Gurney Fire - 1910

At 5:35 p.m. on a cold February day, February, 17, 1910, many workmen in the Gurney-Tilden foundry were glancing at the clock anxiously anticipating the end of that day’s shift.

          Suddenly, with out any warning whatever, volumes of thick, acrid smoke poured up the building’s stairways and through elevator shafts. Within seconds there was a mad scramble as the workmen quickly headed for the exits.

          There were over 200 workmen employed in the section of the building where the fire broke out. Many barely escaped with their lives.

          One workman, interviewed after the fire, escaped down an elevator shaft by gliding down a greased cable :

          “We were so thick coming down the elevator rope that the man who was coming down beside me, kicked me in the head several times, and I thought that I would lose consciousness between the thick smoke and the kicks I received.”

          The Gurney-Tilden foundry was a large, four storey brick building which ran the whole bock on the east side of John street between Gore (Wilson) and King William street.

          A major department of the company was the japanning room where black enamel was prepared so that the stoves could be lacquered to a durable, glossy finish.

          It was later presumed that the insulation on one of the electric wires which ran over the lacquer pots burned through, causing the wire to fall into the hot flammable liquid. Following a brilliant flash, dense, black smoke rolled along the length of the floor, enveloping the room in semi-darkness in a split second.

          Mr. William H. Griffin, interviewed after the fire, said that he was passing the lacquer room, “when suddenly there shot up from the lacquer tank a big flame, which instantly caught the stairs, which were close by. Then the smoke began to rise from the tank and stairs in dense volumes. The girl, Miss Payne, and the boy, Ed, the only two employees in the room, besides myself, fortunately were not near the tank; had they been they would have been burned to death, as the flame would have enveloped them. I at once cried fire and the girl began to develop hysterics and seemed powerless to move, so I pushed her through the door and Mike Griffin, another blacksmith, helped her to escape. I then notified all I could of the fire.”

          Harry Bowden Jr., a foreman of the girls’ lock room said to the press after the fire that Dunnett rushed into his room shouting “Fire! :”

          “I told him to be quiet, and hastened to assure the girls that there was no cause for alarm, and succeeded in keeping them from becoming excited. They quietly got their hats and coats, and after I had seen them all safely out, I left myself.”

          As the Central Fire Station was less than a block from the scene of the blaze, there were several streams of water turned on the flames within a very brief time after the alarm was turned in.

          A Times reporter on hearing the fire alarm rushed to the scene from the newspaper’s office just a few blocks away at the corner of  King William and Hughson streets.

          Turning north on John street, he could see that the whole street was filled with dense smoke. Later, he wrote that “the scene was one of the most thrilling ever witnessed in Hamilton. All along the building, windows were seen to crash through. The firemen ran ladders up and three or four men piled out of each window helter skelter onto the ladder and slid to the ground. They were hardly able to walk.”

          At one of the windows, a man was seen smashing glass with his bare hands, and then climbing out onto the window sill. After the fire net was put under him, the people below called for him to jump. At first, the man was hesitant; the crowd’s pleas for him to jump renewed but were more a sending for appeals rather than commands.

          Finally, the man hurled himself off the ledge and pitched headlong into the net. His name was Samuel Hobson, Later Hobson was quoted as saying that he saw the smoke pouring forth and realized that he had to get to the windows “but the smoke was faster than I, and I had great trouble in finding the windows. As soon as I did, however, I heard the voices below yelling to me to jump and I did so.”

The fire was mainly limited to the lacquering room and the firemen were able to have it extinguished within minutes.

As the dense, poisonous clouds of smoke began to clear, efforts were made to account for all the employees who would have been at work in the vicinity of the lacquering room.

“Where is Harry Bawden?” someone cried out.

 Ladders were set up allowing several firemen including the Chief to plunge into the smoke to search for any missing workmen. Within, the firemen reappeared with not one, but two, lifeless bodies.

Both bodies were carried to the sample room A large crowd followed, anxious to learn the identities of the two unfortunates.

 Among the crowd was Harry Bawden, Junior,

“As he peered over the shoulders of the crowd, he was horrified his father stretched out, cold in death.”

The other victim, Arthur McCulley, had only been working at the Gurney foundry since the previous Monday.

