Stories from the Archives

At this month's meeting we will be featuring more stories from the Community Archives.

Last year we had a fascinating mixture of snippets of history from around Hastings County.

Expect more of the same.

At The Senior's Information Fair

Elizabeth Mitchell with display

The Historical Society joined forces with the Community Archives to present an attractive and iformative display at the 2013 Seniors Information Fair held at the Sports and Wellness Centre on March 28th.

The Hotel Quinte was the theme of the photo and story display highlighted by a video presentation.  Visitors received brochures and listings of coming events. A busy team of volunteers greeted the visitors and promoted the work of the Society and Archives while exchanging many memories of the history of our city and county.

Donna Fano, Katharine Mills and Annis Ross

               

Also featured was a display of books by Gerry Boyce, Bill Hunt and Orland French with signage encouraging the reading of historical books by local authors. Shown top right are Donna Fano, Lindi Pierce and Mike Shaw.

The lower right picture shows (some of) the afternoon crew.  In this picture, Dick Hughes, Katharine Mills, Mary-Lynne Morgan, Mary Jane Throop, Diane Sule and Bill Hunt.




Below are general pictures taken from the gymnasium balcony showing the booth setup in new Sports and Wellness Centre.

Pictures: Nick White  Story: Donna Fano and Nick White.

Celebrating Heritage Week in Belleville

The Historical Society has had a long association with Heritage Belleville and its predecessor, the Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (LACAC).  We maintain a strong interest in the preservation of Belleville's historical buildings, as evident in the large contingent of our members present at Heritage Belleville’s annual open house at the City Hall council chambers on Tuesday, February 21, in celebration of Heritage Week.

Mayor Neil Ellis presented the best wishes of Council and remarked on the full house of attendees.  Councillor Garnet Thompson also attended.  

The new posters on the history of the Hotel Quinte produced jointly by the Society and the Community Archives were on display, as well as building research material by Lois Foster.  Two of the speakers were well known members of the society, local author and historian Gerry Boyce and film-maker Doug Knutson.

Gerry Boyce

After a few words from Heritage Belleville Committee Chair Stanley Jones and Vice-Chair Jeremy Davis, and a presentation about Belleville’s heritage buildings by Janna Munkittrick-Colton, Gerry Boyce distributed photo souvenirs and spoke on seven interesting buildings that Belleville has “lost.” 

The buildings were: the original Albert College located on College Street dating from 1857, built by the local Episcopal Methodists as a training centre for Methodist ministers; the Congregational Church on Hotel Street (now Victoria Avenue) c 1855, which became the Reformed Episcopal Church and then the Moose Hall before demolition; the Intell/Cablevue Building (remembered by many people in the audience), demolished in 1990; the school house south of Market Square in the 1850s; Belleville Grammar School on the BCI site ca. 1860; the Hastings County Museum, located in the former Hastings County Land Registry Office and demolished after Glanmore opened in 1973; and the Point Anne cement works, which were featured in a tour in 1987.

Doug Knutson

Doug Knutson showed excerpts from a movie that he had made with John Lowry about BCI (Belleville Collegiate Institute and Vocational School), built 1927-1928 on land that had been set aside for the purpose of public education in the town’s original plot survey of 1816.  
Doug described the history of the film in a moving introduction: John had the idea of making a movie before the school was closed, as demolition seemed imminent.  So we shot it on June 17, 1997 - the last day it was officially a school.  The narrator, Eugene Lang, was incredible - he was there on the opening day and the closing day and knew everything that had happened in between!  He also knew every inch of the school.  Despite him being in his 80's, we could hardly keep up with him!

That day was also a spur-of-the moment open house - lots of people were roaming through the building.  The overall feeling was, “We can't let this go without a fight.”  I think that was the day the grassroots organization to save the building took root. When 2003 came up and I edited the video for the 75th anniversary (the year before the building was finally demolished) it was a big hit!”

The video is now an invaluable historical record of what we have lost.

Right, members of the Heritage Belleville Committee. Colin Rushlow, Vern Whalen, Janna Munkittrick-Colton, Michael Rush, Greg Pinchin (Staff Liaison) Stanley Jones, Robert Johnston and Jeremy Davis.

Pictures Nick White, story - collaborative effort.

The Mary Aylward Question

Paul Kirby, author of Mary Aylward, first in a series of Hastings County books, left folks who braved the wind and ice to attend last Thursday's Hastings County Historical Society meeting, scratching their heads over a number of challenging questions.





