Chatham

Etymology

Chatham was named by John Graves Simcoe after William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. It was established as a naval dockyard town, a characteristic it shares with Chatham, Kent, England. The site of the original dockyard, at the confluence of the Thames River and McGregor's Creek, is reported to have been known as Auch-Kaw Mah'tah (roughly, "rippling forks") to local Indigenous peoples. Prior to the founding of Chatham, this site was known simply as The Forks to European settlers.

History

Indigenous History and Early Settlement

Long predating the arrival of Europeans, the lands now encompassing Chatham are and have been part of the traditional territories of various Indigenous peoples, including the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Attawandaron, and by the time of the written treaties, the Lunaapeew.

Prior to European settlement, the site where Chatham is presently located is known to have been a popular gathering spot for local Indigenous communities. Several Indigenous villages are known to have been located in close proximity to modern Chatham, with at least two along McGregor's Creek.

The first Europeans to arrive in the region were likely French explorers and missionaries. Although the land was claimed as part of New France, no permanent settlements or forts were established here, the closest being Fort Detroit, founded in 1701. Following the Seven Years' War, the Treaty of Paris (1763) transferred France's North American territories to Britain. The American Revolution, which followed several years later, subsequently helped catalyze the first significant permanent European settlements in what would become Kent County as United Empire Loyalists fled to settle Upper Canada.

Negotiations for the transfer of lands from Indigenous peoples to the British Crown in the region began around this time, starting with tracts of land south of the Detroit River in 1784 and in 1786 under Treaty 116. The signing of Treaty 2, or the McKee Purchase, on May 19, 1790 by representatives of the Crown and various First Nations formalized these previous agreements and saw the Crown acquire large swaths of land encompassing most of the southern tip of Ontario.

In 1790, pioneer surveyor Patrick McNiff departed from Lake St. Clair and travelled upstream along the Thames River to survey the lands that would, in 1792, become Kent County. During this voyage, McNiff found that some 28 families had already established themselves in the region, suggesting the date of the first permanent European settlement occurred some time between 1775 and 1780. Upon arrival at the fork of the Thames River and McGregor's Creek, McNiff identified the site as a desirable location for a village due to its strategic location and favourable topography. Over the next few years, he conducted the work of laying out the lots fronting on the Thames River in the Townships of Dover East, Chatham, Raleigh, Harwich, and parts of Howard and Camden.

19th Century

In 1813, following the British retreat from Sandwich and Amherstburg, Shawnee leader Tecumseh advocated that the forks at Chatham (now the site of Tecumseh Park) be the location where his and General Procter's forces would make their stand against the American invasion. Having received Procter's agreement, Tecumseh arrived at the forks expecting fortifications to have been prepared for a full-scale confrontation. Instead, Procter had continued his retreat northward, leaving the site in a near-defenseless state.

Nevertheless, Tecumseh and his warriors remained to fight a small-scale rearguard action against General Harrison's army on October 4. The battle, which came to be known as the Skirmish at the Forks, was fought across McGregor's Creek and lasted approximately two hours before Tecumseh's warriors were driven off by artillery fire. During the skirmish, two Americans were killed, as were several warriors, and Tecumseh was struck in the arm by a musket ball. Following the defeat, Tecumseh retreated northward, stopping overnight at Arnold's Mill before joining Procter and his forces at the Battle of the Thames near Moraviantown, where he was slain.

Some months later, on the morning of December 15, 1813, Canadian militiamen launched a surprise attack on the 26th U.S. Infantry Regiment, which had established a post at the house of local farmer Thomas McCrae, just outside Chatham. The skirmish resulted in the surrender of the American unit and stands as the only instance during the war in which a force composed entirely of Canadian militia defeated a unit of U.S. Army regulars.

Chatham's shipbuilding and military function had failed to develop as Simcoe had intended, and the settlement failed to grow substantially until after 1820. A contributing factor to this slow growth was Chatham's geography. At the time, the region was heavily timbered and covered in wetlands, which slowed the development of agriculture and deterred settlers. Nevertheless, by the early 1840s, the town's growth had stabilized, and Chatham had surpassed a population of 1,000. Among Chatham's early settlers during this period was William Chrysler, a prominent local blacksmith and farmer and eventual grandfather to Walter Chrysler, founder and namesake of the American Chrysler Corporation.

