Phineas T. Barnum will build “the most magnificent balloon that ever soared aloft,” and sail it across the Atlantic from the United States to England, reports the St. John’s Daily News, October 9, 1873. Barnum, wealthy showman, circus founder, author, publisher, publicist extraordinaire, and hoaxster had examined the problem of a trans-Atlantic balloon crossing. He […]
It was the biggest race of his life, and Toronto’s Edward “Ned” Hanlan was hot-dogging it. The single sculls rowing champion of Canada, the United States and Britain, the 5-foot-8-3/4-inch, 150-pound, 25-year-old Hanlan was competing on England’s Thames River for the world title against Edward Trickett, the 6-foot-3-inch, 185-pound, 29-year-old Australia champion on November 15, […]
“Canada is excited by the Boat race which comes off today between the ‘Paris crew’ of Saint John, N.B., and the Tyne crew of England,” says the Nova Scotia, Yarmouth Herald, September 15, 1870. Regarded as country bumpkins—a lighthouse keeper and three fishermen—the Saint John crew won the world rowing title at the […]
A romantic row around Toronto’s harbour on a hot summer day might “make a young couple happy for the remainder of their days,” according to this item from the Toronto Growler, August 12, 1864. We recommend a turn about the Bay to all young ladies and gentlemen who are desirous of keeping clear of the […]
Canada was the North Star, the haven, the sanctuary for American black slaves who ran north to freedom on the celebrated underground railroad. But not everyone in Upper Canada held out the welcome mat, as shown in this item from the Colonial Advocate, York, February 18,1832. The inhabitants of Colchester and Gosfield, in the Western […]
Two examples of the tenacity with which French Canadians clung to the soil of family farms and homes are cited in news reports. The Montreal Herald, February 10, 1863 tells about the family that had farmed the same soil at Ancienne Lorette, a village and later a suburb that was merged with Quebec City in […]
The madams at Montreal’s red light houses “are constantly endeavouring to find new victims,” the Montreal Herald reports. One young girl, however, is rescued from a life of infamy, as reported in this item from in the Quebec Daily News, November 21, 1862. Another unpleasant case has been brought to light. On Wednesday a woman […]
In 1826, a group of Christian Mississauga First Nation people settled on a Methodist Church mission on the banks of the Credit River, in what is now Canada’s sixth largest city. Their Credit Indian Village thrived for a dozen years, with as many as 50 homes, a school, hospital, church, board sidewalks, “two public […]
Booze 1829 — 1920 Newspapers still provided the only published reports of debates in the House of Commons when the Toronto Globe opposed a proposed Hansard, in which the words of members of Parliament would be published after officially recorded in shorthand by Parliamentary reporters. The Globe argued that politicians would be too inclined to […]
Booze 1829 — 1920 William Thomson was unlike the troop of well-to-do, leisure class Britons who toured Canada in the early nineteenth century to write books about what they saw. A textile worker from the Aberdeen area of Scotland, Thomson supported himself during a three-year tour of the United States and Canada by working at […]