“Sleep well, Tecumseh, in thy unknown grave,
Thou mighty savage, resolute and brave!”

Charles Mair.

THE county of Kent, now not a small one, was originally of enormous and indefinite extent. Its northern boundary was the Hudson Bay Territory, and, with the exception of Essex County, it included “all the territory to the westward and southward to the utmost extent of the country known by the name of Canada.” In a map made about 179B it is indeed shown with something like its present limits; but when it was joined with Essex to form the western district, the Sheriff of the united counties used to serve his process as far north as Sault Ste. Marie and Lake Superior.

In 1792 it is said to have had six families, but Talbot’s colonising zeal did much for Kent as well as for Elgin, and his great road, “Talbot Street,” was continued through part of this county. It offered, indeed, just as good a field for his activities as the district to the eastward. The very character of the forest, abounding in mighty oaks, walnut trees, hickories, beeches, and maples, testified to the fertility of the soil, as do now the fine farms and prosperous little country towns which are so numerous here. The county is noted for its corn, tobacco, and sugar-beets; also for two products, which seem naturally associated in our minds, if not on our tables-—pork and beans! The western townships yield also petroleum and natural gas.

In the year 1803, signalised at Port Talbot by the cutting down of the first tree, another notable coloniser appeared on the scene in Kent County. This was the Earl of Selkirk, afterwards so well known from his efforts to found a settlement on the Red River. As a very young man he had gone on a tour through the Scottish Highlands, and had been much impressed with the pitiable condition of the crofters, evicted from their little holdings by landlords who wished to turn their estates into pasture lands or game preserves. It seemed to him, then, that the only hope for the distressed peasants was emigration, and when, by the death of six elder brothers in succession, he succeeded to the earldom and estate, he made an earnest attempt to put his theories into practice. As a beginning he settled 800 crofters in Prince Edward Island, then turned his attention to Upper Canada, and, obtaining a grant of nearly 1000 acres cn Big Bear Creek (now known as the Sydenham), he settled there ill Highlanders, naming the place “Baldoon.” Like Talbot, he realised that one of the first necessities of a successful colony was good roads, and he offered to spend £20,000 in making a wagon road from Baldoon to York, on condition of a grant of wild lands along the route. In those days land grants were often made so recklessly that the progress of the country was seriously hampered by the huge blocks of lands held by speculators and absentees, but Selkirk’s offer met with no favour.

He was hardly fortunate in other respects. The situation of Baldoon proved to be so unhealthy that in the first year forty- two of the colonists died, and a great marsh between the settlement and the more populated part of the Province became almost impassable in bad weather. Later, Selkirk arranged to plant a settlement on the Grand River, but the war raging between France and England interfered with this project. He deserves all honour, however, for his untiring efforts to help the down-trodden, at great cost of ease and pleasure; and the city of Chatham has done well to commemorate him and his work in the names of two of its thoroughfares—Selkirk and Baldoon Streets.

The name Chatham was bestowed upon the county seat by Simcoe, though many years were to pass before it attained to that dignity. In fact, till about 1830, it was represented by a small shipyard, a blockhouse to protect it, and a single house, beside which an orchard was planted. When General Proctor evacuated Detroit, after the defeat of the British fleet on Lake Erie, the great Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, retreated with him up the Thames, though he urged Proctor to make a stand against the enemy. On the night of September 3, 1813, it is on record that Tecumseh crossed the bridge over the creek dividing the military reserve from the town-site of Chatham, and encamped with his weary braves on the ground which now appropriately bears the name of Tecumseh Park.

The great Indian's name has been translated variously and picturesquely. Some say it signifies "the Shooting Star ”; others, “the Crouching Panther.” Either suits well enough the stern, stately, tragic figure of the chief, who, after trying in vain to set back the hand of time and to rouse his countrymen to make a determined stand against “the pale-faces” and their customs, fell fighting desperately in the white men’s quarrel, with English George’s medal on his breast.

Proctor unfortunately neglected to destroy the bridges behind him, and his retreat before the American General Harrison was almost a flight. At last, near the Indian village of Moraviantown, just within the borders of Kent, he turned for a moment to bay. But the honours of that disastrous field belong to Tecumseh and his band, for, deserted by the leader, they fought on like lions, till their great chief fell dead. His faithful warriors bore his body from the field to bury it on St. Anne’s Island in Lake St. Clair; and for almost a century his people kept inviolate the secret of his last resting-place.

After the War, the great events in the story of the county are those which led to improvements in the condition of the settlers. For instance, in 1828 the first steamboat, the Argo by name, went up the Thames. In 1837 Kent’s first Agricultural Society was organised in the township of Howard, soon to be followed by one in Chatham. In 1841 the first newspaper, The Chatham Journal, was published. In the following year the first “fair” was held at Chatham. In 1853 the Great Western Railway began to run its cars through Chatham, which previously bad depended for communication with other places on steamboats and stages and private travel on roads none too good.

In very early years Kent looked to Detroit as chief town of the district, then, as "junior county” in the union with Essex, to Sandwich; but in 1847 steps were taken to erect at Chatham the court-house and jail, which, in the case of counties, are the marks of graduation from the status of “juniors”; and in 1850 Kent was finally separated from Essex.

At an earlier date the counties had been separated for electoral purposes; and in a little book called Harrison Hall and Its Associations (published on the occasion of the opening of the said hall, erected by the county of Kent and the city of Chatham, for judicial, municipal, and other uses) an amusing description is given of an election in 1841.

After having suffered defeat by Sir Allan Macnab at Hamilton, an English lawyer, Harrison by name, appeared at Chatham. Already there were several other candidates in the field, but all save one, whose name was Woods, retired from the fight. In those days the constituency consisted of twenty townships, stretching from Tilbury West in Essex to Bosanquet in Lambton, a distance of 130 miles; and there was only one polling place, that at Chatham.

It was in the early spring, when the streams were in flood, and many a bridge had been swept away, whilst roads and woods were still half under ice, half in water; but at least one company of twenty-six voters were so determined to exercise their franchise that they came on horseback, a two-days’ ride from Sandwich, led by a guide and swimming their beasts across the icy streams. The election lasted from nine o'clock on Monday morning till midnight on Saturday night; indeed, excitement ran so high that the successful candidate, Mr. Woods, was not declared elected till two on Sunday morning, when his supporters indulged in great demonstrations of delight. Still undaunted by this second defeat, the valiant Mr. Harrison tried again and was finally elected for Kingston.

Harrison Hall at Chatham is called, not after this persevering candidate, though later he represented Kent in the Assembly, but after Hon. Robert Alexander Harrison, the Chief Justice of Ontario, who in 1877 was one of the three arbitrators appointed to fix the northern and western boundaries of the Province.