Gore Park: From dump to park in the heart of a city
From 1817 until 1833, nothing was done to improve the area. It was dusty in the summer and a quagmire in the spring. But was a convenient place to park stages and wagons.
THE GORE IS AS OLD as Hamilton itself. Founder George Hamilton laid out his first 32 building lots. In two rows back to back, 16 faced south onto the new courthouse square and 16 faced north onto the “main road” (King Street).
The 32 lots extended from present-day James Street on the west to Mary Street on the east. Through the middle of the survey, running south from the main road was the only road that went south over the Mountain from the lower plain. It was called the Mountain Road and it later became John Street.
HAMILTON’S survey was lined up square with the courthouse along the line dividing the Second and Third Concessions (present-day Main Street). Augustus Jones, the surveyor, had laid out the whole of Barton Township in a square grid system of eight concessions without regard to the few natural roads and trails.
Thus, where the main road (King Street) passed through Hamilton’s farm (it actually formed the northern boundary of his property), it was veering from east to west in a northerly direction. At the Mary Street end, the lots abutted the main road. But to the west, as the road kept drawing further away from the property line, it was more than 200 feet from the front of the lots at the end ( James Street).
Quagmire
With the courthouse square facing the 16 lots, Hamilton began to think of a town square to compliment his 16 north lots. So, he approached Nathanial Hughson, who owned the farm adjoining his on the north side of the main road, and talked him into giving up an equal amount of land from his farm. Hamilton reasoned that by putting the two equal triangular parcels together, an impressive town square would be formed.
He gave his land to the new town, although the actual document of transfer has never been found.
But Hughson balked and instead of giving the land for a town square, he started selling off his land as building lots right up to the main road.
Hamilton’s piece of land given to the town became known as “that gore of land.” Later it became just “The Gore.” With the putting of grass and fountains, it became known as “Gore Park.”
From 1817 until 1833, nothing was done to improve the area — it was dusty in the summer and a quagmire in the spring and fall. But it was a convenient place to park stages and wagons. And from the beginning, it was the focal point of trade and finance in the new town.
First fight
One of the five town wells was located in front of the promenade, where the statue of Victoria is today. The well, the open space for horse and wagon, plus the proximity of good inns, made the Gore a natural stopping place for travelers as well as local citizens.
In 1833, the town became incorporated and one of the first acts of the new police board was to make plans to put a market building in the middle of the Gore. This was vigorously opposed by Hamilton, who had made it clear he gave the site as an open promenade, not a place to sell chickens and turnips.
The town fathers paid no heed and went so far as to break ground for the construction of the building. They had badly underestimated the fight in George. He entered an action against the town to prevent the building, and the court ruled in his favour and the holes were filled in. The Gore had won its first battle. Ironically, the next attempt on the Gore was made by Robert, Hamilton’s son. He reasoned that since the town had been found legally incapable of doing anything with the land, control remained with the Hamilton family.
He began to erect a fence across the Gore. Town fathers, once they recovered from the shock, proceeded to take it down. Expecting this, Robert started an action charging the city with trespassing. But the court ruled that just as the town could not build on the Gore, neither could anyone else, including the founder’s son and heir.
And so it stayed, not much to look at, but at least an open space.
Delighted
In 1847, the city fathers made another move on the Gore. By now, Hamilton was a city and this time the plans were really grand.
The three blocks which constituted the “gore of land” were to be divided as follows:
The first block (between James and Hughson) was to be the site of a new city hall, post office, and other government buildings. Land left over was to be used for commercial purposes and the city would reap the benefits of all rents and taxes.
In the third block (east of John), a similar commercial development was to take place, with the city again reaping all the benefits. The middle block (between Hughson and John) was to be given to Robert Hamilton for his own commercial use. This, the city fathers thought, would successfully mollify the only person who would have any legal right or desire to stop their plans.
Robert was delighted, but the city had not counted on the opposition from the surrounding property owners. Then, as now, they recognized the importance of this open space to the value of their land. The plans were soon shelved and another battle had been won.
But one point the city made in its presentation was well taken — the Gore was useless in its present shape and condition. Merchants and townspeople had been in the habit of throwing their refuse into the square for many years. Along with the mire produced from the water spilled around the town well and the results of hundreds of horses and wagons parked there, the Gore was, all in all, quite a mess.