Chief Ten Eyck, who happened to be a personal friend of McCulley, had been the one to find his body in the building :

“That he lost his way and did not know the layout of the room he was in was shown by the fact that in going from where he was working to where the body was found, he had passed a door which would have led him into the other part of the building and, for a time, out of the smoke. He would then have been able to get out.”

While McCulley lived for a while, due to the resuscitation efforts of Police Constable Campaign, he could not be saved. Both McCulley and Harry Bawden suffocated and there were no burns on either body.

Percy Woodbridge risked his life in a vain attempt to save one of his comrades. He said that “it seemed as if a black curtain  had been thrown over the entire department. I could not see a soul in the place because the smoke was so thick and it was all the time becoming denser. As I was slowly making my way across the room, I almost tripped over a man who seemed in a state of suffocation. With all the strength I could muster, I tried to assist him to the window, but he was too much for me and he fell from my grasp across a bench, apparently unconscious. That man, I believe, was McCulley.”

Coincidentally,  Percy Woodbridge’s 9 year old sister-in-law happened to be in the neighborhood of the Gurney foundry when the fire broke out.

          “I was walking along John street about twenty minutes to six,” she said, “when I heard the reels coming, and looking up at Gurney-Tilden’s factory saw that it was on fire. Then a man appeared at an upper window, and I cried “Look, look, there is a man at the window. Oh, poor man, he might be my brother-in-law. I then saw the fire escape put up and when the man was brought down, I saw it was Percy. I then hurried home and told mother.”

Harry Bawden Junior had collapsed upon seeing his dead father’s body. He was sent by cab to his home, having the responsibility to tell the sad news to other members of his family.

When a Times reporter called at the Bawden home with the purpose of obtaining a photograph of the dead man, he found the son “scarcely recovered from his terrible shock, he staggered around under the burden of his grief, talking incoherently. Upstairs the dead man’s widow, heartbroken, sobbed pitifully.

1910 - Movies and Censorship

1910 – Movies

        In the fall of 1910, the Hamilton Spectator launched a crusade against the type of moving pictures that were being shown in local theatres. In the days before censorship mechanisms were established, the laws covering the type of moving pictures shown in Ontario were vague and open to a wide variety of interpretations.

          On August 31, 1910, the Spectator ran an article under the headline, “Pictures That Foster Crime : Hold Officers of the Law Up to Ridicule,” in which the reporter described a film which he felt encouraged disrespect for the law.

          In the film, a police constable was savagely attacked by a burglar who had broken into a store to steal food. The reporter felt that it was no mere coincidence that a crime of exactly the same nature had been committed in Hamilton while that particular picture was being shown.

          In 1910, there were no restrictions regarding the admittance of children to moving picture theatres. The reporter described in detail one film which he considered unfit for children to see.

          In that film, a beautiful young woman, described as a “poorly dressed artist’s model” threw herself off a bridge because of unrequited love:

          “Special pains were taken by the filmmakers to give the audience a near view of the unfortunate girl as she sank for the third time. Later, the body of the girl was seen lying in the morgue just as it had been removed from the water. She lay on her back, her wet hair suspended. As she thus lay, the faithless lover, who had been the cause of the tragedy, entered, and in apparent grief, fell on the swollen, lifeless form. Those who saw the sight shuddered in horror.”

          As the days passed, the Spectator’s campaign against what they called “the mental filth and rot” of moving pictures intensified. In particular, a poster advertising a  film was condemned. The poster depicted a “semi-nude colored woman.”

          After a complaint to the manager of the theatre involved, a promise was made to do something about the poster. The “something” consisted of pasting a piece of paper, two inches square, over the objectionable part of the poster. Noting that the poster was located “only a stone’s throw from the police station,” the reporter pointed out that “probably it did not occur to the police that this woman was alive inside the theatre and could be seen exactly as depicted on the poster for the sum of five cents.”

          In another film, the moral degradation of the leading character was a source of concern to the Spectator. The film portrayed the story of the downfall of a woman named Ruth, tracing her movements from the family home to “one of the dirtiest and most disreputable houses one can imagine.” In one scene, Ruth is shown “reclining on a couch, and the actions of the man in the picture are most repulsive.”

