By John Rhodes
Special to The Chatham Voice
In the days before large self-serve supermarkets became the normal mode of food vending, small neighbourhood emporiums served the public and did so effectively.
The shopper would enter the store where a clerk would be assigned to her. She would slowly move down the centre passageway and would point to the items she wanted and those would be taken to the main counter, at the front of the store, where they would be wrapped in paper, if needed, and placed in her carpet bag.
Many people shopped for that day’s meals as opposed to the modern mode of shopping for one, or even two weeks of necessities.
In their halcyon days, the neighbourhood grocers were many in number; more than 60 of them in Chatham at the time of the First World War.
One of these was the emporium of the Adams brothers, James Martin Adams and John H. Adams.
The Adams’ store was located at the northwest corner of Raleigh and Cross streets; the building is still there. I can trace this store to 1900 and I think it is older than that; space considerations preclude me from including a photo of it. It is located at 58 Raleigh St. if you wish to Google the store front. I think it to be a wonderful old structure and I hope it survives.
The Adams were here from 1909 to about 1916 when they moved to the southeast corner of Queen and School streets.
Previous to 1909 the Raleigh and Cross streets store had been operated by William Potter. His father, Michael Potter, had been awarded the Victoria Cross at Sebastopol in the Crimean War.
Michael was born in Ireland in 1827, but I was not able to find out when he came to Chatham. I did learn that he was murdered at one of the two CPR freight yards on April 1, 1897. This yard would either have been at King East and Adelaide or at Raleigh and Richmond streets; I am thinking the latter location to be more likely as it was larger and had a reputation for attracting hobos.
That site is now host to a large self-storage facility, Access Storage.
I could find no warrant or identity of the felon, only a vague description of a man wearing gray pants and a black coat who was seen in the area at the time of the murder.
At about the time of the First World War, the Adams grocery business was moved to a new building at the southeast corner of Queen and School streets; this would be 125 Queen St. The Adams business did well at this location, with the family living in an apartment on the second floor, but by the latter 1920s the self-serve super markets were taking over and the number of independent neighbourhood stores was diminishing.
At some point, the Adams had seen the writing on the wall and converted the operation to a confectionary, with Margarat Adams, James’ wife, in charge of supplying the goodies.
By the 1950s, Murray Adams had converted the business to that of a hobby shop where my brother would buy his plastic car kits. His favourite was a 1948 Ford sedan which was actually a pre-war design that Ford put back into production just long enough to get them out of war-related items and back into the car business. The new 1949 cars would be the modern era slab sides which would prove to be hugely popular.
One day, in retaliation for tossing my bike in the creek, I put a cannon fire cracker (about the size of a man’s thumb) in the side window of the car and watched as it detonated. The explosion caused a crack in the roof but did not obliterate the model as I thought it would. I took a thumping for my assault on his property.
The grocer, of which I am writing, James Martin Adams, was born in Kent County on Aug. 9, 1878 and died at Chatham on Dec. 12, 1937; he reposes in Maple Leaf Cemetery. His brother, John H. Adams, later resided in Windsor, but I was not able to obtain any information regarding his birth and death dates.
To the right of the Adams store you can see a small and odd-looking structure which was home to A. Dobrowney who I referred to as “The Bowling Ball Barber.” My mom, in the latter 1950s, was a young widow with bills to pay and haircuts, costing $1 each, were a financial issue. To save on cash outlay, Mom would require that my brother and I come away from that din of torture looking like bowling balls covered with a thin sheen of peach fuzz. Mom would justify this outrage with justification that our uncle Bernard, a lieutenant in the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, sported a similar appearance.
The building to the far right of the photo is the Drader Box factory, which pre dates 1892 as is evident in the 1892 Toronto Lithographic map which I have always found to be accurate. The building has served other uses including that of a restaurant. Many Chatham Voice readers will remember it as the long-time home of Spooners Restaurant.