Was Mary Aylward guilty?
Should her husband have been brought to trial?
What part did religious intolerance play?
Did Mary suffer from post-partum depression?
Were the couple tried in the public press rather than the courts?
What motivated crowds to gather for public hangings?
Would we do so today - how thin is the veneer of civilization?

And...why did the chicken cross the road?

Paul Kirby flanked by Donna Fano and Orland French

Most people are familiar with some aspects of the tragic human story which took place in Hastings County in 1862. Mary Aylward and her husband Richard, Irish refugees of the potato famine, who had  suffered so much on the coffin ships before finally settling on their unforgiving north Hastings land grant near today's Maynooth. The couple was accused of the murder of their Scots neighbour Munroe in a disagreement over a chicken they were suspected of killing. As so often happens, distrust led to disagreement which erupted into violence, resulting in the couple's vilification, imprisonment, trial and death. Hundreds of signatures begging the Governor General for clemency were ineffective.

Kirby painted a vivid picture of the public hanging, which brought a crowd of five to six thousand people to the area around the old court house (this in a town of half that number) to view the spectacle. The young woman dressed in white, her husband beside her, prayers with Reverend Mr. Brennan, and their death struggles before thousands of curious impassive spectators, all painted a chilling picture. Was justice done? The issue remained in the public eye and in the press for a long time.

Thanks to Paul Kirby, the story of the Aylwards is once again in our hearts and minds.

Our Place in the War of 1812

In the last year there has been much published about the conflict that arose after the new republic the United States of America declared war against Great Britain on the 18th of June 1812.

To a standing room only meeting of the Society, Major John R. Grodzinski, CD, BA, MA, PhD of the Royal Military College of Canada drew these stories together and provided a context of the conflict.

Against a backdrop of a war that spanned four continents, John wove the events that happened here in the Quinte region into the fabric of the North American war.

And then placed that war into the fabric of global Napoleonic Wars.

With humour, an encyclopedic knowledge of his subject and a dynamic presence as a speaker, Major Grodzinski made Tuesday yet again a great evening.

Story and pictures Nick White.  A more extensive article on the talk will appear in February edition of Outlook, the Society's newsletter.

Anne Rector

It was sad news when Anne announced at the January meeting that, for health reasons, she would not be standing for re-election to the Society's Board in 2013.

First elected in 2011, Anne became the Society's Vice-President in 2012 but is probably be best known to Society's members for her work as the Program Director responsible for arranging speakers at the Society's monthly meetings.

Under her stewardship the Society's meetings have become impressive with audiences not seen since somewhere back in the 1900's and with questions and discussions stretching well past the usual closing times.

Anne with commemorative display of 2012 Speakers

That position is challenging, not only recruiting potential speakers but ensuring that there is a balance of interests being addressed and, ensuring that information about speakers is known and available for distribution through the print and electronic media.

In her announcement at the Society's January meeting Anne gave thanks and appreciation to all the Society's volunteers who had made her time both pleasant and rewarding. She also presented to the Community Archives her collection of pictures taken at the Society's events over the last two years - in both a traditional album book but also in electronic format. A welcome addition to the Society and Archive's digital picture collection.

Our best wishes for her continuing recovery and I think I can safely express everyone's hope that we will again one day see her playing a leading part in the Society's future. (And thanks for all her work in lining up the programs for 2013!)

Story and pictures, Nick White

Volunteer's Christmas Get Together

Since it's inception the Society has relied on volunteers and this year sixty invitations were sent out for the Christmas celebration.  And we managed to capture twenty-nine of them in this picture.  Others were captured in this album but unfortunately a few either were away or arrived after the pictures were taken.


The volunteers create and run the displays we take to events (I think there were seven this year), manage the Society's eight monthly meetings - very popular this last year  and, of course, they work at the Community Archives (it's still at the Heritage Centre).

Always a great event with lots of good company and food!

Standing: Mike Shaw, Al Cleary, Nick White, Bill Kennedy, Peter Ross, Annis Ross, Mary Wilson, Kieren Delaney, Mary Jane Troop, Jeanne Delaney, George Pearce, Sylvia French, Bev Kennedy, Doug Wilson, Lindi Pierce, Mary-Lynne Morgan, Bruce Bedell Orland French, Marilyn Hughes, Dick Hughes.

Seated: Sharon White, Elizabeth Mitchell, Lorna Garbutt, Donna Fano, Katharine Mills, Laurel Bishop, Adele Dibben, Lois Foster and Breanna Brethour.

Didn't make it into the group picture: Dianne Sule, Gerry Boyce, John Lowry, Bobby-Jo Morris, Peter Newman, Doug Knutson, Beth Green, Marney Black, Ruth Boyce and Geoff Green.


Pictures Nick White