          The Spectator, in demanding action against such films, noted that the “remarkable suggestiveness of the moving picture may be related to the fact that fixing the attention on some slightly moving or quivering bright object induces a hypnotic state in which suggestion is remarkably easy.”

          The claim was made that the powerful effect of moving pictures not only caused crime by imitation of what was portrayed on the screen, but even, the Spectator declared, “persons who have witnessed the portrayal of suicide have gone home and taken their lives.”

          In an editorial calling for police action against the showing of morally degrading films in Hamilton, the Spectator emphasized that it had no quarrel with the management of local moving picture theatres. Recognizing the potential value of moving pictures for both entertainment and education, the Spectator said that it was only calling for the police to enforce the already existing laws against “the undesirable film. The law, by the way, says that no picture depicting crime or violence shall be exhibited. Also, it is required that the police department shall see that the law in this as in other matters shall be enforced. Which makes one wonder why it should be necessary for anyone to have to wage battle to induce the police to do no more than is their plain duty.”

          Eventually, a police investigation was launched. Police Chief Smith sent Constable Thomas Brown to gather information about the type of films being shown in Hamilton.

          Finally, on October 21, 1910, charges of breaching moving picture regulations were laid against five theatre managers, namely W. J. Melody of the Colonial Theatre, Herbert Clayton of the Crystal Palace Theatre, John R. Cambden of the Gayety Theatre, V. King of the Savoy Theatre and John Stewart of the Unique Theatre.

          The first case to be heard in police court was against the Crystal Palace Theatre. Magistrate Jelfs declared at the outset that it was his opinion that the police would have to prove a crime was actually depicted on the screen, not merely a representation of a crime.

          The film in question was a western in which Constable Brown saw a cowboy being pursued by other cowboys, followed by a shoot out which left one man dead. Also shown at the Crystal Palace Theatre that day was another reel depicting a house burglary.

        Herbert Clayton, manager of the Crystal Palace Theatre, pleaded not guilty to the charge and was defended by George S. Kerr, K. C.

          During his cross-examination of Constable Brown, Kerr asked him the following :

           “You don’t know whether the wild west men were properly chasing the outlaw? They might have been a mounted posse. The other film wound up with a very fine moral, did it not?”

          After the constable replied in the affirmative, Mr. Kerr went on to claim that “the moral was a touching one. It almost brought tears to your eyes.”

          Mr. Kerr argued that the depiction of crime in moving pictures had no more adverse effect than the depiction of crime in written literature:

          “Look at all the Nick Carters and cheap novels people read. They can read of crime in the newspaper every night.”

          Magistrate Jelfs said that he felt that the law against moving pictures related only to the depiction of actual crimes:

          “If they produced pictures of the Kinrade murder, say, or the murder at Goderich, I should think such pictures would come under the act.”

          Lawyer Kerr also argued that the act went too far and could stifle the picture house business.

          Magistrate Jelfs declared that he was unable to render a decision in the case and reserved judgment for a week, although he added, “in my opinion, we will have to have some representation of actual crime before there is an offense.”

          The cases against the other theatre managers were postponed until the case against the Crystal Palace Theatre was decided.

          The Hamilton Times was dissatisfied with the outcome of the case against the Crystal Palace Theatre, arguing that the point of the case was to fight the showing of “immoral and degrading shows.” The case, the Times argued, had instead become immersed in a legalistic battle over an act which was clearly inadequate:

          “In all conscience, the Government owes it to the picture men, owes it to justice, to enable them o obey the law, by itself furnishing a criterion for their guide.’

          In the absence of guidelines for the censorship of moving pictures, Magistrate Jelfs eventually ruled that the cases against the moving picture theatre managers could not proceed.

          For the moment, the campaign against the showing of questionable moving pictures put on hold.

         

Truckle Murder - Suicide 1912

On a bright Saturday morning, May 18, 1912, there was the usual whirl of activity on the Hamilton market square as hundreds of farmers and their customers went about their business.

        Around 11 a.m., a flashily dressed young man and pretty, hatless young lady were seen arguing fiercely as they walked up Market street towards Park street.

        Suddenly, the woman was pushed from behind. A revolver was produced and a shot rang out. In an instant, the woman lay dead on the sidewalk, while her assailant ran away west on Market street.

