The Saga of the Moorings

The Old and the New: The Moorings before the structure's demolition. A new home was built on the property with the intention of removing the Moorings and it can be seen in the background.

It is always disappointing for the heritage community when historic buildings are demolished. The County of Lambton dealt with this issue recently when one of the county's oldest homes, a lakefront brick fortress in Hillsboro called "the Moorings," was demolished. Efforts to save the structure by the county's Cultural Services Division and heritage groups across Lambton proved fruitless, as plans to move the incredibly heavy building to a new site were prohibitively expensive. Additionally, to move the Moorings would take the building out of context: its location on the shore of Lake Huron is an important part of the structure's history and identify

The Moorings years ago.

Although the building has been demolished, there is still an excellent story to be told and, in the bicentennial year for the War of 1812, it is one of Lambton County's most well-known connections to the war. This blog will examine the history of the Moorings and the home's first owner, War of 1812 veteran Thomas Ledlie Crooke.

Thomas Ledlie Crooke, who was colloquially referred to around the county as "Commodore Crooke," was born in 1793 in Port Arlington, Queens County, Ireland (just north of Cork.) He was well-known around the community and is described in Margaret Hill and Frances French's History of the Moorings as "an attractive gentleman, sporting red hair with deep blue eyes... Thomas was known as an intelligent, industrious, honest, generous and friendly man, who was highly regarded by all who knew him."

He joined the Royal Navy on December 10, 1806, a traditional career move for third-born sons in Britain. He entered the Navy as a "First Class Volunteer," which according to Ron Dale, War of 1812 Project Manager with Parks Canada, "... was normally taken on board by an officer who was a friend of the family and would hope to do well as a 'boy,' possibly serving as the officer's servant and hoping to be appointed as a Midshipman when a vacancy occurred." During the War of 1812, he joined the Lake Ontario squadron under Admiral James Lucas Yeo on board the Prince Regent and then on the St. Lawrence. After the war ended he was "beached," meaning he was laid off but received a military pension with the understanding that he could be called back to work at any time. He returned to Ireland for some time, and in 1832 he was given a military land grant for 247.5 acres along the Lake Huron shore. He set sail from Ireland as a thirty-eight year old bachelor with his nineteen-year-old nephew Samuel Cantwell "Canty" Hill and landed in Port Sarnia on August 1, 1834.

Another vintage photograph of the Moorings.

Starting life in Canada's wilderness was taxing for early settlers. Crooke needed to clear his land, build a home and establish fields for farming. He envisioned building a grand stone house but hauling blocks of stone up the banks from boats on the lake proved to be an overwhelming task. After a stone foundation 43 feet long, 39 feet wide and 4 feet deep was built, Crooke opted for bricks to finish his home. He used the clay on his property and baked over 83,000 red clay bricks to complete the Moorings, which had walls four brick layers deep! The structure was intentionally built as strong as a fortress, strong enough to withstand a cannon ball if the Americans ever tried to invade Canada again. Crooke even took the trajectory of a cannon blast into consideration when deciding where to place the home on his property.

Some of the most interesting features of the home's interior included an immense fireplace in the living room, a solid walnut banister along the stairway, and a huge door-lock with a brass key six inches in length. Overnight accommodations for up to nineteen people were readily available, which was fortunate for Crooke, who enjoyed entertaining and having visitors to in home. According to records of the Hillsboro Cemetery, "He enjoyed entertaining and felt insulted in a guest left before staying a week."

The Moorings brushed with snow.

Crooke died November 25, 1864. He is buried in the Hillsboro Cemetery, which was established on land close to his home that he donated to the St. George Anglican Church in 1852. For those of you who just can't get enough of Commodore Crooke, this excellent description appears in Belden's Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of Lambton, Ontario, 1880:

He settled on Lot 49, lake shore, where he lived generally alone (he being a bachelor): but his genial manner and proverbial hospitality, coupled with his inimitable faculty of entertaining those of any and every taste, especially his amusing manner of relating an anecdote, drew around him such a number of friends as left him no time to become lonesome. There was however another very material inducement for people to visit his house - an inducement to which a greater charm attached in those days than at present - happily for the present. The 'magnet' referred to was a large barrel of whiskey, which is alleged to have been strictly first-class, and from this fountain of 'spirits' all were welcome to drink at any and all hours, as he always kept it on hand.

