Strange arithmetic in centennial celebration
Hamilton put on two parties celebrating its 100th anniversary — one false, one legitimate
There hasn’t been much to celebrate with the coronavirus pandemic continuing to force the cancellation of public events across the city, the country, and around the world.
On May 8, the 75th anniversary of VE-Day, one of the biggest moments of jubilation from the 1900s, there was no major commemorative event in Hamilton.
Victoria Day weekend went off without public displays of fireworks.
Last weekend, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders would have blown out the downtown with the regiment’s bagpipe band to mark a change of command. But not this year.
“Local commemorations have been affected,” Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger said in a statement earlier this month. “Be this as it may, these observances are as important to us as ever. It may involve online or virtual experiences or celebrations. It may mean in-person celebrations at a later date. Be assured we will find ways to observe this (VE-Day), and other events of local and national significance, during the pandemic.”
We’ll see what happens in these dragged on days of social isolation. At some point rescheduled anniversaries conflict with new ones. These things can be a bit forced, just like someone blowing out candles months after the person’s birthday.
Yet, there was a time when celebration was so enthusiastically endorsed in Hamilton that temporal considerations were even fabricated for the sake of a big party.
Take the City of Hamilton’s “Centennial” celebrations of 1913, something I was reminded about by Spectator readers who sent me photos of souvenirs from the event.
As many have noted over the years, there is no way the year 1913 could possibly be construed as a centennial year for Hamilton. The community became a police village in 1833 and a city in 1846.
The significance of 1813? Nothing.
It seems an alderman at the time cooked up a tall tale that George Hamilton, the father of Hamilton, came to the Head-of-the-Lake in 1813. That’s a bit of a stretch for two reasons: Most hold that he came to the area in 1815 after purchasing 257 acres in what was known as Barton Township.
And, even if he did arrive in 1813, so what? He didn’t get involved in laying the groundwork for the city until a couple of years later.
“Perhaps there was not the questioning in those times like there would have been today,” says Murray Aikman, who has a pennant from the event hanging in humorous reminder at his home.
“I think the centennial was tied to the city taking off in terms of progress, the industrialization, the availability of electricity. They were kind of pounding their chests a little bit.”
Looking through a 340-page hardcover book produced for the occasion, there can be no other conclusion than people were getting a little carried away with boosterism. The book, “Hamilton Canada its History, Commerce, Industries and Resources,” even features a portrait photo of George Hamilton that was later revealed to be a fake.
As the late Margaret Houghton pointed out in the first volume of her book series, “First Here,” no photo exists of the man who started the city because “the first photographer to come to Hamilton had arrived in 1842 and George Hamilton died in 1836.”
So to review: The city, in 1913, hosted a major 100-year celebration for a city that was only 67 years old. People rallied around a top-hatted, big bearded portrait of “the founder of Hamilton” that was actually a photo of somebody else. They hosted parades, festivities and even took on a bizarre “Ripley’s believe it or not” feat of constructing a house in one day.
And the commemoration was all built on a deception. Talk about fake news. Well, in 1946, the city did get it right with a legitimate centennial. And there was an even bigger celebration, the largest the city had ever seen. After six years of world war, and troops finally returning home, everyone was hungry for a major party.
But there was one minor setback. Gov.-General Viscount Alexander, who was brought in to give the commemoration some regal authority, apparently became confused about why he was there.
In his speech from the front of Hamilton’s old City Hall, he looked out at the assembled crowd and officially opened James Street by mistake.
Well, hopefully when the pandemic ends — and people can walk in crowds again — the city will host an even bigger celebration.
And we won’t be deterred by missteps we’ve had with these things in the past.