“This morning, the bright and smiling sun, the gentle breeze and the clearing away of most of the wreckage during the night made the wind storm of yesterday seem like a bad nightmare. With one day’s work, the wind has resulted in the death of one man, disable two others, one seriously, and done damage to the extent of tens of thousands.”
Hamilton Times. April 08, 1909.
The day after the major wind storm of April 7, 1909, the Hamilton Times published a very long list of damage reports, such as the following:
“Alfred Young, Trolley Street, is picking up pieces of his house in his back yard today. It was a new brick house, and the way the wind went through it was a good imitation of the engine and cars going through Windsor station at Montreal.
“That two thousand chimneys were blown down is a conservative estimate made by the police.
“The brick parapet, surmounted by iron grill work, which decorates the top of the new Normal School on Sophia street, was blown down, over 100 feet of bricks and iron work landing in the road below. The windows on two sides of the Central School were broken, and the children were given a half holiday.”
The wind was so heavy that even the electric-powered cars of the Hamilton Street Railway and those of the Radial railways were hard-pressed to drive into the force:
“So great was the force of the wind that cars were almost stopped when travelling against it on King and Herkimer streets, and the Brantford and Radial cars were affected by the speed of Boreas.”
In April 1909, one of the city’s most well-known nicknames was Hamilton, the Electric City but electricity proved to be problematic :
“The whole city was in darkness last night, for a time, owing to the storm. Street lights and house lights were all out, and the street cars travelled at fits and starts.
“There was great danger from the live wires, which were crackling and spitting around the ground, but luckily no person ran up against one. In front of the Terminal Station, a big feed wire broke and burned through the pavement.”
Beyond the city limits, the wind storm caused severe problems as well:
“In the country, the damage was frightful. Many barns, windmills and fences were levelled to the ground. From the cemetery for two miles west of the city on all roads, all the telegraph and telephone poles are in the ditches.
“Passage across the high level bridge was very precarious, and the Dundas marsh was almost dried up by the wind forcing the water into the bay in a regular river through the canal.”
The only fatality caused by the wind storm was caused by some sadly reckless judgment by a popular and widely known athlete :
“A Young Athlete Victim of Storm : John Jamieson, Wrestler and Football player, Swept Clear Across the Bay and Into Lake ”
Hamilton Times. April 08, 1909.
“The turbulent waters of Hamilton Bay, which thrashed the eastern shores and the Beach all day yesterday, claimed a victim, the first of this season, when John Jamieson, wrestler and spare scrimmage man for the senior Tigers last season and regular player on the intermediates, went to his death
“Jamieson’s end was wrapped in mystery till this morning, and even yet his struggles against the waves can only be surmised.”
“Jamieson’s body is now floating some place in the eaters of Lake Ontario, or resting beneath the waves. It passed through the canal at 7:30 last evening, it is believed, and since then has not been seen. His death was the result of an attempt to save a hat which was blown in the eater from the city dock.”
“A Young Athlete Victim of Storm : John Jamieson, Wrestler and Football player, Swept Clear Across the Bay and Into Lake ”
Hamilton Times. April 08, 1909.
Jamieson was a moulder but had been out of work because of labour trouble between the moulders’ union and the bosses. While the storm was raging, Jamieson walked from the downtown core north from the King and James intersection at about 3:30 in company with Police Constable Gibbs:
“They were at the city dock with many others watching the angry water as it dashed down the bay, lifted in sheets by the wind.”
There was a dredge at that dock and its crew were hard at work trying to keep all the movable stuff on board from blowing into the water:
“Suddenly one of the workmen lost his hat. It blew in the water and started on a ride to the east end of the bay. The owner of the hat shouted out that he would give any person a quarter who would get it. He shouted this more in a tone of banter, and to draw the attention of the watchers of the fury of the water.
Jamieson offered to get the hat. He went to the nearby Jutten’s boathouse and got a small ordinary row boat. He had barely got past the revetment wall when disaster struck:
“As soon as the full force of the wind struck him, he was fighting against odds several times to great for him, and the boat went at a terrific speed down the bay.
“None of the men around at first supposed that Jamieson was serious in his undertaking, and had not watched him very closely. After he got out into the spume and spray it was almost impossible to see him.”
Jamieson was never seen again. The following morning, the boat was found at the Beach in a terrible wrecked shape.
Men on the bridges claimed that they had seen what they thought was a coat going through the canal on the crest of waves. It was later surmised that Jamieson was still wearing the coat.
Jamieson was conceded to being one of Hamilton’s top football prospects, a coming player sure to make the Tigers team later that year :
“He was a good, clean sportsman, and his end will cause great regret.
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