Lambton County's Titanic Connection: Oil Driller James McCrie

 

The world remembers the R.M.S. Titanic this month as April 15, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the ship's untimely demise. The sinking of the Titanic cost 1,514 deaths in one of the worst peacetime marine disasters in history. Lambton County may seem like it's far away from the Titanic disaster, but there is an intimate connection: one Sarnia man lost his life.

Local resident James McCrie was born in 1879, one of Matthew and Roxanna McCrie's eight children. Matthew and Roxanna were a farming and oil producing family who settled on Lot 2, Concession 14 in Enniskillen Township. Matthew McCrie was a respected citizen and politically active man whose "home [was] the center of a broad and liberal hospitality." (Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Lambton, J.H. Beers, 1906, p. 125)

James McCrie married Maud Brown on April 14, 1902, and the couple settled at 503 Christina Street North in Sarnia. James worked as an oil operator in Sarnia until late 1910 when he embarked on a journey to Egypt. James was following in the footsteps of many Lambton oil men before him who left Lambton County to drill oil wells and teach drilling techniques in countries around the world including Venezuela, Borneo and Russia. The first crew of "foreign drillers" left Petrolia in 1874, and a steady stream of Lambton County men traveled around the world for decades to follow (to learn more about the foreign drillers, visit the Black Gold section of the Oil Museum of Canada's website.) James McCrie left for Egypt in November, 1910 and completed an eighteen month contract. At the end of his contract he traveled to England, where he communicated with his wife and family for the last time. He sent his wife a letter in the first week of April to let her know he would be staying in England for a week in order to travel across the Atlantic in the new steamer, the Titanic. McCrie boarded the Titanic in Southampton on April 10, 1912, and did not survive the ship's sinking on April 15.

James's story was not soon forgotten: his father Matthew's obituary, which appeared in the Sarnia Observer on July 4, 1939, closed with these sentences: "A son, James, lost his life with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. He was an oil driller who was returning home from Egypt at the time." James McCrie met an untimely death, and he is remember this month on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

If you would like to learn more about his story, check out this article that appeared on the front page of the Sarnia Daily Observer on April 16, 1912:

Sarnia Man May Be Titanic Passenger

Jas. M. McCrie Was En Route Home From Egypt

Wrote Home Announcing Intention to Sail on Titanic

There is just a possibility that a Sarnia man in the person of James M. McCrie, oil operator North Christina street, may be one of the passengers on the ill-fated steamer Titanic, which sank to doom in the Atlantic ocean early Monday morning. Mr. McCrie, who is a driller by occupation, has been engaged in that pursuit for the past eighteen months or so in Egypt. A short time ago his contract expired and he was on his way home to Sarnia. A letter recently received from him by Mrs. McCrie announced his arrival in England and also conveyed the information that he intended to remain over in England a week in order to make the passage across the ocean on the new steamer Titanic. So far Mrs. McCrie has not received any information contrary to the above and grave fears are entertained that Mr. McCrie may have been one of the passengers on the ill-fated steamer. The name of Jas. McCrie appears on the list of second cabin passengers on the Titanic.

Sarnia Historical Film Footage on YouTube: 1941 Wartime Parade and 1950s Home Show

I received a very interesting donation several weeks ago and I'm happy to be able to share it here! The digital donation is a combination of the work of a father and son both passionate about the history of Lambton County.

The father-son duo is George and Derek Smith. George L. Smith was responsible for much of the material that now makes up the Lambton Room's collection. He was an avid collector and wrote many books and booklets on Lambton history including the popular "A History of Sarnia in Pictures" as well as lesser known pieces like "A History of A.B.C. Books of Lambton County." Both his writing and his collection of newspaper clippings, photographs and history books form some of the cornerstones of our archival collection. For more on Smith's contributions to the Lambton Room, see an earlier blog, Where Did Our Collection Come From?

In addition to collecting and writing, Smith did some work with film, including a video of a wartime parade in Sarnia in 1941 and a video from a home show in the Sarnia Arena in the 1950s. Both sets of film are degrading in composition and quality as the decades have gone by. Fortunately, George Smith's son Derek has inherited his father's appreciate for Lambton County history, and also has a knack for video editing. Derek has taken the time to digitize his father's film, tinker with the film quality and produce two excellent digital copies of the old film.

The wartime parade marched down Confederation Street in 1941, and we believe that George Smith stood at the intersection of Confederation Street and Mitton Line while filming. The video features young soldiers as well as aged veterans. Most of the video is in black and white but it does feature an amazing colour sequence with a series of floats that have slogans like "K.O. Hitler," "More Machine Guns," "Make Your Savings Fight For You" and "Canada Needs More Planes." The video was uploaded to YouTube and split into two sections, so make sure that you visit the links for both sections: Sarnia Wartime Parade 1941, Part 1 and Sarnia Wartime Parade 1941, Part 2.

