1909 Wind Storm Part 2

 

“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.

 

1909 Wind Storm Part 1

 

“A wind storm that at time almost reached the propositions of a cyclone swept over Western Ontario today, leaving a path of ruin in its wake. The gale, which at intervals attained a velocity of seventy miles an hour, played all sorts of strange pranks, and did damage which will amount to thousands of dollars in Hamilton alone.

Hamilton Times. April 07, 1909.

It started like another average April day in Hamilton. However, the weather conditions deteriorated rapidly.

In the newspaper offices of the Spectator, Herald and Times, reporters were reading telegraph notices from both Chicago and Detroit, indicating that a massive wind storm was causing serious damage in those cities.

Over the course of the morning the winds in Hamilton increased rapidly until it was obvious that a serious situation had developed.

 Telephone and telegraph wires in the country were downed, while in downtown Hamilton, signs were blown down, windows smashed, chimneys swept off housetops, and many people were injured, although no serious accidents were reported.

The street railway service was halted at intervals in, and the machinery in manufacturing establishments was brought to a standstill.

A reporter from the Times office at King William and Hughson streets went out on foot to assess what was happening in that part of the city:

 “Plate glass windows in business places along King and James streets went crashing in on one another; signs strained on their hangings, and tumbled to the ground, endangering the lives of people; women were swept off their feet, and the main thoroughfares were alive with pedestrians chasing their hats, which were swooped off their heads and carried over telephone poles to the tops of high buildings.”

The reporter had to write up his copy quickly so that the late afternoon edition of the Times could contain as much news as it was possible to gather in a narrow time frame.

The copy produced included the following in the breathless litany of wind storm damage stories that the reporter was made aware of:

“Many people had narrow escapes. Farmers driving over the High Level Bridge, a hundred feet above the canal, were nervous today. One man was blown off his rig, and the railing probably saved him from going over.

 “About 11:30 o’clock, a large cast iron ventilator on the roof of the Alexandra Arcade was blown down to the roof of the Cecil hotel. It rolled within a few feet of the James street wall and for a time it threatened to fall on the sidewalk. P.C. Tuck  stood guard for some time, warning persons to go to the other side of the street till Fire Chief TenEyck was notified. The chief went up on the roof with another man, and pulled the big pipe, which weighed almost 150 pounds back and made it fast with wires.

“Bicycle racks went shooting down the street, and a man named Markle was struck by one near the Federal Life building at noon. He was rendered unconscious.

“A garbage wagon, empty, was going along James street in front of the City Hall. Two men were in it. The wind is worse at the City Hall corner than in any other spot, and the way the wagon box soared gave an idea of the way Zeppelin rules the air in Germany. The box was blown some distance, but neither of the men were hurt.

“Several girls on their way to work were blown off street car steps, while alighting at the City Hall corner, but none were seriously injured. Bruised feelings were their worst injuries.”

A wind storm of such velocity was sure to cause problems at the Hamilton Beach, and on the waterfront generally:

“The storm along the bay front and the Beach was picturesque and spectacular. The waters of the bay, lashed into a fury, sent white-crested waves, five and six feet high, smashing against the shore along the Beach. Trees shook, and strained at their roots, some of them going down before the gale, while many cottages were damaged. Near the canal, the water washed up almost to the road. Trees that skirt the bay near the canal are in danger of being washed away”

The reporter also made his way up the escarpment to learn of what had happened, and was still happening, there as the late edition of the Times went to press:

“The mountain top residents felt the full force of the storm. All the large residences there suffered more or less, large brick chimneys crashing through verandahs and fences being carried away,

“The storm on the bay and lake, as viewed from the mountain, was weirdly picturesque. The dust on the north shore is lifted in great clouds and swept over and swept over the bay like smoke, making it appear as though a great fire was raging.” 

(To Be Continued)

 

1909 Kinrade Murder Part 9

 

 “If the police at the inquest on Wednesday night succeed in establishing the link required to complete the chain of circumstantial evidence wound around the person they suspect of slaying Ethel Kinrade in her father’s house on Herkimer street on the afternoon of February 25, Hamilton’s most sensational murder mystery may be solved within two days.”

Hamilton Times.    March  09, 1909.

The day before the long-awaited inquest into the shooting death of Ethel Kinrade, there were rumors that the police had a strong theory and some proof as to what happened in the Herkimer street home of the Kinrade Family:

“While the authorities maintain silence and refuse to deny or affirm reports of an arrest in the case this week, everything points to developments immediately after the inquest.

 “The Coroner’s inquest tomorrow night promises to be one of the most dramatic investigations ever held within the walls of the dingy old court room. There is a feeling that the police are holding back something that they have evidence of an entirely new nature, which will be sprung as a surprise. This was partly confirmed today by Chief of Police Smith, who assured a Times reporter that the police had evidence in the case of which the public knew nothing, and which was being saved up to tomorrow night’s investigation.

¹ “New Features in the Kinrade Case”

Hamilton Times. March 9, 1909.

During the morning of March 9, Hamilton Police Detectives Coulter and Bleakley made yet another trip to Kinrade house. They were accompanied by a plumber, with a full set of tools, presumably to search for a weapon. Reporters were barred.

Another new feature about how the events of the murder evolved arose when Charles Hossack, 148 Kerkimer street claimed that he saw Ethel was returning to her home about 2 p.m. This seemed to refute Florence Kinrade’s story that she and her sister were preparing to go out when an intruder burst through the front door.

