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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
ANTI-TEMPERANCE TERRORISTS TERRORIZED CHATHAM IN THE LATE 1880s
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Try to imagine this scene. It’s 3:00 A.M. on a warm summer’s night in August. The upscale mansions on Victoria Avenue near Amelia Street seem tranquil, safe and utterly secure. That is until the peaceful early morning hours are shattered by a stick of dynamite that blows the heavy front door of Hugh F. Cumming’s home to small little pieces, severely damaging windows, the inside vestibule and splitting in half the stone window ledge upon which the stick of dynamite had been placed.Needless to say the citizens of Chatham were in a state of absolute shock. After all the town could no longer be considered to be a back woods settlement. It was, after all, 1887. The economy was healthy, businesses were flourishing, city status was a mere eight years away and huge homes like those on Victoria Avenue were becoming more numerous every year.
The thought of dynamiting a house on Victoria Avenue in the middle of the night was unthinkable. The only reason that seemed halfway plausible was that someone was sending a strong message to Mr. Cumming that they did not like his strong support of the Scott Act.
The Scott Act ( or the Canada Temperance Act) was a measure put through the Dominion parliament R.W. Scott that allowed municipalities to vote themselves “dry”. In the Chatham of the late 1870s, the uncontested champion of the Scott Act in Chatham was none other than Mr. Hugh F. Cumming.
Clues were few in the case and Chatham’s police force ( consisting of 5 men) were unable to make any immediate progress. The servant girl at the Cumming home thought that she had heard footsteps running out the back yard and thought that she had heard a fleeing carriage on Llydican Avenue ( directly behind the Cummings home) shortly before the explosion occurred. However, this was of little help and ultimately led nowhere.
The town council put up a reward of $500.00 for the arrest and conviction of the “dynamiter” but a month passed and no one had been arrested. The local constabulary unaccustomed to dealing with what we would, in 2010, call terrorism seemed utterly confounded and were probably hoping that the whole episode would magically disappear as quickly as it had arrived. However, that was only wishful thinking!
At three minutes to two on Friday September 23rd, the early morning serenity was once again shattered by a deafening explosion that could be heard all over town. The patrolling officers knew the sound came from North Chatham and immediately suspected that the Cummings home had once more been the target. However, after converging upon the Cummings residence they found that all was quiet.
Returning to the police station at the foot of Victoria Avenue ( close to where the LTCVA Office is in 2010) they embarrassingly found out that they had passed the scene of the explosion twice on their way to the Cumming’s home. The explosion had taken place on the south side of Grant Street at the home of former County Clerk Daniel Kerr. The frame house on the south side of Grant Street had every window shattered, shingles had been torn off the roof and a blackened spot from the blast against the house indicated gunpowder, rather than dynamite, had been used this time.
As in the Cumming explosion, few clues were found. A half-burned match was found on the sidewalk and a neighbour once again thought that she heard a buggy in the street a short time before the blast. The tie in between the Cumming and Kerr “attacks” soon became apparent – both men had been vocal supporters of the Scott Act within Chatham.
As one might expect, the County of Kent Temperance Association passed a resolution extending sympathy to Messrs. Cumming and Kerr and severely criticized the local officials for their “feeble attempts” at bringing to justice “the perpetrators of these dastardly outrages to justice”.
Demonstrating that the negative reaction to the passing of the Scott Act within Chatham and Kent County was not limited to Chatham alone, “ the anti-temperance terrorists” struck one more time in September 1887. This time it was in Wallaceburg and instead of explosive devices, it was arson.
Magistrate McDougall of Wallaceburg was a another strong supporter of the Scott Act and had just recently convicted a local hotel-keeper , for the third time, of violating the Scott Act by illegally selling alcohol. A relative of the jailed man ( a man named Martin Martin) sought vengeance against the magistrate and set fire to McDougall’s stables and outbuildings.
McDougall was particularly upset as the fire department arrived late, did not “throw any water” and to add insult to injury, few local residents offered to help put out the fire. It was obvious that in Wallaceburg, at any rate, there was not a great deal of support for the Scott Act.
Meanwhile back in Chatham, “the horse-and-buggy bomber” continued to elude police and was making plans to strike one more time. This time the target was License Inspector Israel Evans. The date was January 23, 1888. The time was midnight. The location was an apartment on King Street. This time two young, innocent girls were peacefully sleeping when…. . well… I’m afraid that story will have to wait until next week.
Make sure you tune into cktimes next week when you’ll find out what happened to these poor innocent young lasses, how a light snowfall did what the police could not do and the identity of the “horse and buggy bomber” will be finally revealed!!
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
