Phil Egan He was one of the most intriguing and accomplished men ever to live in Sarnia. In the 30 years before the advent of the 20 th century – what Mark Twain called The Gilded Age – everyone in town knew the name of Thomas Doherty.
Phil Egan
He was one of the most intriguing and accomplished men ever to live in Sarnia.
In the 30 years before the advent of the 20th century – what Mark Twain called The Gilded Age – everyone in town knew the name of Thomas Doherty.
He was Sarnia’s own Renaissance man – an inventor, businessman, manufacturer, and politician.
Born in 1843 in Lanark County, Doherty lived on a farm, like 86% of his fellow Ontarians. Fascinated by machinery from an early age, he set up his own blacksmith shop, repairing and making improvements to farm equipment.
He had an innate curiosity about mechanical devices, and was said to have constructed his own threshing machine while still in his 20s.
At the age of 31, Doherty left the family farm and journeyed to the busy town of Watford. It was offering free building sites to entrepreneurs like Doherty, and there he established an iron foundry. His Watford Agricultural Implementation Works churned out a variety of farm equipment.
As Doherty began securing patents for both new devices and improvements to old ones he solidified his growing reputation as an inventor. He even received a gold medal from the prestigious Paris Inventors Academy, which granted him honorary membership.
Moving to Sarnia in 1883 at the age of 40, Thomas Doherty established one of Sarnia’s earliest industries, the Doherty Manufacturing Company, where he developed a process for strengthening cast iron, known as “Decarbon Steel.” He received a patent on the process in 1895.
His inventive nature roamed many fields. He helped local farmers by making improvements to the process of threshing grain and designed, patented and manufactured a new hot water boiler.
He developed a water filtration system to improve the quality of the town’s water supply, and manufactured kitchen stoves that became known as “the world’s favourite range.”
It was the beginning of the automotive age, and Doherty built Sarnia’s first gasoline-powered automobile. His noisy little red two-seater became a common site in town in the year 1900.
Banned in 1902 for frightening horses, the car would propel Doherty to the first presidency of the Sarnia Automobile Club.
It was even involved in an early fender bender, after “kissing” a passenger car of the Sarnia Street Railway. Nonetheless, Doherty would become one of the street railway’s directors.
He would also be elected president of the Sarnia Board of Trade and the Industrial Club of Sarnia.
Acclaimed mayor in 1916, this remarkable Renaissance man became the city’s first chief magistrate to die in office.
