December 15, 2010
This festive cartoon came in today in a file of tourism-related flyers and correspondence from Deseronto’s Town Hall. It dates from late 1993 and is possibly from one of the Napanee newspapers. It’s rather puzzling though: does anyone know what had been celebrated a day earlier in Deseronto that year, to trigger this?
UPDATE: Halloween fell on a Sunday in 1993, prompting discussion about celebrating it on the Saturday. Thanks to Gail and Dana for solving that mystery!
June 16, 2010
"One of the first steam autos"
This image is from a scrapbook that was compiled in 1904 (Accession 2010.08). The scrapbook contains many clippings from Montreal and Toronto papers relating to sporting events and teams. This cutting shows a reproduction of a painting of “one of the first steam autos”. The text reads:
The vehicle was built by Mr. Rickett, of the Castle Foundry, Buckingham, and was shown to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the early part of 1860. It had a 10-h.p. two-cylinder engine. The weight was 30 cwt., and with a full load-water 12 cwt., coal 3 cwt., and passengers 5 cwt. – the gross weight was 2 tons. On good roads sixteen miles per hour was attained. The tank held ninety gallons of water, enough for a ten miles’ run. The consumption of coal was 8 to 10 lbs. per mile. Of the two hind wheels one was engaged by a clutch, so that, when disengaged, they permitted the vehicle to turn in its own length without stopping. It is curious to contrast this vehicle with the touring cars of to-day.
The “cars of today”, when this article was written in 1904, being vehicles like this Ford Model A with a top speed of 28 mph (45 kph).
Ford Model A
Image from LaertesCTB on Flickr.
March 24, 2010
…then the Archives’ Flickr account is now worth a cool one million!
Today we uploaded our one thousandth photograph to Flickr. This milestone means that nearly every photograph held in our small collection is now available to view by anyone with access to the Internet. This is a huge step forward for us, as physical access to our resources is limited to our public opening times of six hours a week. Now they are available every day of the week!
One of the most exciting parts about our Flickr experiment has been the willingness of other people to share their historic photographs and objects through this medium. A fair proportion of the items in our Flickr pages are held outside of the archives. We are very grateful to the owners of those materials for their permission to share them with a wider audience.
Sharing our photographs on Flickr has been beneficial in other ways. Often, Flickr users have been able to add valuable information which has improved our knowledge of the items within our collection. Just yesterday, we received a helpful comment on this image:
HMR1-09-36: ‘Tin Can Cathedral’ Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Winnipeg
The only information we had about the church originally was a caption written by Harold McMurrich Rathbun, the photographer, which read “Old Greek Church, Winnipeg”. A Flickr user recognised the church as the ‘Tin Can Cathedral‘, a Ukrainian Orthodox church which was situated at the junction of King Street and Stella Avenue in Winnipeg. This was North America’s first independent Ukrainian church.
Another image of this church can be found in the Glenbow Museum Archives collection at the University of Calgary.
This is just one example of the power of sharing our images on the Internet. With the help of other people our descriptions become more accurate and more people become aware of the interesting things we hold. Things that would once have required a determined effort (and a trip to Deseronto) to find out about. A million thanks!
February 10, 2010
Some of the entries in the contest
The response from the students of Deseronto Public School to our Family/Heritage Day competition has been, well, ‘awesome’ as the children themselves would put it. It took the judges three hours to choose the winning entries. The winners will be announced on Monday, February 15th, at the Deseronto Community Centre, as part of a range of events that will be going on there that day.
The judges had a very hard job deciding on the winners: the quality of the entries was excellent. Some focused on the history of our town, while others looked at their family’s history. The range of backgrounds of the people of the town became apparent as we went through the entries: there are descendants of people from Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Great Britain and Italy represented among the children of the school. A number of students mentioned their Mohawk ancestry.
The Grade 2 class that visited the Archives two weeks ago had created haikus on the topic of their family or local heritage. As a recently-landed immigrant from England myself, this entry made me smile (and made me hungry!):
The Smell of England
Many of the entries are now on display in Deseronto Public Library and the winning six will be shown at the Community Centre on Monday, February 15, when the prizes will be awarded at 4.00pm. Please do stop by the library, if you are able to, to admire the tremendous amount of work that has gone into this contest.
December 23, 2009
Skating on the Bay at sunset
There were many people enjoying the ice on the Bay of Quinte today: the photo shows some youngsters skating on what was once the log pond beside Mill Street in Deseronto. It brought to mind an advertisement from The Tribune of December 9th, 1892, which was encouraging parents to buy skates from the Anderson and Miller store on Main Street as a Christmas gift for their children.
The Bay is Frozen
I’m not sure how thrilled their mothers would be at getting “the latest improved Washer and Wringer”, though.
December 3, 2009
Canadian Bank of Commerce, Gowganda, 1909 (HMR2-09-61a)
In an earlier post we described Harold McMurrich Rathbun’s trip by steamship and railway across the prairies to Edmonton. Two years after this excursion, the 31 year-old made took a 41-day camping journey into the wilderness of north-eastern Ontario (what is now Timiskaming District). In 1909 the area was busy with prospectors and miners as silver deposits had been discovered in Cobalt in 1903.
