Mulberry House was built by Alexander
Mackenzie and home to Mayor Marceil
Saddy. Alexander Mackenzie is believed
to have also built this house in 1861 for
the James Rogers family who named it
the Mulberry House and occupied it for
almost 100 years. They operated a
candy store out of the back of the
house from 1905 to 1910. Markings
on the back window sill indicate
where knives were once sharpened. The
front steps are made of tombstones,
rejected by customers because of
spelling errors.
Early in the 1830s, the first settlers arrived in the Sarnia area and established a community known as "The Rapids".
In 1836, the name "Port Sarnia"
was adopted, and the community grew steadily over the years being incorporated as a town in 1856 and, finally, as the "City of Sarnia" on May 7th, 1914.
The City of Sarnia and the
neighbouring Town of Clearwater
amalgamated on January 1st, 1991, to become
the "City of Sarnia-Clearwater". The new
community has a population of 70,000 and
a total land mass of 44,000 acres. On
January 1st, 1992, the name became
"City of Sarnia."
Marceil Saddy was born in 1924 in London England.
He was a Canadian politician,
who served as mayor of
Sarnia, Ontario from 1980
until his death in 1988. Prior to
becoming the city's mayor, he was a journalist and editor of the Sarnia Gazette. Saddy was particularly noted for his role in a boundary dispute between Sarnia and the then-separate township of Clearwater, which he dismissed as "an overblown suburb of 24,000 people".
Clearwater was later annexed by the city in
1991. His other achievements in office include the establishment of the Sarnia Community Foundation and the creation of Sarnia's annual Mayor's Honour List.