and a creek that bears his name, but it was a cottage he built in what’s now downtown Sarnia that impressed one early city historian Talfourd’s cottage was high on a hill overlooking Sarnia Bay [...]
By Cathy Dobson for the Sarnia Observer (2009) "When you live in these big old buildings, you become a part of the past," says Lynne Brogden, looking up at the 12-foot ceilings of the art gallery she operates at 251 Vidal Street North. "The feeling inside this space is glorious," [...]