By 1908 silver was also being mined in Gowganda.1 Rathbun’s photograph above was therefore taken in the very early stages of the settlement of this town. It shows the Canadian Bank of Commerce’s Gowganda branch which was of sturdy log construction, in contrast to the other, more insubstantial structures depicted here. The building behind the bank has the words SILVER and THEATRE on it, suggesting that the prospectors and miners were not short of entertainment in those early years. Rathbun also took a photograph of Baxter’s Hotel, which appears to have been very newly-constructed. There were no Baxters listed as living in the area in the 1911 census, so perhaps this was only a short-lived enterprise.
Baxter's Hotel, Gowganda, 1909 (HMR2-09-61b)
1 Petruk, W. et al, ‘History of the Cobalt and Gowganda area’, The Canadian Mineralogist, December 1971; v. 11; no. 1; p. 1-11 (scanned copy available from the University of Arizona [PDF format])
September 23, 2009
Metcalfe Foods had canning factories in Deseronto from 1912, according to a Deseronto Post article published in 1948. The archives has three copies of this photograph of the staff of the firm, taken in the 1930s (either 1932 or 1938, according to notes on the photos).
Staff of Metcalfe Foods, 1930s
One of the employees pictured here, Floyd Marlin, wrote down many of the names of those pictured and his list is reproduced below. If you are able to fill in any of the gaps, please post a comment or drop the Archives an email. Some of the spellings here are possibly wrong, so please let us know if you spot one that needs correcting.
Front row, left to right:
?
?
?
Pansy Lindsay
Mrs McCabe
Muriel Cole
Gerty Toppings
Mrs Ed Martin
Mrs McLaughlin
Mrs Herb Histed
Lila Histed
?
Lizzy Marlin
Mrs Wager
Mrs Harv Scriver
Mrs Norm Davis
?
?
? Smith
Marion Clause
Mrs Scyler Smith
Second row:
?
?
Ruby Maracle
Mrs Herb Maracle
Barbara Rennolds
Jean Cronk
Mrs E. [Ernie] Crisp
Bessie Young
Mrs Cat Young
Mrs Bill Miller
?
Lola Brooks
Violet Cole
Mrs Bessy O’Ray
Annie Johndrew
Meta Clause
Mrs Hoppings
Mrs De Mille
?
Susannah Maracle [formerly Brant]
Audrey Maracle
?
Mrs Fred Laurence
Third row:
Mrs A. Joyce
Mrs Bill Purvis
Vera Dawson
Mrs Abe Cronk
?
Alice Leafe
Mrs Morley Gault
Mrs Arney Cole
Mrs Alport
?
Mrs Nellie Tompkins
Maude Covert
Elsie Maracle
Verda Maracle
Muriel Cole
? Gault
Lou Green
Back row:
?
Fred Powell
?
Tom Jackson
Jim Sharpe
Bert Richardson
Art Howard
Abe Cronk
Ed. Chambers
Dixie [?] Green
Jim Sager
Evert Martin
Claborn Tompkins
Norm Davis
Floyd Marlin
Walter Joyce
Jack Barber
Joe Clare
Fred Hoppings
Phil ‘Cribby’ Blake
Maude Covert, who also appears in this photograph, lived at the house we featured in an earlier post.
Maude Covert
July 18, 2009
Detail of quilt made by the Steady Gleaners
The photograph shows a detail of a large signature quilt (sometimes known as friendship quilts) which was made by a group called the Steady Gleaners, members of the Presbyterian Church of the Redeemer in Deseronto. The quilt bears the date of its creation: 1894. The Steady Gleaners seem to have been a fund-raising group, perhaps raising money for missionary activities. This quilt may have been made for such a purpose.
Photographs of the top and bottom halves of the quilt have been put into our Flickr collection and the names of all the women whose names are stitched onto it can be seen there. The president of the society, Mrs Robert John [Fanny Gertrude] Craig, was the wife of the Presbyterian minister of the church and the daughter of Hugo Burghardt Rathbun (1812-1886) and his wife Louise (née Storm). The signature of her daughter, Gertrude, also appears on the quilt. Mrs Craig would have been 41 when this quilt was made; her daughter was 15.
July 8, 2009
Deseronto's oldest house DESHIS-06-04
This photograph was taken during the 1970s and is, according to the note on the back of it, a picture of ‘Deseronto’s oldest house’. Unfortunately, there is no information on the picture about where exactly this house was.
Does anyone recognise this building? Can you help us pinpoint its location?
UPDATE: We’ve had two suggestions and the house is on the east side of Fourth Street – below is a photo of how it looks today.
Updated October 4th 2011 to add that the current owners bought the house in 1962 when there were two fuses in the whole house and one cold water pipe to the kitchen and no drain. The house is constructed from 18-inch barn timbers and hand-made nails.
92 Fourth Street today
June 24, 2009
Have had my first view of television and believe me, it is even more thrilling than the anticipation, which was considerable…
What solid comfort to sit at ease and watch news flashes, right up to the second, travelogues, wedding of an English Earl, dancers, comedians, plays, and even a professional boxing match. Certainly something to please varied tastes and yet video is still in its infancy!…
The radio did much towards educating people and bringing near the far-off places. Now one will be able to travel by television; see the wonders of the world without the colossal expense and time usually involved in actual participation. Certainly a marvellous age in which to be living!
So wrote Florrie Sexsmith, a Deseronto resident, in her weekly ‘Food Fancies’ column in the Deseronto Post newspaper. This particular column was published on October 12, 1949. A compilation of Florrie’s columns has recently been donated to the archives (Accession 2009.24).
Deseronto Archives 