The home show was filmed sometime in the 1950s. It reveals a huge crowd that turned out to the Sarnia Arena for a display of modern appliances and home accessories. Local companies can be seen touting their merchandise. Interesting, the video transitions into what looks like a talent competition sponsored by local radio station CHOK! I went through our Sarnia Observer indexes and our files for information about the home show but did not find anything to provide us with more details. If you know anything about this home show, please post and let us know! The home show has also been posted on YouTube and can be viewed at Sarnia Home Show, 1950s.

I hope that you enjoy these moving pictures from the past!

Summer Fun at the Beachers' Club: 1914-1928

Rare photo of the Beachers' Club.

With spring just around the corner and our recent blast of warm weather, I know that many of us are looking forward to summer and all the activities we'll be able to enjoy. I recently dug up some interesting material from the Beachers' Club, a group of young Sarnian gentlemen who "believed that summers were endless, nights filled with music and pretty girls and that the days of youth would never end." (Red Wilson from the Observer, July 28, 1978).

The Beachers' Club was founded in 1914.
Founding members of the club include two WWI veterans, Harvey (Hot Dog) Douglas and Reg Savage, and characters like Moon from Ingersoll (who reportedly always brought a book to read but never got around to reading it). The tincovered building was located where the Sarnia streetcar turned sharply east near the Grandview (or Wees Beach) Hotel, just off Lake Huron. If you're trying to place that location on a modern map, it's at the end of Colborne Road!

This diagram shows the path of the Sarnia Street Railway heading towards Lake Huron, and the Wees Beach Hotel. Image the Beachers' Club nestled near where the streetcar takes the sharp turn east. Diagram published June, 1904 and entitled, "Diagram showing Sarnia Street Railway from Christina Street to Wees Beach Hotel, Township of Sarnia."

In the Observer of July 28, 1978, Red Wilson wrote a history of the Beachers' Club and gave this description of their clubhouse: "The Club held no secrets. It was open for all the world to see. About June the front was lifted to make a sort of patio roof. The interior, festooned with pennants, was a landmark from its inception until it moved across the road into a new and more substantial building. The new headquarters were more modern, sophisticated and roomier than the old. But they lacked that touch of glamor of the old."

Beachers' Club Reunion Itinerary

So what did these young men do at the Beachers' Club?  I couldn't find very many records of the club's activities in its heyday between 1914 and 1928, but I did find hints about what those boys got up to in some material released for a reunion that occurred August 15, 16 and 17 in 1941. The itinerary for this reunion promised sports, good meals, visiting hours (with a special tea where ladies were invited), and "... poker in the kitchen for the affluent and carefree -- chess or checkers for the serious." Attendees of this reunion were told to bring the following items: 

• Pyjamas - the regular regalia;
• Blankets enough for both sides of you;
• A pillow, too, if you must have it; don't bank on borrowing;
• One old white sheet for the ghost walk;
• Any musical instrument you toot or tickle;
• A disposition to let bygones be bygones and a hope for the continuance and dignity of the BEACHERS CLUB.

Beachers' Club Reunion Intivation

An official invitation accompanied that itinerary and was sent out to approximately sixty former members of the camp. It included notes from some men who had already RSVP'ed for the event. Some of the comments included:

• Jerry Battrum, "I got my Ukulele all tuned up - bring your voice well oiled."
• Reg Savage, "If you boys would like a date - I still have the old book."
• Ray Miller, "I'll get out the old jallopy and just start something."
• Red Wilson, "Ahh, boys, please let me sleep!"

Sounds like they enjoyed friendship, a bit of mischief and long summer days. Hopefully we can all enjoy these things as spring will soon turn to summer! Red Wilson reminisces fondly in the Observer article mentioned above, "They were good days then."

Twenty-two of the former campers invited would attend the 1941 reunion. This picture appeared in the Observer the week after the reunion in August.

The Story Behind Sarnia's Art Movement

Gallery Lambton is physically changing locations and adopting a new name; the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery is slated to open later in 2012. Have you ever wondered where and when Sarnians first had an opportunity to be inspired by great art? The answer lies in the efforts of a local women's group who fund-raised for Red Cross during WWI and the networking skills of local lawyer Norman Gurd.

