By VICTOR LAURISTON
IN Kent, the earliest white
settlements were along the
watercourses, and the earliest of all were on the Thames. There were two
reasons for this. The waterways were practically the only means of travel
and transport, and their high banks were more healthful than the swampy
terrain farther inland. So, when the French Canadians on the Detroit, and
the United Empire Loyalists, sought new homes, they found them in
Kent along the Thames.
The earliest white settlements seem
to have taken place some time before 1790. Tradition
has it that Edward Parson, the first white
native of Kent, was born on the Raleigh side of the Thames in that year. A
survey made early in Governor Simcoe’s regime showed 28 white families
settled along the river; and when Simcoe himself traversed the Thames en
route to Detroit in February,
1793, considerable progress had been made in settlement.
Simcoe himself appreciated the
strategic importance of the river.
At one time he seems to have considered making
Chatham his capital. He authorized the laying out of a townsite at this
point. The original survey was made by Abram Iredell in 1795; and Iredell,
receiving Lot 17 at the southeast corner of William and Water streets in
part payment, built there, about 1800, the first log house in
Chat— ham, and planted the first
plans included a shipyard, established on the
flats east of Tecumseh Park, where, in the winter of 1795, William Baker,
formerly in charge of the Royal Naval yards at Brooklyn, supervised the
building of five gunboats designed for service in the war with the United
States which Simcoe regarded as imminent. The present Tecumseh Park was
set aside in Iredell’s survey as a military reserve, and there, even
before Sirncoe’s visit, a log block house had been
Simcoe’s differences with his
superior, Lord Dorchester, led, however, to his resignation, and his
ambitious plans for development on the Thames languished.
Curiously, the most important
pioneer settlements on the Thames were, not at Chatham, but above
and below Simcoe’s townsite. In 1792,
Jan Van Dolzen, an elderly loyalist of Dutch descent, settled on the
Thames about four miles below Chatham. A son, Isaac Dolsen—as the name was
speedily Anglicized—located on the Raleigh side, and another, Matthew, in
Dover. About Matthew’s homestead, there grew up, in the course of years, a
considerable trading community, with a tavern, store, blacksmith shop,
distillery and other small pioneer industries. Another trading center grew
up around the Thomas McCrae homestead on the Raleigh side; and both
McCrae’s and Dolsen’s were
thriving communities when Chatham was merely a name.
The early business activities of
Chatham were, actually, beyond the eastern limits of Iredell’s townsite.
About 1792 Thomas Clark moved
from Dolsen’s to a location on McGregor’s Creek, about a mile upstream,
where he built a primitive sort of mill, the first in Kent county. Clark
borrowed money from John McGregor of Sandwich, the upshot being that Clark
found lodging in Sandwich jail and McGregor took over and rebuilt the mill
and gave his own name to the creek. The mill was
destroyed by the Indians in Procter’s retreat in 1813;
but some years after the war it was rebuilt, a store and a distillery
added, and extensive trading was carried on by John McGregor and his son,
Kent’s first postoffice was
established at McCrae’s— which was, incidentally, the first brick house in
Kent. The postoffice was known
as Raleigh. Subsequently, still under the name of Raleigh, the postoffice
was transferred to McGregor’s Mills; and ultimately, about 1830,
to Chatham itself.
Iredell, the pioneer Chatham
settler, died early in 1812, just before the war broke out: and his
townsite remained empty till 1820 when William Chrysler located on the
of the Thames immediately west of Third
Street. From this year dates the permanent settlement of Chatham; and with
its gradual growth, the rival communities of McCrae’s, Dolsen’s and
McGregor’s Mills faded from the map.
Settlement on the upper Thames
beyond Chatham antedated the War of 1812. In 17