Up until this point in Chatham's history, travel along the Thames River was the primary means by which the town was connected to the outside world. This changed in 1854 with the southwestern expansion of the Great Western Railway. Chatham, now a stop along the main line from Windsor to Toronto, benefited immensely from its access to the rest of the rapidly expanding rail network across soon-to-be Ontario. The railway not only enabled population growth through increased ease of access but also catalyzed the region's development into an agricultural centre. A local lumber industry, supported by the access the railroad provided to nearby markets and by the trains' own demand for hardwood fuel, contributed to the clearing and conversion of the lands around Chatham to agricultural use.

Abolition History

Chatham played an important role during the abolitionist period, serving as one of the major termini of the Underground Railroad and as a site of intense abolitionist activity—a role for which it has sometimes been called the "Black Mecca of Canada".

Following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, Britain's colonies in Canada became a safe haven for Black people fleeing slavery in the United States, a role that became even more important after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Located close to the American border and possessing a surplus of undeveloped land, Kent County was well positioned to receive and resettle former slaves. Black and white abolitionists of the era, such as Josiah Henson and William King, worked to facilitate this resettlement, negotiating with Canadian authorities to obtain the necessary land and organizing Black settlements in the countryside.

Situated centrally between the prominent Dawn and Elgin settlements, Chatham absorbed a large number of the Black settlers who arrived in the region, offering an urban alternative to the rural life the settlements provided. By the 1850s, the town's Black population had swelled to nearly one-third of the total, and Black life was flourishing. Black Chathamites were not merely refugees; by this time, the town had seen the formation of an educated and growing Black middle class that included lawyers, doctors, and other businessmen and women, and the town had become home to numerous Black-run shops, businesses, and churches.

During this period, several significant abolitionist, African American, and African Canadian figures crossed paths in Chatham:

African American-Canadian educator, publisher, lawyer, and abolitionist Mary Ann Shadd moved to Chatham in 1855, along with siblings Isaac and Amelia. First printed in 1853, her newspaper, The Provincial Freeman, is noted for being the first published and edited by a Black woman. Dedicated to the abolitionist cause and arguing for Black self-reliance and emigration to Canada, the paper would be based out of Chatham for the remainder of its print run.

African-American abolitionist, physician, and author Martin Delany lived in Chatham for several years in the 1850s, where he worked as a journalist and physician until the outbreak of the American Civil War. It was during his time in Chatham that he wrote Blake, which, in this respect, might be considered the first African-Canadian novel.

20th Century

At the turn of the century, Chatham was undergoing a surge of industrial activity as new enterprises sprang up rapidly, while older ones continued to expand. It was in this climate that automotive history in Chatham began, with 1900 marking the year horseless carriages first appeared on the city’s streets.

The growing fervour surrounding early commercially built automobiles inspired many local ventures. William Murray Gray of the William Gray & Sons carriage company (established 1855) was an early enthusiast and adopter of the technology. In 1905, he built his own horseless carriage (the first car to be both designed and built in Chatham) before steering his whole company into the burgeoning motor car industry. In 1911, William Gray & Sons merged with another local manufacturer, the Manson Campbell Fanning Mill Company, to form Gray-Campbell. The new company soon began producing car bodies for Ford Canada’s Walkerville plant, starting in 1912. Then, in 1915, William Gray secured a license agreement with the Dort Motors Company of Flint, Michigan, and the newly formed Gray-Dort Motors Ltd. took over the existing Gray and Campbell plants.

The domestically manufactured Gray-Dort cars proved popular in Canada and the company, buoyed by strong sales, was in good financial health. However, its success was short-lived, as Dort Motors abruptly ended its license agreement in 1923. Cut off from easy access to U.S.-made mechanical parts, the company’s financial position deteriorated quickly. Unable to secure a new American affiliate, Gray-Dort ceased operations in 1925. In its 10 years of operation, the company had produced roughly 26,600 cars and at its peak employed over 800 men.

Several other automobile manufacturers also established themselves in Chatham during this period:

The Chatham Carriage Company (1907-1908/09) built car bodies under designs licensed from the REO Motor Car Company.

The Chatham Motor Car Company (1906–1909) produced its own domestic design, the “Chatham,” for several years before going bankrupt; its factory was sold in 1910 to Detroit’s Anhut Motor Car Company, which briefly continued producing badge-engineered Chathams before it too went bankrupt that same year.

Post-Amalgamation

In February 2018, the Thames River watershed experienced a historic flood event resulting from a short period of heavy rainfall coinciding with a heat event where temperatures briefly rose above 10 °C. While the snowpack melted, the ground underneath remained frozen and unable to absorb water from rain or melting snow, exacerbating conditions. In response, the Municipality of Chatham-Kent declared a state of emergency as evacuation and rescue operations were conducted across the municipality, including in Chatham, where the downtown was severely affected. No fatalities or injuries were reported; however, the flood resulted in significant damage to private property and municipal infrastructure.

