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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
THE RESURRECTION OF S.T. MARTIN WAS A HIGHLIGHT OF THIS YEAR’S CEMETERY STROLLS
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
If you missed going on this fall’s Maple Leaf Cemetery Stroll you missed a lot! There were some amazing portrayals of local characters on those tours and, as more than one person said to me after the Stroll, “…that was the best $20.00 I have ever spent!” I agree! As a guide I was as amazed about what these actors and actresses did with their interpretations and I was as blown away as all of the Cemetery Stroll participants.For example if you did not get a chance to witness, in the eerie darkness of a cemetery night, Hank Smit playing Samuel Taylor Martin you missed a portrayal that perfectly captured the man, his times and his place in local and national history. Although Hank has played Dr. T.K Holmes for more than 20 years at various Spirit Walks and Cemetery Strolls his new characterization was just as fascinating. In fact, it was just as fascinating as the real S.T. Martin!
Martin was born on February 2, 1839 in the County of Monaghan in Ireland but at the tender age of only eight years he with his family moved to Canada. They lived in the Hamilton area for a number of years before they ultimately settled on a farm in Howard Township in Kent County.
In 1874 S.T. came to live in Chatham as a man of thirty five years. Once a resident of the future Maple City, Martin wasted little time in getting involved in the life of the town. He served for several years as a member of the Chatham High School Board, was connected to Town Council in a number of positions and even served a time as mayor.
However it was not for his admirable civic duties that S.T. Martin gained fame and a small fortune. It was in a scheme that he devised to reclaim the fertile marsh lands of Dover Township.
In 1879 Martin purchased a block of 600 acres in the Township of Dover and was soon shocked to find out that what at low water was a good rich clay loam was, for the greater part of the year, nothing more than a miniature lake!
Undaunted Martin attempted to secure his investment by erecting a four foot dyke around his property and then attempting to pump out the water by means of a windmill. Alas, to no avail, for the windmill did not make a measurable dent in the level of Martin’s lake.
He then tried two pumps but again this was not sufficient even when they were driven to perform at fifty strokes a minute. The effect was barely perceptible and Martin was forced to once again return to the drawing board.
More determined than ever to save his land, Martin came up with his own invention. Known later on as “Martin’s Scoop Water Wheel” the creation was a wheel 16 feet in diameter and 3 feet wide. It was designed to dip into the water 4 feet and, at 6 revolutions per minute, could lift 14,000 gallons of water in that same minute.
Many of the local farmers watched Martin’s latest attempt with much scepticism, outright scorn and a few smirks. However their negative looks changed to ones of outright amazement and admiration when the Water Wheel drained, within the week, 50 acres of previously unusable land. By the fall of that same year Martin’s “land of lakes” was producing 120 bushels of corn to the acre.
Thanks to S.T. “Scoop” Martin 32,000 acres of previous useless marsh land in Essex and Kent Counties were transformed into highly valued and extremely fertile farm land as well as many other acres throughout North America.
Martin’s success led to the formation of the Chatham Dredging and General Contracting Company with S.T. assuming the positions of both manager and treasurer. The latter position he held until his death in March of 1908 from heart failure.
Thanks to the amazing drainage wheel that Martin created he became a very rich man. With his new found wealth he built a massive home on Victoria Avenue ( directly across from Blessed Sacrament Church) that still impressively stands to-day.
His funeral was held at his home on Victoria Avenue and then the funeral cortege proceeded solemnly to Maple Leaf Cemetery. Here he rested in peace until Hank Smit and the 2011 Cemetery Strolls brought him back into prominence and a brief “after life”.
Somehow I feel that S.T. “Scoop” Martin would have been as proud as punch that we as a community had not forgotten him, his wheel and his genius. He, like so many other men and women, in cemeteries scattered throughout Chatham Kent need to be remembered and never forgotten. It is the least we can do for all those who have done so much for our community.
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
