“Port Dover is a pleasant place for picnickers from this
city. It is a Scott act village, and the Sabbathlike stillness that broods over
it like an Indian summer haze is very refreshing to people coming direct from
the stir and noise of a large town.
Hamilton Spectator.
August 24, 1885.
For their second annual summer outing, to be held on
Saturday August 22, 1885, the employees of the Hamilton and Northern Railway
travelled to the popular lakeside town at the southern end of their line: It
was a popular choice:
“Port Dover has a public resort called Erie park. Erie
park is not so extensive as Fairmount or Central parks, but it is larger than
the only public park that Hamilton can boast – our petite but precious Gore.
“Erie park is well-shaded, and though the only flowering
plants to be found there and Canadian thistles, there are expanses of fresh
green turf beneath the trees to sit on and lie on; and then, its chief
advantage, the park overlooks Lake Erie, with its long narrow strip of yellow
sandy beach, which gives its color to the water a quarter mile out from shore.”1
“Fun on Erie’s Shore: Annual Picnic of the N. and N. W.
R. Employees : A Big Crowd at Port Dover – Exciting Baseball Match – Cranks
Furnish Fun – Full List of the Sports”
Hamilton Spectator.
August 24, 1885
The number of visitors invading Port Dover for the
picnic was immense :
“There must have been 2,000 persons who went to Port
Dover on excursion trains, and 8,000 people in and about the park. Three trains
carried the excursionists – the regular which left Hamilton at 7:15 a.m., a
special, which left at 8:45, and a Beeton special, which left here about half
an hour later. There were in these three trains 28 passenger coaches, and most
of them were crowded. The excursionists on each train were met at the station
by the Port Dover brass band, which led the way to the park, playing with all
the power of their lungs.”
Om arrival at Erie Park, the employees of the railway
settled down for some food and drink before the sporting events were to begin :
“It was crowded in the park, when the picnickers,
gathered into little groups, opened their baskets, spread their tempting
contents on extemporized tables on the grass, and proceeded to discuss them. It
was like a vast family party. The committee and guests had dinner at the
Dominion Hotel.”1
A baseball game kicked off the afternoon’s sporting
schedule:
“As soon as
possible after dinner, the baseball match between teams from the mechanical and
traffic departments was begun. It took place in an open field a short distance
from the park. It is possible that baseball games have been played on worse
grounds, but that probability is so small that this field may safely be
considered the worst baseball ground in the country. It was picturesque, the
eye of the spectator was pleased with its varied scenery of hill and vale.
“The catchers occupied a commanding eminence from which
a beautiful view of the lake was obtained, and the pitchers, standing down in a
valley, played an uphill game all the way through. It is probable that the
field was used as a pasturage, for their was incontrovertible evidence that
cattle had recently roamed on its thousand hills. But the players were by means
discouraged by the character of the ground. When a low-hit ball came towards a
fielder, and when he reached for it, struck an eminence in front of him and
bounded ten feet over his head, it was taken as a matter of course. There were
many errors on both sides, but if they were published, the majority of them
would have to be given to the ground.
“At first, it looked as if the men of the mechanical
department were going to have it all their own way. They scored in every
inning, and in their second made 5, whilst the score of the traffic team was
kept well down in the first half of the game, and they were goose-egged in
their third and fifth innings. In the seventh and eighth innings, however, the
traffic men did some hard hitting, and assisted by costly errors on the part of
the mechanical fielders and the ground added eight to their score. When the
traffic team went to bat in the ninth inning, they had to make three runs to
tie the mechanicals. This they did. Then the first three mechanical men who
went to bat in the tenth inning were retired, and the first goose egg was
recorded against the team. There was great excitement when the traffic teams
went in. M. Beasley was the first batter. He reached first base on a hit, stole
second, got third on a put out at first, and came home on a hit by Parks. The
traffic department thus won the match, $10 and a box of cigars.”1
After the baseball game, there were a number of contests
for individual picnickers such as foot or swimming races. That portion of the
day went smoothly, except for an unexpected intrusion by some uninvited
interlopers:
“About the middle of the afternoon, party of a dozen or
more Salvation army soldiers, headed by a drummer, filed into the park and
forthwith began to hold services and call on the unrepentant holidaymakers to
repent. Moreover, a couple of buxom hallelujah lasses went through the crowd
selling War Cry to such of the unregenerates who would buy. Nobody objected to
these vendors of the red hot literature of the Salvation army type, but there
were numerous objections to the soldiers who were holding the services, for
they interfered considerably with the other amusements. The zealous little band
took their stand near a refreshment booth, and the proprietor of the booth
complained that they were spoiling his business. At length, they were requested
to retire. For a time they persisted in continuing the services but eventually
were compelled to leave the park. They rallied, however, on the road outside
the park fence, where the games were in progress, and attempted to gain the
attention of the sinners that the games were neglected for a while and all the
sinners ran after the army. The poor soldiers were hooted at and hustled and
unkindly referred to as nuisances. They were driven off the road and into a
neighboring lot, and three or four of the band who resisted, were picked up and
incontently thrown over the fence. The scattered force rallied again, but its
rallying point was far from the madding crowd, and the rub-a-dub of the drum
could be heard through the trees growing fainter and fainter as the detachment
retreated from the field.”1
Once the Salvation Army had been taken care of, the
games resumed and in the late afternoon, the picnic broke up. Several Hamilton
and Northwestern trains would return all to Hamilton by the early evening.
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