        The principals in the violent incident were Mr. and Mrs. Frank Truckle, a young couple who had only recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary. After only a brief courtship, they had been married on April 22, 1911.

        Frank Truckle’s father later described his son’s wife, Lena, as an English girl who had “come from Buffalo to Brantford. She was in an institution in Buffalo, and after serving her time, she was placed on a train. She intended going to Toronto, but changed her mind and stopped off in Brantford.”

        Before the young couple was married, Lena solemnly promised that she would settle down and keep away from other men.

        According to her father-in-law, Lena failed to keep her promise: “She was good for a few days and did not speak to other men unless with Frank, and then she started to go to dances alone and came home with other men.”

        On January 10, 1912, Lena gave birth to a child, but sadly the baby only lived one day and was buried in the Hamilton Cemetery.

        Frank and Lena Truckle lived in a couple of rooms in a boarding house on Hughson street south.

        According to Mrs. Allen, their landlady, Lena “sometimes took to liquor.” The landlady further stated that “the girl was pretty and proud of her long hair and would always take it down if anyone expressed admiration for it reached below her waist and was a beautiful color.”

        One day, Frank Truckle returned to his house from work at noon hour. He had recently refused Lena permission to leave the house without him, but she had done so anyway.

        As he waited for her return, he sat on the front steps, whiskey bottle in hand.

        When Lena finally returned home, she found her husband to be both drunk and surly. He pushed her roughly into the house, grabbed her by the throat and threw her across the bed.

        Screaming with all her might, Lena was able to stop Frank long enough for her to escape. Racing out of the house, she went directly o the police station to lay a charge of assault against her husband.

        When the case came up in police court, Frank denied each and every statement Lena made to the magistrate. Frank denied hitting her on the cheek, explaining that the nasty bruise on her face was the result of falling across the corner of the bed.

        Frank also accused Lena of drinking too much and flirting with other men. He admitted that they had quarreled and that he might have used her roughly, but refused to admit that he hit her.

        “Why, I think too much of my wife to hit her,” Frank testified. “All I want to do is lead a pure life. I work hard and attend to my business, but do not approve of my wife parading around the streets and flirting with other men.”

        Lena was almost beside herself with indignation in her reaction to her husband’s remarks.

        “Frank, you are telling what is not true,” she shouted. Lena got so worked up that Magistrate Jelfs had to sternly warn her to control herself.

        After due consideration, Magistrate Jelfs concluded that Frank was not wholly to blame for the incident.

        The magistrate then asked Lena, “How long have you been married?”

        “A little over a year,” she replied.

        “Well,” the magistrate said, “you shouldn’t have a row with your husband so soon. You better go back with him. I dismiss the case.”

Immediately after leaving the police court room, Frank Truckle walked to the Spectator’s newspaper office to ask if he could place a notice in the paper to the effect that he would not be responsible for his wife’s debts.

        While at the Spectator office, Frank told a reporter his version of the incident that had landed him in police court. A little girl, who lived next door, told him that she had seen his wife walking down the street with another man. When he confronted his wife with this information, she told him to mind his own business. Frank told the reporter that although the argument was fierce, he did not strike her.

        In the meantime, Lena, deciding to leave her husband, had promptly secured a position at the King George Hotel, located at the corner of MacNab street north and Market street. She worked at first as a chambermaid at the hotel, and then was assigned to work as a helper in the dining room.

        Lena’s employer, Archibald Goldberg, said that “she did all her work thoroughly and impressed everyone as being honest and respectable.”

        “One morning,” Archibald Goldberg continued, “she came in and showed me the black and blue marks on her throat and said that her husband beat her up and tried to choke her. Then she went back to him and the next time she came in with a hard luck tale, I told her she deserved all she got for living with such a an. Later she left him, and when she told me this, I told her that if she went back to live with him again, I would discharge her.”

        To her fellow employees at the King George Hotel, Lena accused her husband of constantly demanding money from her, even making improper suggestions as to how she could earn it.

        Every night after his wife left him, Frank Truckle would attempt to watch her every move.

        Police constable Merritt, who pounded the beat near the market, was approached by Frank, who asked him to keep an eye on Lena because she was running around with other men.

