cktimes.ca Archives for Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Etched in glass, etched in history
Tuesday, February 4, 2003
It's most clearly visible at night when the light inside the front door vestibule highlights it but it's definitely there. In fact, it's been part of this impressive house, at 287 King Street West, since the late 1800s. It's merely a name etched in glass over the front door but it's also a name that's firmly etched into the history of not only Chatham-Kent but Canada as well.The name "T.K. Holmes" dates back to the earliest times in the history of Chatham-Kent. His grandfather, Hugh Holmes, was one of the area's earliest citizens. As early as 1790, this former Irish sailor was listed as a farmer and school master in Dover East and four years later had purchased a larger tract of land, Lot #23, in Harwich Township.
Hugh Holmes had three daughters and four sons with one of those sons being Abraham . Abraham married, in the 1830s, Jane Gibson from Salem, Massachusetts and on January 1839 were the proud parents of a big strapping baby boy. They wasted little time in naming their new addition. Abraham as a young lad had witnessed the retreat and valiant final battle fought by Chief Tecumseh at the Battle of The Thames and, in respect for this great leader that he had never forgotten, gave his small son a huge name – Tecumseh Kingsley Holmes!
T.K. Holmes began his career as a teacher but soon found that his interests had a definite scientific and medical bent to them. He soon put all of his energies into becoming a doctor and by 1867 had commenced a medical career in Chatham that was to become legendary in medical circles.
Homes was known throughout Chatham-Kent for his meticulous attention to detail as well as his tireless efforts to make house calls at all hours of the day or night throughout the area. Usually these house calls were made in the early days with a sharp looking horse and buggy and then, as time went on, he could be seen tooling around the countryside in the latest, fastest and classiest automobile. In fact, T.K. Holmes was the fist president of the first Chatham Automobile Club and made several excursions around Chatham-Kent with the other automotive pioneers in Chatham-Kent.
So enamoured with the auto industry was T.K. Holmes, that on more than one occasion Henry Ford and his wife travelled up the Thames River from their estate (Fairlaine) on the Rouge River on their private yacht to spend the weekend with the Holmes Family.
Holmes in his lifetime was President of the T.H. Taylor Milling Company ( T.K's wife was T.H. Taylor's daughter), Director of the Savings and Loan, a member of the Chatham Waterworks Board, as well as President of the Kent Historical Society.
Not content with playing pivotal roles in Chatham-Kent, T.K Holmes was a leader in he Canadian Medical Association as well. He was President of the Canadian Medical Association, as well as having one of the finest libraries in all of Canada.
Not content with making his mark alone on the Canadian medical scene, T.K. Holmes also had three sons who became medical doctors. His three sons – Garnet, Kingsley and Shirley all played significant roles in the medical history of Chatham-Kent.
An almost apocryphal story associated with T.K. occurred one wet stormy night when lost in deep thought he walked over the old Third Street Bridge not realizing that the bridge was open to allow a boat to pass through. Dr. Holmes fell unceremoniously into the Thames and began to yell for help. His two sons at home, a short distance from the bridge, heard the plaintive cries and got their row boat out to rescue the poor unknown drowning victim. Rowing out to the victim clinging to the bridge they were shocked to find out that it was their father. They pulled T.K. on board the row boat, took him home, got him dried out and T.K. was soon out again on his rounds!
When T.K. Holmes died in December of 1930, he was the oldest serving practicing doctor in Canada ( 92 years old). The funeral was held at his home at 230 King Street West and when the coffin passed through the front doors on its way to the mausoleum at Maple Leaf Cemetery in Chatham, it passed under the name "T.K. Holmes" etched into the glass above the door....as well as in Chatham-Kent's and Canada's history.
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
