RHODES: John Waddell served as sheriff, joined wife’s family business

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In a recent column I told you about Nancy Eberts-Waddell and her children. 

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In this column I would like to tell you about her husband, John Waddell, who lived an exciting, albeit brief, life that ended in tragedy. 

John was born in Scotland in 1817 and was the son of Capt. William Waddell, who was born, I believe, in Scotland circa 1777. 

He was a captain in the 1st Regiment, Royal Dragoons, and came to Canada to participate in putting down the Rebellion of 1837. He settled at Goderich where he died on June 8, 1861, and is interred in the family plot of the Maitland Cemetery which overlooks the town. 

His son John came with the family to Canada, but I am not sure of his activity other than the fact that he held the rank of major in the local militia. 

It was probably through his military service that John obtained the position of sheriff of the Western District, as Kent County was then known. 

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John later married Nancy Almira Eberts who was a granddaughter of Capt. William Baker of the Royal Navy who founded Chatham in the mid-1790s. 

Nancy was a sister and business partner of William and Walter Eberts, who were Chatham’s first prominent business family active in retail, hotel accommodation and passenger/freight boats and stages. 

John, with his marriage to Nancy, became involved in the enterprises. 

In the mid-1850s the Eberts retail store at the northwest corner of King and Fifth streets was lost to fire. The fire also destroyed the new Thames River Bridge at Fifth Street. 

The store was once owned by Peter Paul Lacroix who was an early Chatham merchant that the Eberts brothers had bought out. Lacroix Street is named for him. 

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In replacement of the burned out structure, the two brothers proposed the construction of massive four floor building with retail, offices and several apartments. 

The project was large and it frightened John and Nancy. They were sure that it would lose money and, in those days, debtors who could not meet their obligations were jailed. 

John and Nancy promptly backed out of the business. 

The brothers went ahead with the project, completing it in 1857. It soon became the best business block in the town and survived until 1984 when it was destroyed by fire. 

John and Nancy prospered as well and this led them to build, in the early 1850s, a large stone cottage on Water Street, backing on to the river, which they called “Waddell House.”  

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The house remained in the family until the early 1900s. In the late 1940s the home was bought by Alex Gold and became the Jewish Community Centre under which function it continues to this day. 

John seems to have had an itchy foot, and this led him to uproot his wife and young family for a stint in the gold fields of British Columbia. Alas, there would be no gold, and it would be the cause of a breakup of John and Nancy’s marriage. 

Nancy and the children returned to Chatham and resumed their residence at Waddell House which was now to be called “Rosebank.” 

John, in the meantime, took up residence at Goderich where he had family. 

In 1870, John was sailing in a small pleasure craft on Lake Huron when there was an accident, and he drowned. He reposes in the family plot at the Maitland Cemetery.  

Nancy died on Dec. 31, 1900, and reposes in the Eberts family plot at Maple Leaf Cemetery. 

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