cktimes.ca Archives for Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent


Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent

With Jim and Lisa Gilbert

Vessels on the water led to the development of Chatham-Kent

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Waterways in Chatham-Kent were the main routes of travel and transportation in the early days of settlement in the area. An apt comparison is that rivers like the Sydenham, St. Clair and Thames were the Hwy 401s of their time. They were also just as essential and and just as busy.
For example, as early as 1828 a steamboat ( named the ARGO) plied the Thames River between Detroit and the St Clair River. It was, by modern standards, a rather rough and crude means of conveyance. It was basically built of two immense logs hollowed out and surmounted by a deck on which a small engine was set up to operate the paddle wheels.
It travelled at a dizzying maximum speed of four miles an hour in calm water and a respectable two or three miles per hour against a strong current like it sometimes encountered in the St. Clair and the Thames River.
Stephen Brock who owned a store on the north east corner of King and Fifth Streets built Chatham's first wharf as well as Chatham's first merchant vessel. This boat, named SANS PAREIL by Brock, was a half decked craft of 50 tons plying between Chatham and Detroit.
The SANS PAREIL was definitely more seaworthy than the ARGO but they were not the definitive vessels to be built to be sailed on the Thames. These two boats were merely the initial ventures into the business of shipbuilding that was soon to occupy a good portion of the construction business that existed in Chatham in the 1840s and 1850s.
A good portion of Chatham's early shipbuilding industry was centered on the banks of McGregor's Creek, where it met the Thames River, behind Stephen Brock's store. A short time later, this wharf was expanded west to encompass the new Ebert's Block at the north west corner of King and Fifth Streets.
From Brock's wharf ( or Ebert's Wharf as it later came to be known) a number of vessels were subsequently launched. One of the earliest and most important ones was the SQUARE TOES in 1842.
Too large to be built on the creek or river bank, she was built on an inland site behind the Royal Exchange Hotel ( south west corner of King and Fifth Streets). It was the largest merchant boat to ply the Thames River up to that time.
The owners of the Eberts Block ( Walter and William Eberts) made good use of their excellent location in the heart of Downtown Chatham and their mastery of the Thames River to effectively and efficiently move immigrants, as well as all forms of merchandise, from the outside world to their wharf in Downtown Chatham. It not only made the Eberts Brothers Merchant Princes, but succeeded in bringing the fledgling town of Chatham into the exciting world of the future and, in turn, a good portion of Chatham-Kent..



Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.