1911 – Police
In the Christmas edition of the Hamilton Daily Times which appeared on December 16, 1911, there was a feature article describing the activities of the Hamilton Police department in the rapidly expanding north-eastern section of the city.
After many delays, it was finally decided by the police commissioners to divide the city into eastern and western sections as regarding deployment of police resources.
The headquarters for the eastern division was to be a newly-constructed police station, located on the east side ofSherman avenue, near the corner of Barton street.
Inspector David Coulter, already a 33 year veteran of the Hamilton Police department, was chosen as the officer to be put in charge, with a force of 18 men under his command.
The opening of the Sherman avenue station was welcomed by many segments of the east end community. As noted in the Times, “manufacturers, merchants, clergymen and citizens of the east end are, to a man, highly pleased with what has already been accomplished and have congratulated the officers and men.”
The biggest problem facing the officers of the eastern division was the rampant violation of the local liquor laws by newly-arrived immigrants.
The Times reporter went to great pains to say that to accuse all east end residents of creating liquor problems would be “doing an injustice to the great majority of the foreign citizens of East Hamilton .”
These new citizens generally come from countries where the liquor laws were much more lax than they were in Hamilton
The police found it necessary to regularly visit the homes of “foreigners,” especially those living in boarding houses, searching for illicit liquor. Chief Coulter told the Times reporter that “in ninety cases out of every hundred in the houses we visit, we find liquor but not in sufficient quantity to justify a seizure.”
One particular day, Sergeant Hawkins was sent to an address with a search warrant to look for liquor. He found a man and woman in a spotlessly clean home, “with a couple of bright, neatly-dressed children playing on the floor.”
One particular day, Sergeant Hawkins was sent to an address with a search warrant to look for liquor. He found a man and woman in a spotlessly clean home, “with a couple of bright, neatly-dressed children playing on the floor.”
When the man of the house was asked about liquor, he replied, “No beer here, boss, we haven’t had any here for over three years. We can’t afford it.”
It was then that Sergeant Hawkins noticed that he had misread the address on the search warrant, and that he was supposed to be searching the house next door.
There he saw two neglected children in a room with four men and a woman who were sitting around drinking.
“The floors were so greasy,” Sergeant Hawkins said, “that I almost slipped when walking on them.”
The boarding houses in the east end were considered by the police to be the breeding grounds of both vice and disease. While the police seldom laid charges over unsanitary living conditions, they did make full reports on particular houses which were forwarded to the health department.
The police, of course, knew the east end well, while most people in the rest of Hamilton at the time, observed the Times man, might only have had a vague impression of conditions there; “sometimes an idea is formed by people who get a peep in a doorway, or who see dirty-faced children, scantily-clad, playing on the streets, or in rooms where men are gathered together smoking and drinking.”
The Times reporter accompanied the police on one raid of a boarding house where there were “30 or 40 living in one house, beds in the parlors, hallways, cellars, living rooms, and, in places, in what the foreigners called dining rooms.”
The close of the year 1911 saw the eastern division of the Hamilton Wellington street and the Jockey Club.
The east end ofHamilton
The east end of
To cope with such a rapid expansion was the challenge to the ingenuity of Inspector Coulter and to the dedication of the men operating out of the Sherman avenue station.
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