Geography

The population centre of Chatham covers an area of 31.21 square kilometres (12.05 sq mi). It is centrally located within the Municipality of Chatham-Kent, lying at a roughly equal distance from both Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie. The city is divided into two roughly equal halves by the Thames River, which flows southwesterly through the city. Downtown Chatham is located along the southern bank of the river, near the fork with McGregor's Creek. Whereas historically much of the land in and around Chatham consisted of forests and wetlands (upwards of 53.7% of Chatham was once wetland), following European colonization the vast majority of Kent County was drained, clear-cut, and cultivated for agriculture. As a result, the urban area of Chatham now lies surrounded by a vast expanse of farmland and fields, a characteristic that has come to shape the community's rural cultural self-perception.

Climate

Chatham has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfa), with cold, snowy winters and warm to hot, humid summers. A typical summer will feature heat waves with temperatures exceeding 30 °C (86 °F) often. Winters are cold, and feature occasional cold snaps bringing temperatures below −15 °C (5 °F), but also commonly include mild stretches of weather above freezing.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Chatham had a population of 45,171 living in 19,735 of its 20,559 total private dwellings, a change of 3.7% from its 2016 population of 43,550. With a land area of 31.21 km2 (12.05 sq mi), it had a population density of 1,447.4/km2 (558.8/sq mi) in 2021.

Ethnicity

Approximately 85.6% of residents were European Canadians in 2021, whereas 8.21% were visible minorities and 3.96% were Indigenous. The largest visible minority groups in Chatham were Black (4.13%), South Asian (2.33%), Latin American (0.72%), Southeast Asian (0.70%), Chinese (0.52%), Arab (0.50%), and Filipino (0.42%).

Language

The most common mother tongue in 2021 was English; spoken by 87.7% of the population, followed by French (2.1%), Dutch (0.9%), Portuguese (0.7%), Polish (0.6%), Italian (0.6%), Vietnamese (0.4%), Spanish (0.4%), and Arabic (0.4%). 1.2% of residents claimed both English and a non-official language as their first language.

Religion

In 2021, 61.5% of Chathamites identified as Christian, with Catholics (29.1%) making up the largest denomination, followed by the United Church (6.1%), Anglicans (4.4%), Baptists (2.8%), and Presbyterians (2.0%), among others. 34.7% of the population stated no religion. All other religions and spiritual traditions combined accounted for 3.8% of the population. The largest non-Christian religions were Islam (1.6%), Hinduism (0.8%), Sikhism (0.4%),Buddhism (0.4%), and Judaism (0.1%).

Culture

Architecture

Many of the oldest standing buildings in Chatham date from the mid-19th to early 20th century and were often built in or influenced by the then-popular Gothic Revival, Queen Anne, Edwardian Classicist, and Romanesque Revival styles. Concentrated in Chatham's downtown and inner neighbourhoods, these buildings contribute significantly to the character of the local built environment. The neoclassical Kent County Courthouse and Jail (1850), located northeast of downtown, was designed by architect William Thomas; Alexander Mackenzie, who worked on the building as a stonemason, would later become the first Liberal Prime Minister of Canada.

Notably, internationally renowned modernist architect Joseph Storey (1923-1975) was based in Chatham during the city’s period of growth in the mid-20th century. Over the decades, Storey and his practice were responsible for the design of over one thousand buildings across Ontario spanning a wide variety of uses, from single-family homes to industrial and institutional buildings. Storey’s practice contributed many of Chatham’s landmark buildings, including the Federal Post Office Building (now the Government of Canada Building) (1957), Ursuline Convent, Ursuline Motherhouse Chapel, and Ursuline College (1958–1962), the Kent County Municipal Building (now host to various uses including the Ontario Court of Justice) (1967), and the Chatham (now Chatham-Kent) Civic Centre (1975), among others.

Classic Cars

Rooted in its history as a centre of automotive manufacturing, Chatham (and Chatham-Kent at large) has developed a strong automotive culture and a particular fascination with vintage cars. The area has come to be well known as the "Classic Car Capital of Canada," owing to the many classic car shows and auctions held there each spring and summer. The largest and best known of these is RetroFest, held annually since 2001, typically in late May. RM Sotheby's, among the world's largest international classic car auction companies, began its life as a small restoration shop in Chatham in the 1970s and remains headquartered in Chatham-Kent to this day.

