Third generation Hitchcock a rinker, thinker and tinkerer

He represented the third generation of a remarkable family that made its mark in the Sarnia-Point Edward area.

He represented the third generation of a remarkable family that made its mark in the Sarnia-Point Edward area.

Sam Hitchcock was the grandson of pioneer settler Samuel Hitchcock and the son of Marcus Aurelius Hitchcock, a sailor, fisherman and renowned skater who lived to the age 90.

Sam was born in Point Edward on Dec. 27, 1868 and grew up at the family’s home at Alexander and St. Clair streets. He played hockey and skated on Sarnia Bay, mended nets for the family fishing business, and developed a fascination for mechanical devices.

Sam Hitchcock began a lifelong love of bicycles when his father bought him a velocipede. This early form of bicycle was constructed of iron and wood and rode so rough it was nicknamed the “boneshaker.”

Hitchcock modified the velocipede into a more modern bicycle he raced in cycling contests in Sarnia and Port Huron.

After graduating from Port Huron Business College, he eventually opened a business in Sarnia, building and selling bicycles. All the while he was winning acclaim as an avid sportsman, playing hockey, golf, and racing bikes. He played centre for the Tunnel Town Seniors, a team that included Billy Rider, a former owner of the Vendome Hotel; C.O. Stillman, later president of Imperial Oil; and Fred Lougheed, a top international bicycle rider.

Hitchcock operated, and later purchased, St. Andrew’s Rink on Christina Street with Bill Richardson, and became a successful sports promoter in the process. It was a golden age for local hockey prior to the First World War, with as many as 1,700 fans jamming into the rink and paying 50 to 75 cents for a seat, 25 cents for standing room only.

In 1906 Thomas Doherty, the Sarnia inventor and future mayor, walked into Hitchcock’s bicycle shop to buy tubing, sprockets, axles and chains, which Doherty used to build Sarnia’s first automobile. Intrigued, Hitchcock proceeded to build Sarnia’s second automobile, and then its third.

He sold rides throughout the area in Sarnia’s first taxi, an eight-seater with licence number 649 painted on the radiator. Not long afterwards the pair created Sarnia’s first but short-lived bus service in another venture with business partner Bill Richardson. Their interest in automobiles led them to create Sarnia Garage.

By 1925, Hitchcock and Richardson had given up the rink and turned the location into the headquarters of their automobile business. They later purchased the Ford agency and created the company that would become Lambton Motors.

For more than 100 years, from the time of the founding of The Rapids, three generations of the remarkable Hitchcock family helped lay the foundation for modern Sarnia and Point Edward to grow up around them.