by Brian Bolt for the Sarnia (2001) In its glory days in the late 1800s, the former Belchamber Hotel building was a downtown Sarnia landmark reputed to be one of the finest hotels in Ontario. Today, while the historic four-storey building at 178 Front St. N. isn’t about to revisit [...]
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 George Mathewson for The Sarnia Journal (2014) It’s been climbed on, posed beside and rendezvoused at by half the people in Sarnia at one time or another. But the origins of the cannon in Canatara Park, and how it got there, have long been a mystery. Now, two men [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He was the first Sarnia Mayor who had to deal with a genuine terrorism crisis. Dr. Arthur Poussette, who became the Municipality's 16th Mayor in 1886, found himself in office at a time when the community was badly torn by the prohibition issue. [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer A century before the local Economic Development Commission was established, Mayor Joe Lowrie was actively urging new industries to locate in Sarnia. Lowrie, who was born in Berwickshire, Scotland, came to Canada in 1852 and immediately established a Blacksmith Shop on Victoria Street. [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer A century before Marceil Saddy launched his annual Mayor's Honour List, George Leys was recognizing the achievements of outstanding Sarnians. Just days after being sworn in as Sarnia's 13th Chief Magistrate in 1880, Mayor Leys held a reception at his 171 Lochiel Street [...]
by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He was the 'Mayor Mike' of the 19th century. Like Mayor Mike Bradley - who liked people to refer to him as 'Mayor Mike' – Michael Fleming was elected Chief Magistrate while still a very young man. In fact, when Mayor Bradley was [...]
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 Charles Phelps (1980) From the 1870s the Blackwell Sideroad was the dividing line between School Section Three (Bright’s Grove School) and School Section Six (Clark’s School at Murphy Road). The children from Blackwell Sideroad east went to S.S. No. 3 and the children from Blackwell Sideroad west attended S.S. [...]
by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Upper Canada’s Last Frontier (1982) The opening of a line between Port Huron and Chicago in 1879 brought a great increase in traffic to both the Great Western and the Grand Trunk. Three years later, the two lines amalgamated under the Grand Trunk name [...]