Sports

Chatham is currently home to the following youth, minor league, and post-secondary sports teams:

Transportation

Road

Chatham lies a few kilometres north of provincial Highway 401, which runs across Southern Ontario from Windsor in the west, through the Greater Toronto Area, to the Ontario–Quebec border in the east.

Public Transport

The history of modern public transport in Chatham began with an animal-powered street railway system operated by the private Chatham Street Railway Company from 1885 to 1890. While most horsecar systems were eventually converted to electric operation, the Chatham Street Railway Company collapsed due to financial and legal troubles before this could occur. This failure to transition from an existing animal-powered system to an electric one is unique in the Canadian context.

The first implementation of a proper municipal public transit service in Chatham followed nearly 60 years later in 1946. Conventional bus service was provided by several operators over the decades, including Chatham Bus Limited (1946–1947), Chatham Bus Service (1947–1948), Chatham Coach Lines (1948–1977), and finally Chatham Transit (1977–2002).

Following amalgamation in 1998, responsibilities for local transit services across the former County were eventually taken over and consolidated by the newly established Municipality of Chatham-Kent. The municipality’s newly unified provider, which operated as “Chatham-Kent Transit” from 2003–2021, gradually expanded its offerings over time, introducing fixed-route inter-urban services beginning in 2007, a smart card payment system in 2014, an affordable pass for low-income riders in 2017, and on-demand services in 2020. A new official transit master plan, “Driving Forward,” was adopted by the municipality in 2020, outlining several policy and operational reforms and recommendations aimed at improving and expanding services. As part of the implementation of “Driving Forward,” the service was rebranded “Ride CK” in 2021, coinciding with a major expansion of the bus fleet.

Chatham is currently served by all of Ride CK’s fixed bus routes. Of them, five operate entirely within Chatham, while the city serves as the hub linking the municipality’s three inter-urban routes, which connect it to Dresden, Wallaceburg, Ridgetown, Blenheim, and Tilbury, among other smaller outlying communities. Ride CK’s fixed routes are served by a fleet consisting mostly of Chevrolet Arboc Specialty Vehicles, as well as more recently acquired full-size Alexander Dennis Enviro200 buses. Ram ProMaster vans are used for the accessible on-demand services.

Railways

The Chatham Subdivision, operated by CN as part of its Windsor–Toronto main line, passes through southern Chatham and carries both freight and passenger traffic. This corridor was part of the historic Great Western/Grand Trunk route running between Windsor and Toronto, which originally opened in 1854. Passenger service is currently provided by VIA Rail, and the Chatham VIA Rail station receives four trains in each direction per day as part of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor service. The existing station building, originally constructed in 1879, is built in the Gothic Revival style and is a designated Heritage Railway Station of Canada.

Also operated by CN is the Sarnia Spur, which it acquired from CSX in 2006. The route, which runs on a north–south alignment between eastern Chatham and Blenheim, is a remnant of the Erie and Huron Railroad. The full route, originally completed in 1886, ran from Sarnia through Chatham to Erieau.

Running roughly parallel to CN's main line, several hundred metres to the northeast, are tracks belonging to CPKC's Windsor Subdivision. Originally built by the Ontario and Quebec Railway Company, the line was acquired by Canadian Pacific in 1889 and runs between London and Windsor. While Canadian Pacific historically provided passenger service along this line, serving Chatham at a station on William Street, this service has long since been discontinued, and the track is now used exclusively for freight.

Air

Chatham-Kent operates a municipal airport located 12.5 km southeast of Chatham, featuring a 1,500-metre paved, lighted runway, refuelling facilities, tie-down services, pilot training, and chartered flights. The nearest airports served by regional carriers are in Windsor and London.

Notable people

Andy Fantuz, former professional football player

Anna H. Jones, Canadian-born American suffragette

Bill Atkinson, former professional baseball pitcher

Bridget Carleton, professional basketball player

Chatham Coloured All-Stars, 1930s amateur baseball team noted for breaking colour barriers in Canadian/American sports

Derek Whitson, ice sledge hockey player

Elyse Weinberg, singer-songwriter

Ferguson “Fergie” Jenkins, former professional baseball pitcher and coach

Jessie McPherson, professional ice hockey player

Joseph Storey, modernist architect

June Callwood, journalist, author, and activist

Patrick William Riordan, Chatham-born American prelate, Archbishop of San Francisco from 1884-1914

Ron Pardo, actor and comedian

Ron Sparks, comedian, actor, writer, and producer

Ryan Jones, former professional ice hockey player

Sam Panopoulos, Greek-Canadian credited with the invention of the Hawaiian Pizza in while living and working in Chatham

Sophia B. Jones, Chatham-born physician and first black female graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School