If you missed the history talk on the nineteenth century development of Deseronto this weekend, there’s a chance to catch it again on YouTube:
Due to a technical hitch on the day, the visuals weren’t available, but this version includes the slides!
military training
Archived Posts from this Category
June 21, 2015
History Talk series: The Development of Deseronto
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, events, industry, maps, military training, people, photographs, poetry, Rathbun Company, World War ILeave a Comment
August 4, 2014
100 years ago: Great Britain declares war
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1910s, military training, veterans, war dead, World War ILeave a Comment
Armies of Europe at a glance from the The Sun, New York, August 2nd, 1914: Russia, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, England, Serbia
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the declaration of war by Great Britain on Germany in response to the German invasion of Belgium on that day. At 11pm Greenwich Mean Time that evening (6pm Eastern Standard Time), Britain and its Dominions (including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa) were officially at war. You can hear about people’s memories of their reactions to the declaration in this podcast from the Imperial War Museum.
During the next four years we will be marking the 100th anniversaries of local events in relation to the war on this blog. We plan to commemorate the enlistment and conscription of individual Deseronto and Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory men, women, and boys, their deaths in action and from disease, as well as events associated with the local Royal Flying Corps/Royal Air Force pilot training establishments at Camps Rathbun and Mohawk, which operated between 1917 and 1918.
Our aim is to use archival materials from Deseronto and from around the world to demonstrate the local effects of a global war.
If you have photographs, or letters, or family stories about the First World War in Deseronto and the surrounding area, we’d love to share them here as part of this project: you can email us at deseronto.archives@gmail.com.
March 13, 2013
Snapshots of the First World War
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1910s, aircraft, featured item, Flickr, military training, photographs, World War ILeave a Comment
A month ago, we received a new accession of photographs from Dave Stapley, whose family once owned a farm on the Boundary Road, at the eastern side of Deseronto. The farm was close to the World War One pilot training site, Camp Rathbun, and many of the 33 photos depict men, buildings, and aircraft of the camp.
As usual, there are pictures of crashes on the ground (look closely at the trees on this one in relation to the aircraft):
Crashes into hangar buildings at the camp:
And into water (you can see the Foresters’ Island Orphanage in the background of this shot):
There are also several photographs of (mainly) unidentified individuals, including this lovely shot of a man crossing the finishing line of a race:
The skull-and-crossbones motif seen on the aircraft and on the tops of the runners here is a symbol used by the men of 90 C.T.S. (Canadian Training Squadron), which was based at Camp Rathbun. We know nothing about the creator of these photographs, but we can surmise that he was a member of 90 C.T.S. who left his photographs behind him after he left the area.
October 24, 2012
“Deseronto from the air”
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1910s, aircraft, industry, military training, railways, Rathbun Company, World War ILeave a Comment
The arrival of the Royal Flying Corps in Deseronto in 1917 provided a new angle of perspective on the town: for the first time, photographs began to be taken from the air. Aerial photographs became increasingly important to the campaign on the Western Front in Europe as the First World War progressed and learning how to take good photographs from the air would have been a vital skill for the trainee pilots based in Camp Mohawk and Camp Rathbun.*
The album of World War One photographs mentioned in our previous post includes this shot of the town from a pilot-training aircraft over the Bay of Quinte, looking north over Deseronto.
At the top left of the photograph is Rathbun Park and the Town Hall (at that time it was the Bank of Montreal), with Centre Street and the Post Office also visible. Between the waterfront and Main Street several railway cars can be seen, running along tracks where Water Street is today. The buildings next to the lake shore are the Rathbun Company’s cedar mill (on the right), which manufactured cedar railway ties, fence posts and shingles and the car works (on the left). The smoke from the cedar mill’s chimney shows that this was still in operation when the photograph was taken, although generally the Rathbun Company’s industries were winding down at this time, with many of their buildings being taken over for use by the Royal Flying Corps as administrative headquarters and repair shops for aircraft engines.
The picture below, from the same album, shows the interior of a typical engine workshop. Women as well as men were employed in mechanical work in these establishments (and, unusually for the time, at the same rates of pay). The person to the left of centre of this shot is a woman.
In the winter months, the Canadian training camps were relocated to a US Army base at Fort Worth, Texas. Several of the photographs in the album show scenes from the Texas camps, including this photograph of a First World War tank:
We end this post with another aerial view from the album. This one is labelled ‘Fort Worth, Texas’:
*For a timeline demonstrating the increasing significance of aerial photography on the Western Front in the First World War, see this useful blog post by Tim Slater.
October 10, 2012
Bridge collapse
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1910s, featured item, Flickr, military training, photographs, World War I[3] Comments
A recent transfer to the Archives from the Oshawa Community Museum and Archives includes a series of photographs of a collapsed bridge, without any information as to the location of it. I’m sharing it here to see if anyone can help us pinpoint it. The other photographs in the album mainly show scenes from Royal Flying Corps training camps in Ontario (Camps Borden and Mohawk) and Texas (Camp Taliaferro, Fort Worth) and were taken during the First World War in 1917 and 1918. The bridge could be somewhere near one of these camps, or perhaps somewhere else entirely!
This photograph shows an overview of the bridge site. There are no buildings on the side of the bridge nearest the camera, but there are several houses on the other side of the river:
Site of mystery bridge
This one shows a Coast to Coast bus in the water at the side of the bridge:
‘Coast to Coast’ bus next to the bridge
And this one is a close-up view of the bridge itself:
Collapsed bridge
Please leave a comment if you can help.
