Annual Banquet

The Society’s 2011 annual banquet was a sold-out success!  Keynote speaker Senator Mike Duffy gave a boost to the archives campaign and entertained us with his own unwritten stories about politics and Prime Ministers from Sir Mackenzie Bowell to Jean Chrétien.
 
The political dignitaries of Hastings County were well represented.

City of Belleville Councillor Garnet Thompson, County of Hastings Warden Jo-Anne Albert, and Quinte West Councillor Ron Hamilton all brought greetings from their respective municipalities.

 

Other dignitaries attended, including Prince Edward-Hastings MPP Todd Smith and MP Daryl Kramp.

The exhibit of posters featuring Hasting County's political history and the design drawings of the proposed new community archives attracted considerable interest, but the main draw was the stories and anecdotes from Senator Duffy's long career as a political reporter and broadcaster.

Senator Mike Duffy with the man he calls his mentor – Peter C. Newman, Companion of the Order of Canada and Honorary Chair of the Society's Capital Campaign Committee.

In his talk Senator Duffy encouraged the community to rally behind the Society's push to create an archives where people can learn more about local history and access the wealth of information that is their heritage.

For the article in the Belleville Intelligencer click on this link. Opens in a new window.

For additional pictures of the event click on this album link. Album opens in a new window.

Story and pictures Nick and Sharon White

175 Years of Policing in Belleville

Uniforms from around 1900

To an audience of over seventy members, guests and visitors, John Lowry (assisted by Staff-Sgt. Tony MacKinnon) gave an overview of the history of policing in Belleville and the work that is now being undertaken to preserve that history for future generations


He recounted how Belleville’s police service was officially established in 1836 with the appointment of Henry Avrill as high constable and Hiram Fulford as bailiff. The village had at that time a population of about one thousand souls and encompassed an area of just over six hundred acres at the mouth of the Moira River.
 
Its early beginnings make Belleville's police force one of the oldest police services in Canada, pre-dating the Kingston Police (founded 1843), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (founded in 1873) and the Ontario Provincial Police (1909).

Belleville moved from village status to that of a town in 1850 and to a city in 1878. By this time the city Police Department had expanded to six members headed by Hugh McKinnon. The population had grown to nearly ten thousand people living in an area covering 1,760 acres.

A little over a half century later during World War II the force consisted of ten members. In 2010 there were 132 members of the police force.

A more complete history of the Police force can be read in the November issue of the Society's newsletter Outlook. 

A copy of that edition can be viewed by clicking this link.  

The link will open in a new window.

John Lowry and Staff-Sgt. Tony MacKinnon display equipment once used by Belleville's Police Force

Pictures Nick White, story based on Outlook article

 

No Tweeters Here!

 

Thank you to everyone who filled in the questionnaire on Internet use that was handed out at the Society's September meeting.  The answers you gave us are helpful in understanding how the Society’s website is used by our members.

Use of Internet by people filling in the survey

Why the questionnaire?  Well we know a lot about our website visitors, how many there are, where they are logged in, how they get to the website and what type of machine they are using.

Based on those people at the meeting who filled in a questionnaire, it seems reasonable to expect almost three-quarters of our members to be regular internet users. That is lower than the Canadian average but the average age of a Society member is probably higher than the Canadian average.  

Not counting non-members who didn't know the Society had a website and people who said they never used the Internet it seems that other members do use the Society's site. The three most mentioned features are shown in the following chart.  People said they used a lot of different Internet tools but nobody admitted to “tweeting”.

Reported Use of the Society's Web Site

Some general statistics - discounting, bots, crawlers, worms and their ilk we currently have about 6,000 “hits” a month. In August 2011 that translated into 329 "different people" (based on IP addresses) visiting the website. And they must find something interesting because many of those people returned.  In August we averaged 1.7 visits per visitor and they looked at an average of 5.7 pages on each visit.

