by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He was the Mayor who through the biggest party in Sarnia's history. Frederick Davis, who served as the community's seventh Mayor, was largely responsible for the huge hash held to mark the first ever Canada Day, or Dominion Day, as it was called [...]
by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer If you live downtown and are bothered at night by the sound of trains along the waterfront, you can blame Mayor Robert Mackenzie. That's because the community’s sixth Chief Magistrate presided over the Council that agreed to allow tracks to be laid along [...]
by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer The public can be fickle. Joshua Adams, the first Sarnia Mayor to be defeated at the polls, found that out the hard way. Mayor Adams, who was elected the community's fifth Chief Magistrate in 1862, started out as an exceedingly popular politician. But [...]
by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer In the early years of its history, Sarnia turned to a doctor to help cure its economic ills. Specifically, the community selected Thomas William Johnston as its fourth Mayor in 1859. And it chose the Irish native to head Council two more times, [...]
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 [...]
by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Upper Canada’s last Frontier (1982) Lambton had three railway lines when the question of bonusing the Erie and Huron arose. This line was to extend north from Erieau on Lake Erie to Sarnia. As well as giving local service, it was to be a [...]
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 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 It happened 148 years ago, but it was a massive, destructive blaze the likes of which Sarnia hasn’t see before or since. The fire that tore across Sarnia’s commercial downtown district on the night of Thursday, November 14, 1867, destroyed Sarnia’s business core, but it could have [...]
