cktimes.ca Archives for Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
International has had a long history in Chatham
Tuesday, November 5, 2002
Although many of us had an ominous feeling that it was going to happen, it was still rather a disheartening shock to actually hear, officially, that Chatham's International Plant was to be closed. It is all the more upsetting when one realizes that the impetus for the factory really began in the 1880s.The owner of the Thames Steam Navigation Company was a shrewd businessman with the knack of knowing how to successfully prepare for the future. Colonel Henry Van Allen passed on this business acumen to his nephew Daniel Van Allen whom he had encouraged to join him in Chatham and stake his claim in the town on the Thames that the wise old Colonel felt was on the verge on something big.
Daniel's first years of employment in Chatham were spent at his uncle's store where he quickly learned the "ins and outs" of running a business. By 1842, Daniel was ready to strike out on his own and ventured to Dresden where he began a small but profitable general store.
Realizing that the Crimean War was quickly exhausting British supplies, Daniel began to prepare for a time, in the near future, when England would be calling upon the colonies to pick up the slack and start producing a variety of products. Chatham, having the advantage of being a port on a navigable river that led directly to the Atlantic, was a perfect spot for Daniel to launch the second phase of his career.
In the late 1850s, Daniel Van Allen and his wife, Susanna, returned to Chatham and they wasted little time in establishing the North Chatham Saw Mill on Head Street (Grand Avenue East today). In a remarkably short period of time, Daniel was not only able to meet the local demand for lumber but also supply hard wood lumber, ship planks and other maritime materials that could be exported to the resource-hungry British Isles for considerable profit.
Van Allen continued to supply lumber for buildings and ships until the latter part of the 19th century. At that juncture in his life he once again was able to take out his crystal ball and accurately look into Chatham's near future. He predicted that as Chatham grew and farms continued to expand outwards from the city, a new form of transportation was needed to transport a farmer's goods to the rail stations on the railway tracks cutting swaths across Chatham-Kent.
Van Allen quickly seized the moment and on the same Head Street location began to manufacture wagons at his newly formed company called the Chatham Wagon Works. His quality product quickly caught on and, thanks to an excellent marketing plan, he began to market his wagons to not only an appreciative local market but also to farmers all over North America who just had to have "one of those Chatham wagons"!
Soon the Chatham Wagon Works became so prosperous and well-known that it attracted the attention of the large U.S. firm known as International Harvester which quickly saw the potential inherent in Van Allen's wagon. It eventually bought the Chatham Wagon Works and incorporated it into its vast holdings. So – in a very real sense the loss of the present day International Plant is a loss that has connections going back to the1880s.
Resourceful, shrewd, flexible and prescient ,Daniel Van Allen personified the best of Chatham businessmen in the dying days of the 19th century. It was this kind of forward thinking and aggressive wheeling and dealing that allowed Chatham to become a city a few years later in 1895 and to maintain its optimistic view that the future truly "belonged to Chatham".
Maybe it's time for a modern version of Daniel Van Allen to step forward and provide Chatham-Kent with a similar direction for the next 100 years. After all, there must be at least one more Daniel Van Allen out there somewhere!
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