IN 1849, things came to a head. Although the building of a market had been successfully stopped in 1833 by George Hamilton, farmers, woodcutters, and wagoners over the years had used the open space to sell their wares. Finally, the townspeople had enough and council was pressured into getting rid of all the marketers.
In 1860, the Gore finally became Gore Park, with grass and pathways and flowing fountains. Within two years, trees were planted that are still standing today.
ONCE THE PARK was completed, the accumulation of objects began. First, after the fountains, came Archibald Kerr’s drinking fountain. Today, there is nothing but an ugly knob of concrete in front of Victoria’s statue to mark its location.
Then came the fences, and over the years nothing occurred more often than the putting up and the taking down of fences. At the present time, it is a standoff with half the park fenced and the other half benched.
Through the past 100 years, the Gore has been the focal point of many events. The greatest were the dedication ceremonies for the statues of Sir John A. Macdonald and Queen Victoria.
Sir John A.’s statue was the next addition to the Gore, after Kerr’s drinking fountain. The statue was originally located in the right-of-way of John and King just east of the Park proper.
Four killed
The unveiling on Nov. 1, 1893 was the high point of the year, with the prime minister Sir John Thompson doing the honours.
The erection of the statue of Queen Victoria took place 15 years later on May 25, 1908. Over 22,000 people turned out and the Governor-General Earl Grey and his retinue came by special train to officiate. It was a beautiful day, and the militia in their bright reds and blues lined the streets from the Hunter Street station to the Park.
But the Gore was also the scene of Hamilton’s tragedies.
The second greatest fire in Hamilton’s history was the burning of the McInnes building located on the southwest corner of John and King, where the post office now stands. The McInnes block, the largest dry goods wholesale house in Hamilton, was also the finest building in the city and helped to make it the centre of the dry goods market for the whole peninsula.
The fire began at 5:30 in an afternoon in August 1879. Within minutes, the whole building was an inferno. Embers from the fire fell as far away as the bay front, and every homeowner stood guard by the roof of his home.
NO ONE WAS KILLED in the fire, but before the debris had been finally cleared away, four men had died from accidents.
It was a momentous beginning for the career of the new fire chief, perhaps the most famous in the annals of Hamilton firefighting — young A.W. Aitchison had been appointed to the position only seven months before.
Move statue
Chief Aitchison had had many close calls and some spills, but his answering of an alarm on April 5, 1905 was his last. As he and his driver, Brittain, were racing south on John toward Main they were met by the big wagon coming along King Street from the west. Although the truck hit them only a glancing blow on the rear wheel, it was enough to upset the chief ’s buggy. Both men were thrown out and fell against the base of Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue. Brittain survived to serve another 20 years, but Chief Aitchison never regained consciousness and died a few hours later.
As a result of the accident, the statue of Sir John was moved out of the intersection into the Park proper. At the same time, the position of the statue was reversed from facing west to facing east.
In the early 1900s, Hamilton’s answer to the Eiffel Tower went up in the second block of the park. It was a 150-foot iron flagpole which was described at the time by one irate member of the parks board as an ‘oil derrick”. It survived only two decades before it came down under the blows of public indignation and ridicule.
While the first block of the Gore had blossomed by the 1890s, all the early evils had merely shifted to the second block between Hughson and John streets.
Newton Dennick Galbreaith is one of the unsung heroes of Hamilton. He was a charter member of the old Hamilton Improvement Society, a forerunner of the Hamilton Beautification Committee. After many frustrating years, he was finally successful and had the second block turned into a grassland and park. The ungrateful public referred to it as “Galbreaith’s folly”.
The focal point of this part of the Gore is of course the cenotaph, which was erected in 1923.
Despite the creation of a genuine park in the 1860s, the destroyers didn’t give up.
In 1910, a local businessman offered the city $250,000 for the six-acre park to put up a 15storey building. To be all things to all people, he offered to put Gore Park back on top when the building was finished. No matter how you look at it, that’s a long way to go to feed a pigeon.
And, with emergence of the automobile, another battle had to be fought similar to those waged against the wagoner and teamsters of a century before. In 1927, it was proposed that a large section of the Gore along King Street be sliced off to provide more lanes for traffic. In 1950, it was proposed that the park be entirely covered with asphalt and used for a bus depot and parking lot. In 1955, there was talk of digging it up and putting a100-car garage underneath. All plans were defeated.
While the first block of the Gore had blossomed by the 1890s, all the early evils had merely shifted to the second block between Hughson and John Streets.