Also another witness statement to police seemed to call into question the state of mind of the murdered woman’s sister :

 “The police are investigating that Florence Kinrade was seen out walking with Montrose Wright two days after the shooting. The police were under the impression that Miss Kinrade was suffering so from hysteria at this time that she could not leave the house.”¹

¹ Hamilton Times. March 9, 1909

There was a clamour for admittance to watch the inquest at the Police Court room within Police Station #3:

 “Well-known citizens have been pulling wires to be admitted to the inquest, but Coroner McNichol has decided that the doors will be barred against all but those who have business there. This is made necessary because the accommodation in the court room is limited. The fifteen jurors, thirty witnesses, as many officials, and a staff of reporters from local and outside papers, will make a crowd of nearly a hundred – enough to fill the court room.

Report confirmed that George Tate Blackstock, K.C., “regarded as one of the shrewdest criminal lawyers in Canada” would conduct the examination of the witnesses ‘:

Blackstock had been ’’appointed by the Government, and with the concurrence of local Crown Attorney Washington:

“Mr. Washington was very glad to be relieved of the onerous duties and Mr. Blackstock is a man of the very widest experience and ability. This move must not be taken in any sense for a reflection on the capacity of Mr. Washington, a most able man. He was very glad indeed to have Mr. Blackstock relieve him.”¹

¹ Hamilton Times. March 9, 1909.

The schedule of first session of the Kinrade inquest include its beginning with a report from the doctors who had examined Ethel Kinrade’s body after it had been transported to the city morgue:

“The post-mortem report , signed by Doctors Balfe and Edgar, will be the first evidence. This will, it is said, effectively dispose of the tramp theory, and pave the way  for the cross-examination of other witnesses on points which the police wish to have cleared up.’ ¹

It was rumoured that the doctors had confirmed that there was a period of from ten to fifteen minutes between the firing of the first and second series of shots:

 “Would any tramp remain in the room with the dying girl for such a space of time, them, thinking the victim might recover, reload the revolver and begin firing into the body again.? The police don’t think so. The police never warmed up to the tramp theory.

“Florence Kinrade, in a hysterical condition, told the officers three different stories while she was in Hamilton. The first two supported the tramp theory. The third shattered it. She declared that it was no tramp but a fairly well-dressed man who did the shooting.”¹

Another theory was that an insane man who escaped from the Asylum on the mountain was responsible for the shooting:

 “The police are convinced now that the shooting was not done by an insane man or even a person crazy with passion. It was a cool, deliberate murder, as the medical evidence would appear to indicate, done by a person who stood over her prostrate body , after it had fallen to the floor, watching her life ebb away, and who, not satisfied that she was mortally wounded. Reloaded the revolver and fifteen minutes or so after the first set of shots, fired three more through the left breast, one piercing the heart.                   

“The theory, that one the police guard so jealously, comes nearer home. Detective Miller has centered all his work in the vicinity of Hamilton. The  frequent visits of the officers to the Kinrade home, the frequent searches of the vicinity for the revolver with which the crime was committed, and the efforts of the authorities to show that the crime was not committed just before 4 o’clock, but earlier,”¹

The witness to take the stand after the medical evidence had been submitted was scheduled to be the dead woman’s younger sister:

 “It is likely that Florence Kinrade, who is regarded as the chief witness, will go on the stand immediately after the doctors and tell her story. Although she has been examined by two medical experts, who have expressed the opinion that she is in fit condition, physically and mentally, to testify, it is thought doubtful if she will be able to go through the ordeal tomorrow night without breaking down.”

Flossie Kinrade was the object of widespread conjecture that she had not been truthful in her statements to the police as to the events that led to the death of her sister.

Florence did have her defenders however, including one prominent but unidentified city physician. He had an possible explanation on the matter of the lapse of time between the firing of the bullets into the head and breast of Ethel “:

‘Is it possible that the girl fainted after the first shots were fired?’

“He added that in the stress of the few moments after the first shots were fired, the sister of the dead girl might have run into the room and done any one of half a dozen peculiar and inexplicable things, then fainted. ‘It is equally possible that the next shots fired would awaken the girl from her swoon,’ he said, ‘after recovering she might not remember what she had done before.

“ ‘The girl is laboring under a terrible mental strain,’ said the physician, ‘and it is a wonder she has borne up under the police enquiry and has told as straight a story as the officers say they got from her.’¹

The Times reported on how a ‘sleuth’ or private detective had been keeping a close watch on the Kinrade family while they were at the Arlington Hotel in Toronto. Earl Kinrade was interviewed about being constantly under observation :

“What is the sense of having a detective in the hotel dragging our heels all the time? The other morning I was reading a newspaper, when I became aware that some one’s eyes were fixed intently on me; I looked up suddenly and a man was seated just opposite, looking as if he were trying to read my thoughts. It gave me a start. The same thing happened half an hour after.

“ ‘I do not think we will ever live in the old house. I do not think mother or my sisters would ever again have any peace within those four walls. The family will live in Hamilton, I suppose, but in another part of the city. We will probably sell the old house we have lived in for many years.

“The new facts, or so-called facts, that there were eight bullets fired, make the murder more mysterious than ever. I can’t account for it, but I would like to have a fair chance at the cur that held that gun.’¹

(To Be Continued)