August 1, 2012
Horse racing…with a twist
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1910s, military training, sports, World War ILeave a Comment
The air cadets stationed in the Deseronto area during the First World War had to work hard to train as pilots but they also found time to enjoy themselves, too. On this day in 1918, the Deseronto Wing held a Sports Day. We believe this photograph was taken at that event:
‘Horse’ racing on the waterfront, August 1, 1918
January 4, 2012
Aviation camp to close at once
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1910s, aircraft, businesses, military training, World War ILeave a Comment
“High Diving”: aircraft crashed in the Bay of Quinte
A report from the Napanee Express of November 15th, 1918, four days after the signing of the Armistice.
One result of the signing of the armistice will be the immediate close of the two aviation camps at Deseronto, Camp Mohawk and Camp Rathbun. The commanding officers received instructions Monday morning from Ottawa to make arrangements for the demobilization of the force and the safe storage of machines and equipment. The engines are being taken out of the planes, coated with vaseline and being stored away. This work it is expected will be finished in about two weeks, and then the camp will be abandoned except by caretakers.
It was decided some months ago to make use of the camps at Deseronto all winter, and not send the men south for training the same as had been done last year. It as the intention to install elaborate heating and sanitation systems so that the men would be comfortable during the cold weather. About a month ago, however, the authorities at Ottawa, apparently ordered the discontinuation of the work.
The aviation camps have been popular resorts for sight seers the past two years, and the planes have been a frequent spectacle manoeuvering over our town. The men also have been welcome visitors to the town on many occasions. They were of a superior class, always well conducted and gentlemanly. Their departure will mean a social and sentimental, as well as a real business loss to the merchants of Deseronto.
August 25, 2011
From Cadet Pilot to Chief Horticulturalist
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1910s, aircraft, gardens, military training, railways, World War I[3] Comments
Bob Almey, 1918, 2011.18 (9)
J. Robert (Bob) Almey (1895-1989) was one of the last group of pilots to be trained at Camp Mohawk, one of the two Royal Flying Corps establishments near Deseronto in the First World War. The photo here shows Bob in his Royal Flying Corps uniform. It was brought into the Archives for scanning a few weeks ago by Bob’s grandson, Rob Woodward.
The war ended before Bob Almey was posted to Europe, which was fortunate for him, given the short life expectancy of pilots on the front line in those days. Bob returned to his studies at the Ontario Agricultural College (now the University of Guelph) and completed his degree in horticulture. In 1921 he was appointed as Manitoba’s first ever provincial horticulturalist.
He went on in 1928 to work for the Canadian Pacific Railway as their Chief Horticulturalist. In this role, Bob was responsible for landscaping the surroundings of 2,000 railway stations across the West of Canada, giving new immigrants and visitors a favourable first impression of the region. By the 1940s, 11,000 packets of seeds were being distributed to stations each year, while CPR greenhouses across the Prairies and British Columbia grew 600,000 plants a year, of up to 125 varieties.
Gladiolus mortonius from Sericea on Flickr
Bob Almey knew each station so well that he could “recite from memory their layouts, the variety of flowers they grew and the amounts needed”. He retired in 1960 but continued to be active in the Manitoba horticultural community (being particularly famous for his gladioli) until his death in 1988.
May 29, 2011
Doors Open: take another look
Posted by Amanda Hill under businesses, churches, Doors Open, events, houses, maps, military training, Rathbun Company[4] Comments
Did you miss the chance to explore Deseronto’s Doors Open sites on May 28, 2011? Or perhaps you weren’t able to visit all of them?
Fear not! We’ve made all the Deseronto site brochures available here for you to look at. Just click on the images below to get a large version that you can print off or read online.
| Deseronto Cemetery [site 22] |  |
| Camp Rathbun [site 23] |  |
| St. Mark’s Hall [site 24] |  |
| Grace United Church [site 25] |  |
| Public Works Garage: former aircraft hangar [site 26] |  |
| Naylor’s Theatre [site 27] |  |
| Deseronto Post Office [site 28] |  |
| Deseronto Town Hall [site 29] |  |
| Rathbun Memorial Park [site 30] |  |
| McGlade Funeral Home [site 31] |  |
| Foresters’ Island [site 32] |  |
| Former industrial sites [site 33] |  |
| Church of the Redeemer [site 34] |  |
| St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church [site 35] |  |
| Founding of Deseronto [site 36] |  |
March 7, 2009
Ready for take-off
Posted by Amanda Hill under 1910s, events, exhibitions, military training, World War ILeave a Comment
The book launch today was a resounding success. Every single one of the copies of Dancing in the Sky brought to the library by Greenley’s Bookstore was sold, with a long waiting list for the next delivery.
Bill Hunt must have a very sore right hand tonight after signing over forty copies of his book. There was quite a long line of people waiting for him to autograph their copies at one point.
We estimate that 135 people came to hear Bill talk about the training of pilots in Canada during the First World War. His talk was full of interesting facts and contained a number of insights into the great impact that the arrival of the air cadets had upon the economy and people of Deseronto.
Bill was at pains to point out how important the archival record has been in helping him to research this volume: the diaries and photographs left by the young pilots have been a wonderful resource. Music to an archivist’s ears! We put together a display of photographs from the book, library books and original materials from the Deseronto Archives’ collections, as a side-show to the main event:
It was a wonderful afternoon and a tribute to the huge amount of work that went into the preparation, particularly by Deseronto’s Librarian, Frances Smith, by Dana Valentyne of the Deseronto Revitalization Program, and by the Chair of the Deseronto Public Library Board, Don Simpson. Many thanks to them, to Deseronto’s Mayor, Norm Clark, for a great welcoming address, and to the sponsors of the raffle prize: Greenleys Bookstore, The Chocolate Room and the Small Town Café and Bakery. Thanks also to Lori Brooks of the Deseronto Job Information Centre (whose domain was requisitioned for the book-signing) and to everyone who came – you helped to make this event a huge success.
Deseronto Archives 