        After telling the policeman his story, Frank Truckle was ordered to stay away from the King George Hotel and to not cause any trouble.

        Nevertheless, Frank frequently the vicinity of the King George Hotel, and told his troubles to everyone who worked at the hotel, often bursting into tears. He made such a nuisance of himself that the King George Hotel’s proprietor Goldberg ordered him to stay away.

        On Friday evening, May 17, 1912, Lena Truckle received a letter, delivered by hand to her room in the King George Hotel. It was unsigned, but she knew only too well who it was from.

        The hand-written letter read exactly as follows:

        “My darling wife,

        I am crying now and sorry I did not go with you last night, but believe me I came back to the house and they said to me, ‘why did not go with her?’ I said it was none of your business, and Mrs. Miller said I had better get another boarding house, and I run out of house for you and when I got to the corner, you were going in the hotel and I cried. I did not know what to do, but I came back to the hotel and waiter said I could stay all night and get away from Millers. He said it was all their fault we got in a quarrel. Now, my dear wife, I am going to get a nice boarding house. I hope you did not say anything to those housemaids, dear darling wife. Meet me at half-past seven tonight. Won’t you? I have got my money here.”

        Later that evening, Frank Truckle lurked about the vicinity of the King George Hotel, watching for his wife. He ran into two men who he suspected of running around with his wife. He took them into a nearby tavern.

After buying each a drink, he said, “You’d better go up and see the old ---- tonight, because she will be dead tomorrow.”

Thinking that Truckle was simply drunk, the men did not report the threat to the police.

        Saturday morning, Frank Truckle went to the King George Hotel to once more plead with his wife to return home. Once more, she refused.

 In a rage, Frank went back to his room to get his pistol.

Hiding the gun under his coat, Frank returned to the hotel to confront Lena.

After convincing her to come out, they immediately began to quarrel over money. Frank offered to give her five dollars if she came home with him.

Lena told him to go to hell.

They continued to walk along together along Market street, causing no undue attention.

Suddenly, there were shouts between the couple.

“Are you coming home with me?” yelled Frank.

“No I’m not!” Lena spit back.

“Well, take that,” Frank said after pushing her forward and sticking his revolver a few inches from her heart.

Lena died instantly after the trigger was pulled.

Many people heard the shot, but, as a Herald reporter later noted, “many paid no attention at first, as a shooting affray right in the busiest section of the city was not thought of. However, when the constables were seen rushing up the streets, the excitement became intense and hundreds of people lined up on Market street.”

The posse of policemen running from No. 3 police station divided at the scene of the crime. Some of the officers stayed with the body and began to question witnesses. Other officers joined several hundred angry bystanders who were chasing Frank Truckle up the street.

Truckle was temporarily cornered behind the Hendrie and Company stables at the corner of Market and Caroline streets.

 However, Truckle managed o double back to Park street, where he jumped into an unoccupied rig, and drove it furiously south.

Some of the policemen jumped an automobile and ordered the driver to follow the rig.

Truckle, seeing that the police were gaining on him, jumped out of the buggy at the corner of Duke and Park streets.

A young lad, William Sutherby, witnessed the whole scene and breathlessly told the Herald reporter exactly what he saw:

        “I was walking down Macnab street from Charlton avenue when I saw a man running with all his might toward me, about two blocks away. An automobile was standing at the curb, and I saw a minister who I thought was rev. Mr. Daw, assisting a lady into it. I saw that man run up to the minister and speak to him. I was too far away to hear what he said.

“Before the minister had time to turn around to answer the man’s question, he had pulled a revolver out of his pocket and pointed it at his heart.

“I heard the report of the gun and saw the smoke. The man then sank on the grass. By the time I got up to him, the police and a crowd of men gathered around him and were putting him in the auto.”

On the way to the hospital, Frank Truckle continued to try to escape, despite the massive bullet wound in his chest. Even once at the hospital, he continued to struggle, until he collapsed, his lung nearly full of blood.

Back at the King George Hotel, all newspaper reporters were thrown out of the establishment as they zealously competed with each other for information about the couple.

Mrs. Miller, the landlady at Frank Truckle’s boarding house, was interviewed. She said that Truckle had told her that he had heard that his estranged wife “had spent most of the night in a Chinese restaurant in company with other men, and he seemed mad about that.”