Gurd followed his father Robert Gurd into legal practice, pursuing his studies in Toronto and returning to Sarnia in 1896 to work with the firm Kittermaster & Gurd. A strong believer in the library system, Gurd is credited with creating and popularizing the slogan, "The library belonds to you, do you belong to the library?"

Early art exhibition catalogue from Sarnia Public Library

Gurd's enthusiasm for the library system brought him closer to the network that would bring art to Sarnia. It was the Women's Art Conservation Committee (later the Women's Conservation Art Association) that purchased the first paintings to be hung in the Sarnia Public Library. The committee was an offshoot of the Women's Conservation Committee created during the First World War to raise funds for Red Cross. These ladies collected waste such as paper, cloth, fats and metals, which were in turn sold to local scrap dealers.

When WWI came to a close, the Women's Conservation Committee was seeking an alternative recipient for the financial fruits of their fund-raising efforts. Committee president Frances Flintoft wrote to Norman Gurd on July 25, 1919: "We have felt for some time past, that we should have displayed in the library, good pictures which would have an educating influence upon the public and would show them what good Art really is. There is no opportunity of this kind in Sarnia." She reflected on this process in a letter on March 2, 1929: "... turn our organization into an art association when the war was over - to buy Canadian pictures by Canadian artists and to form the nucleus of a permanent collection to have in the Public Library until such time as Sarnia should have an art gallery."

First two pages of a letter from Women's Conservation Art Committee President Frances Flintoft, March 2, 1929 reminiscing about the birth of the art movement in Sarnia.

After fulfilling the Red Cross's needs, the Women's Art Conservation Committee had $300.00 left and put this money towards the purchase of three paintings in March, 1920. George L. Smith records in his book, Norman Gurd and the Group of 7, that the pieces purchased were A.Y. Jackson's "Spring Lower Canada," H.B. Palmer's "Sawing Logs" and J.W. Beatty's "Winter near Toronto." [These links will take you to Gallery Lambton's online catalogue: note in the Credit Line, "Gift of the Sarnia Women's Conservation Art Association."] Other paintings purchased by the committee included Tom Thomson's "Chill November" (in December, 1920) and Lawren S. Harris's "Mongoose Lake" (in February, 1925).

Tom Thomson's "Chill November."

Sarnia Public Library was proud to display these paintings, offering  Sarnians a safe place to gather and appreciate art. Gurd expressed in a letter to Dr. Locke, head of the Toronto Public Library on November 3, 1919, that he would like to acquire "good pictures which would be truly representative of Canadian Art." What came to be known as the Sarnia Public Library and Art Gallery held various exhibitions and encouraged the sale and appreciation of authentic Canadian artwork.

Sarnia's art community was born out of the desire to allow the public easy access to great art; the patriotic desire to promote/display Canadian art; and the fund-raising efforts of grassroots community groups.

The Lambton Room is fortunate to have some interesting documentation of art's introduction into Sarnia. We have preserved much of Norman Gurd's correspondence, including a series of letters received from A.Y. Jackson in the 1920s discussing exhibitions and the sale of artwork. Our collection of catalogues from exhibitions at the Sarnia Public Library is also interesting, along with our biographical information on Gurd and newspaper clippings documenting his contributions to Sarnia.

Letter from A.Y. Jackson to Norman Gurd, February 16, 1925. Jackson and Gurd are corresponding about the availability of paintings for upcoming exhibitions. Jackson writes: "I am afraid we cannot find any more Thomson canvases. They are practically finished. We have a small one in the building which we are sending to Wembley. There are a few unfinished ones around but no great quality in them. The family are holding quite a number of sketches but will not sell them..."

Local History Gem! The Sarnia Observer Negative Collection

The Sarnia Observer Negative Collection is one of the most interesting and accessible collections at the Lambton Room. It is comprised of over 58,000 negatives of photographs that appeared in the Sarnia Observer in the 1950s and 1960s. In this blog post, I'm going to examine what makes this collection so interesting, and take a look into the future by acknowledging a recent donation from the Observer with new decades of material!

Sarnia Observer Negative: Sep. 29, 1950, SCITS Blue Bombers

The Sarnia Observer Negative Collection was almost lost before it could begin. According to the story handed down by past generations of Lambton County history enthusiasts, local historian and writer George Smith discovered that the Observer was discarding its collection of old negatives. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Where Did Our Collection Come From?, the story goes that Mr. Smith fished the negative collection from a dumpster behind the Observer office. We are fortunate for George Smith's zeal for Lambton County's history!

