Gilberts: Chatham slow to appreciate danger of unusual summer flood of 1883

Anyone who lives along the Thames River is accused of periodic flooding. And there have been, during the years, some devastating floods. People with businesses or homes along the Thames are used to spring encroachments but a flood in the middle of summer? That is unusual.

So unusual, we have to go back to the summer of 1883.

In July, 1883, a telegram reached the people of Chatham warning them that a flood of unheard size and force was headed their way, caused by record rainfall.

Not totally cognizant of the extent of the damage and loss of life that had occurred in London (17 dead, hundreds of homes destroyed and in excess of $500,000 worth of damage) the people of Chatham were more excited than frightened at the prospect of rising water . After all, it was July and the weather was warm. Floods in Chatham occur in the spring, not in the middle of summer. It was a time to swim in the Thames, not fear it!

As a massive amount of debris made its way down the Thames to Chatham and more sinister, unbelievable reports and rumors reached Chatham about its intensity, trepidation began to ramp up.

There was growing fear, if even some of the stories were true, that the town’s railroad bridge and the old wooden Fifth Street bridge might be swept away by the sheer mass of water and debris coming down the river?

As the first wave of debris approached Chatham, a number of residents gathered at the Erie and Huron Railroad bridge above Chatham to witness the imminent conflict between man and nature.

The new railroad bridge, although capable of carrying a train across it span, was not completely constructed nor reinforced with its required supports.

In addition some of the steel tracks had been quickly removed from the bridge by railroad employees lest it not survive the flood’s onslaught. In brief, it was not in the best condition to do battle with a debris-loaded rampaging river.

Unbelievably, as the debris approached the bridge, some citizens ventured out onto it to get a better view of the swollen, garbage-filled wave sweeping down upon the structure.

As the size and force of the approaching wave registered with the fool-hardy crowd on the bridge, they had to make a less than elegant escape. Just as many had predicted, a portion of the new railroad bridge was swept away by the wave and its collective debris.

As it collapses into the Thames in an almost slow-motion fall, fears turned to the next span in the path of the torrential Thames, the old wooden Fifth Street bridge.

The crowd made its way to Tecumseh Park where a swelling numbers of people staked their claim to a piece of river bank where they could best view the next conflict between man and the elements. If you were young, could life get any more thrilling, exciting and deliciously dangerous?

More than 400 people stood in Tecumseh Park and, again, more than a few took their lives into their hands and remained on the creaky old Fifth Street structure for as long as they possibly could.

As the first wave of debris crashed against the bridge some people prayed the old structure would persevere while others, fed up with the tired structure, prayed it would collapse into spectacular ruin!.

A newspaper reporter standing near the bridge in Tecumseh Park reported on what he saw and heard as the first vanguard of debris reached the span.

“Every timber of the aged and stricken bridge trembled, but like some misshapen, wretched creature that bore a charmed life, the whole mass of debris slipped beneath and around the bridge and glided safely down the Thames.”

Businesses and farms along the Thames from Chatham to the mouth of the river were not so lucky. Many businesses on the bank of the river in Chatham had their cellars flooded (as they did in February of this year) while farmers reported many hectares of crops were ruined as they were submerged under a meter of water.

However, the suffering experienced in Chatham was minor in comparison to the death and destruction London experienced.

An editorial in the Chatham Weekly Banner encouraged Chatham residents to be ”generous in their support of the unfortunate Londoners, for while it was London this time, it could very well be Chatham’s turn the next time around.”

NOTE: On Friday, July 21 we will be doing our third ghost walk of the summer. We will be leaving from the central library on Cross Street. We will be featuring new stories from this area and also we will have a personal story told by the owner of a lovely house of Cross Street. We will have departures at 7:30 pm, 8 pm and 8:30 pm Tickets are $15 plus surcharge, available at Eventbrite.com. We had more than 100 participants at last month’s walk. For more information, phone Sheila at 519-351-2958 or Jim at 519-674-2322 or 519-436-2058.