In the hospital, Truckle requested to see his parents, After hurried telephone calls to Brantford, Mr. and Mrs. Truckle were informed of the morning’s events. She immediately began to travel to Hamilton.

Frank Truckle’s mother was very upset, and claimed that her son’s wife was the cause of his downfall.

Between sobs, she told a reporter the following: “Frank was my youngest son and would have been 26 on May 30. He was a good worker, but I never thought he would come to this. It is best that he died.”

As the day progressed, Frank Truckle’s condition seemed to improve. The police, afraid that he might again try to commit suicide, posted Constable Richard Elliot at his bedside.

“Over the next few hours, the police constable witnessed Frank Truckle reliving the shooting over and over again in his delirious state of mind. He would repeatedly call out Lena’s name, beg her forgiveness and plead for her return.

In one of his quieter spells, he told Constable Elliot that he was not sorry that he had killed her: “I am sorry that I had such a wife. I was forced to do it. My wife was a bad woman. For God’s sake, when you are going to get married, don’t marry a loose woman. They always cause trouble.”

Around 4 p.m., the doctors at the hospital gave Truckle some stimulants, and, for a short time, he seemed to be recovering.

When asked for an ante-mortem statement, Truckle refused, insisting, “I am going to get better.”

Finally, about 4:30, Truckle changed his mind and became convinced that his death was imminent.

His final statement, reprinted in the following day’s newspapers read as follows:

“I, Frank Truckle, believe that I am in very bad condition and about to die. I shot my wife because she had been with other men. I went to the hotel and took her away. She was in the dining room and saw me cross the road and she came down and I said to her, ‘Are you going to come and live right with me?’

“She said, ‘No, I am going to work here.’

“I had a gun at home. I had not seen her for a couple of days. I went home to get the gun.

“I came back and she said: ‘I want some money.’

“I said: ‘I will give you $5 if you will come home.’

“She told me to go to h---. We walked up to the corner.

“She was going to tell a man that I had a gun. I pulled it out. I was crazy and I shot her; then I ran. I shot her because I loved her and I was worried about her.

“A couple of men chased me. I stopped and turned around, and ten I kept on running. I met a minister and asked him to forgive me.

“Then I shot myself.”

As the evening progressed, the physical pain and mental delirium of Frank Truckle reached agonizing levels. His arms became gradually paralyzed, and he suffered from fearful pains in his back.

About half an hour after midnight, Frank Truckle turned to Constable Elliot and one of the surgeons present and told them: “I can’t live. I’m going, boys.”

At that point the surgeon left the room.

Left alone with Truckle, Constable Elliot heard him begin to recite the Lord’s Prayer. When he reached the phrase, “Thy will be done,” he stopped exhausted.

Thinking that Truckle had died, Constable Elliot leaned over, listening closely to ascertain if he was still breathing.

Startled, he heard Frank Truckle whisper to him, asking “Are you married?”

In a voice gradually weakening, Truckle went to say in a barely audible voice, “I hope she’s a good woman. If I had one, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Finally Frank Truckle gasped, “I’m going. God forgive me for what I have done. God forgive her for what she did to me.”

Lena Truckle’s room at the King George Hotel was searched, and a diary was found.

A spectator reporter who managed to get access to the diary said that “it spelled the silent grief she had borne during the last few months. Mentions were made of her confinement in the hospital, the birth of her baby, the cost of the tiny coffin, and the place where it was interred The writing was made with a lead pencil, but the tracing was almost obliterated, as if tears had at one time soaked the page as the entries were made.”

A final note in the tragic affair was struck by Mrs. Allen, the landlady at the Hughson street south house where the Truckles had once boarded.

She told a Herald reporter that “a funny thing about Frank was his picture. We have had his picture for some time. It is a good picture of him (like the one in today’s Herald), and yet if it is held at a distance, the expression is harsh.  My little girl used to take the picture up and, holding it by the upper corner, would run to me and say, ‘There is the picture of the murderer, ma. This was years ago, and now, my little girl’s words have come true.”

Frank Truckle’s body was transported to Brantford for burial, while Lena Truckle’s body was interred in a plot at the Hamilton cemetery which had been generously paid for by her former employer at the King George Hotel.