Hamilton man was Canada’s first ‘fisheries overseer,’ a 19th-century Lone Ranger of the Bay
When Joel Kerr walks through Mountain Drive Park on the edge of the escarpment, his thoughts go back four generations.
The triangular green space was once part of a 100-acre farm owned by his great-great grandfather, John W. Kerr. The 1-storey white stucco house built in 1855 by Joel's forebear still stands nearby in splendid condition at 988 Concession St. with a heritage designation plaque beside the front door.
At the park entrance is another plaque telling the story of the east Mountain pioneer who lived from 1812-1888. A few blocks away you'll find Kerr Street off East 44th Street in a subdivision of houses built in the 1950s and '60s that also pays homage to the family history.
But to really know John Kerr, you need to gaze northward - at the bay below and the Great Lakes beyond. It was something he did regularly with his telescope more than 150 years ago.
John was Canada's first inland fisheries overseer," a one-man fishing regulation enforcer who worked in and around Hamilton for nearly a quarter of a century until his death. And while that might sound a little mundane, it was important, controversial, and often dangerous work.
He was the Lone Ranger of the Bay, or Wyatt Earp of the Waterways, earnestly standing up to bad guys who overfished and bad industries that polluted.
He travelled by horse, horse and buggy, or boat, packing a service revolver in his coat. And he often found himself in raucous confrontations with wild and drunken fishermen on the Beach Strip who had no interest in adhering to quotas, buying a fishing licence, or paying fines.
He fired his gun a few times but apparently never hit anyone. Nor did he ever take a bullet from a fishing fugitive. But, there was one time when John's revolver went off in his pocket. The shot went through the side of his wagon and set his coat on fire," says Joel, 64, a retired lawyer who just published a book about his ancestor.
The fact John survived his days on the fishing enforcement beat - that at one time extended in a 150-mile radius around Hamilton - without grave injury is mostly a matter of luck.
He made a lot of enemies. There were death threats, and some gun violence and stuff like that. People would steal and sink his boats. Many didn't like being regulated," Joel says.
One day, some thugs booby-trapped an ice house so when John entered he would fall in the frigid waters and drown. But fortunately, he was tipped off beforehand and stayed clear.
He started out not carrying a gun. He began with a stick, basically. Then it got to a point that he had to carry a gun on a regular basis. He knew how to handle it because he used to be a cop in Ireland," says Joel.
But how did the author learn so much about a forebear from so long ago, enough to publish Caught - The Travels and Travails of Fisheries Overseer John W. Kerr 1812-1888," a nearly 400-page book?
Well, it turns out that John was as dedicated to chronicling as he was at enforcing. He kept more than 10,000 pages of journals and letters in very legible penmanship, documenting virtually every incident of his career.
The papers ended up at the Royal Ontario Museum and eventually were uploaded online.
For Joel, the documents were a treasure, feeding an appetite for the story he first heard about while growing up in a house on Upper Gage Street on land severed from the original Kerr homestead.
My great-great grandfather had some victories. He had some losses. But, I don't know anyone who was more of an environmentalist and conservationist in Canada at the time," he says.
The inland fisheries were a major source of fresh food at the time and the supply faced great threats from overfishing and pollution from farms, slaughterhouses and textile industries that discharged dyes and other chemicals.
This was back in the day when fresh fish was often the only available food and it was not terribly expensive," he says.
When you go to the East Coast today, every town is a fishing village. That's the way it was in Ontario 150 years ago. And there were rugged people who were involved in the industry."
But clearly for John, preserving the industry was a losing battle. Fish stocks declined during his lifetime and were virtually wiped out in Hamilton Harbour - and severely depleted on the lakes - amid escalating population growth and industrialization in the early decades of the 1900s.
The issues John Kerr fought for through the late-1800s have become a dominant focus in today's ongoing Remedial Action Plan cleanup of Hamilton Harbour that, among other things, is attempting to restore the fishery he tried to protect so long ago.
Joel says the journals he used for his book tell a story of an honourable, conservative man who was intensely passionate about his protective mission.
It was a pattern of behaviour that greatly contrasts with another member of the Kerr family who will be the subject of Joel's next book.
The historical novel is about his great uncle, the infamous prohibition era bootlegger Ben Kerr, who lived on Bay Street North and ran booze to the U.S. in fast wooden boats on Lake Ontario.
He died in 1929 under mysterious circumstances on a frosty February rum run in a boat called the Pollywog. Most believe it was misadventure, but some think it was a murder made to look like an accident.
So, what will the next book be titled?
Disgraced," Joel says. It is the perfect word, he says, to describe what Ben Kerr meant to his family.
My great-great grandfather was a very moral person, quite religious. He tried to do the right thing toward people whereas Ben Kerr was just a money-hungry guy who was an embarrassment to the family," he says.
Caught - The Travels and Travails of Fisheries Overseer John W. Kerr 1812-1888"
Joel B. Kerr
(Friesen Press) is available through joelbkerr.ca