The photographic negatives are valuable because they allow us to create prints of images that appeared in the newspaper in the 1950s and 1960s. We have the newspapers on microfilm, but the pictures often do not show up well on microfilm, and when they are printed the results are often disappointing. With the Sarnia Observer Negative Collection, we can locate the original negatives and make significantly better quality scans and prints of the images.

Sarnia Observer Negative: Remembrance Day Parade, 1952

Summer students have been working with the Sarnia Observer Negative Collection for over ten years to increase its accessibility. The entire collection of 58,000 negatives has been indexed by summer students, and this index is available online. The Lambton County Libraries, Museums and Gallery web page has a link to the "Museum Catalogue." In this catalogue, you can browse the Sarnia Observer Negative Collection by searching for "Sarnia Observer Negative" in the drop-down search bar (the direct link is here). All of the photographs are indexed by event, location, and names of the individuals. In recent summers, students have begun the long process of scanning the negatives and uploading the images to accompany these database descriptions

Currently, the Observer is in the midst of compiling space in its downtown office. I was fortunate enough to speak with some staff from the Observer at the end of 2011 regarding some material that was going to lose its current office space. That material included negatives from the mid-1980s to early 2000s, as well as some original bound volumes of the newspaper. I was more than happy to take this material off their hands! The generous donation is now safely stored in our vault where it will be preserved. It will take numerous summer students and a lot of perseverance, but we look forward to the day when these additional negatives are also indexed and uploaded to the museum catalogue. A huge thank you to the Observer for donating this material to our archives!

Sarnia Observer Negative: Apr. 20, 1950, Ken Maidman Kayaks in Sarnia Bay

St. Clair Excursions on the Tashmoo

American company White Star Lines operated the Tashmoo or "The Glass Hack," a beloved ship that provided passenger service between Detroit, Port Huron and Sarnia. This speedy paddle wheeler took countless Lambton residents on pleasant excursions down the St. Clair River between 1901 and 1936.

The Tashmoo was built at Wyandotte, Michigan in 1899 and classed as a lake and river boat with a capacity for up to 3,500 passengers. During summer months she made daily excursion trips, and in the St. Clair River alone called at Algonac, Port Lambton, Marine City, St. Clair, Stag Island, South Park, Port Huron and twice at Sarnia. Leaving from Sarnia, a trip aboard the Tashmoo including a stop at Stag Island cost just under a dollar, about 80 or 90 cents. Jean Elford provides a charming description of a passenger's experience aboard the Tashmoo in the evening: "Hundreds of electric lights twinkled and were reflected on the great stretches of glass that enclosed the dining room and ballroom on A deck, the sixteen private parlours on B deck, and the aft portion of C deck. With the rest of her in darkness, she gave the illusion of floating above the water, and as she went the music of Finzel's orchestra added all that was needed to make her wonderfully romantic."

In the Sarnia Observer on August 20, 1983, O.N. (Red) Wilson reminisced fondly about the Tashmoo: "There are still those among us who dived into the bubbly wake cast up by the paddle wheels when the big ship left the dock. It took a lot of hard swimming to keep from going under the froth that refused to keep the swimmer afloat... While the ship was docked at Sarnia the 'water rats' dove for the pennies tossed into the water by passengers. The more successful dove, retrieved the slanting coins, tucked them into their mouths and kept right on chasing the money. They did it also with the Northern Navigation boats."

The Tashmoo was also known for her speed. After the ship's first summer of work, an official of the White Star Line bragged that she could outdistance the City of Erie or the City of Buffalo. The boasts were taken seriously and on June 4, 1901 a race was set up between the Tashmoo and the City of Erie. Both ships took the lead at some point during the hour-long race, but the City of Erie edged out the Tashmoo with a speed of 21.76 miles per hour to the Tashmoo's 21.70 miles per hour.

Unfortunately, Lambton residents would not enjoy whimsical summer nights aboard the Tashmoo forever. In the evening of June 19, 1936 while approaching the Livingstone channel below Grosse Ile, a trembling altered Captain McAlpine. The ship had hit a rock and an eight inch hole was quickly bringing in water. The captain wisely zipped the ship to shore and the crowd went ashore to the music of the orchestra, quite unaware that circumstances were more dire than just an engine malfunction. Once damages were assessed it was determined that the $750,000 price tag it would cost to repair the boat was too high, and the Tashmoo was sold for scrap. She had a wonderful 36-year run and created countless fond memories of airy summer nights.