94 William Baker, the
shipbuilder, was granted several hundred acres on the north bank of the
river; and though Baker does not appear to have settled there, his
son-in-law, Joseph Eberts, did so, founding one of Chatham’s leading
families. The first real settler on the Chatham township river front was
George Sicklesteel, a Hessian, who located in 1794; and whose son, David,
for many years kept the Sicklesteel tavern on the old homestead.
The transfer of Detroit to the
Americans in 1796 resulted in many loyalist residents of that community
seeking new homes on the Thames. One of these, Frederick Arnold, a native
of Berlin, located on Lot 4, River Range, Howard township, about 10 miles
above Chatham. Here, some time between 1797 and 1800, Frederick, or his
son Christopher, built a flour mill, later adding a saw mill. At Chris.
Arnold’s house, Tecumseh breakfasted in his retreat up the Thames;
lingering afterward to prevent his braves, who had camped in the
surrounding woods the night before, from firing the mill.
But before this, in 1809, the
government had surveyed townships, the surveyed road between Howard and
Harwich passing a short distance west of Arnold’s Mill. At this point on
the river, four townships — Chatham and Camden on the north and Harwich
and Howard on the south — cornered, the cross roads point being known as
Kelley’s Corners. A distillery was built a short distance west; and, as a
result of the destruction of McGregor’s Mill at Chatham, Arnold’s had for
some years a monopoly of the milling business, which stimulated the growth
of the community. The sons of Frederick Arnold located on both sides of
the Thames, Lewis Arnold giving his name to the present Louisville; and
the Arnolds continued a potent force in the life of the growing community.
About 1830 a post-office, White Hall
— the second post-office in Kent — was opened on the north side of the
River. Stores were opened; a foundry was established by Chris Arnold’s son
Frederick; and a brickyard, the first in Kent, was established by
Christopher Gee, who also operated a ferry when the primitive bridge was
swept away —for which reason the community was known for a couple of
decades as Gee’s Ferry. In 1854 an enclosed wooden bridge was built to
span the Thames, as a result of which the community activities seem to
have shifted largely to the north bank, and the place became known by its
present name of Kent Bridge.
Joshua Cornwall, a Connecticut
loyalist, was, about 1796, the first settler in the present Camden, then a
wilderness. Both he, in 1816, and his son, Nathan, in 1834 and 1836,
represented Kent in the Canadian parliament. Cornwall’s nearest neighbors
were the Moravian missionaries and their Indian flocks at Fairfield (the
original Moravian— town) a few miles east of the present Thamesville.
Another Connecticut Loyalist, Lemuel
Sherman, located a little farther upstream from Cornwall, some time before
1804 ; for in that year his son, David, was born on the Sherman homestead.
Sherman built a large frame house with a palisade fence of oak stakes, and
a large barn. The Shermans went through the stirring times of Procter’s
retreat, and after the battle of Moraviantown, the Sherman barn was
converted into a temporary hospital for the British and American wounded.
The historic structure survived for more than a century.
The Americans after the battle
destroyed the Moravian village; but after the war, the Indians were
re-established in a new village south of the river, in Orford township.
Settlement along the river front
grew. In 1852, when the building of the Great Western Railway was mooted,
David Sherman, a son of the pioneer, surveyed a portion of the homestead
into a village plot. A great admirer of the Indian chief, he named his
village Tecumseh; but later, when the post-office was transferred from
Nathan Cornwall’s, the name was changed to Thamesville.