The current website was published in December 2010 and is kept up to date (usually) on a monthly basis. Based on the feedback in the questionnaire we may re-arrange the site to make popular pages easier to find, but, to keep those visitors interested in the history of Hastings County and the Society we need (like any other publication) have fresh interesting material to publish.

Contributions and Ideas are Always Welcome!

Ontario Volunteer Service Awards

Ruth Boyce receives her five-year 

pin from Richard Hughes

Luella Parkhurst receives her ten-year

 pin from Richard Hughes

Volunteers have been a very important part of the Hastings Heritage Centre's operations since it opened.

Pictured here Ruth Boyce and Luella Parkhurst being awarded their five and ten year pins respectively by the Society's acting President Richard Hughes.

In June this year service award pins were presented to Hastings Heritage Centre volunteers Bobbi Jo Morris (five years), Bill Kennedy (five years, and Katharine Mills (ten years) at the Ontario Volunteer Service Awards ceremony held on the 3rd of May at the Banquet Centre in Belleville.

A Country without a History is a Country without a Soul

The Society's and Belleville's Town Crier, Bruce Bedell
opened the event with a fine Cry
“A country without a history is a country without a soul”

Founding member of the Society
Lee Jourard was the MC for the ceremony.
He noted the Trillium grant was
"another step towards reality"
for the archives project.

I attended an event today which was opened by a town crier. It’s not often that we get a chance to do that these days; it hearkens back to days lost to history. But this town crier is quite real and quite NOW - Bruce Bedell opens many history-making events in Belleville. And today’s event certainly made history.

Today, at the future home of the Community Archives, the Society accepted a plaque commemorating a $34,500 grant from the Trillium Foundation towards the cost of shelving in the new Community Archives.

A goodly number of folks attended. There was pride and excitement in the room as momentum is clearly building in the the campaign to bring the Community Archives home to the new building on Church Street.

Noting that Trillium receives its money from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission, Honorary fund raising chairman Peter C. Newman hit the nail on the head. He said “buy tickets”. It’s that simple - our governments are showing their commitment and the citizens of Hastings and Belleville need to show the same in raising the remaining money for the campaign.

Lou Grinaldi, MPP for
Northumberland-Quinte West

Sometimes speeches can be dull. Today was really an exception as political representatives from the City, County and Province shared their own personal reasons for investing in archives and offered complimentary and encouraging words to the volunteers who have worked so hard to get this far.

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of  
Education, MPP for Prince Edward-Hastings

MPP Lou Rinaldi reminded folks that qualifying for a Trillium grant is a vote of confidence in the importance and viability of the project and talked about his personal commitment to preserving our history for our children and grandchildren.

MPP and Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky spoke of the need to “preserve the stories of who we are” and the importance of  archives "even for those who think they don't need it."  She shared tales of her family's long history in Tweed and Hastings County. Inspiring. The archives are all about honouring our ancestors and our past.

People like Orland French had a vision for this new home for the archives. The Society's Board of Directors has done amazing work. Archivist Sharon is providing outstanding leadership. HCHS volunteer labour is legendary, and it continues. Work has been painstaking, but progress is being made every day. The Unlock the Archives campaign is succeeding. The downtown storefront is engaging the public. A substantial amount of money has been raised, but more is needed.

From left to right, Lou Rinaldi, Richard Hughes, Hon. Leona Dombrowsky and Bonnie Pelletier 
(of the Trillium Foundation) with the commemorative paque.

Rick Phillips, Reeve of Tyendinaga Township, representing the County of Hastings, and Councillors Pat Culhane and Garnet Thompson, representing the City of Belleville, were also there to express the continued support of the other partners in the Community Archives.

Strong supporters of Canadian Heritage - Minister Dombrowsky, Reeve Phillips, Councillors Thompson and Culhane pose with Peter C. Newman at the end of the ceremony.

A story about the event in the Belleville Intelligencer may be viewed here.

More pictures taken at the event may be viewed in this album.

Story Lindi Pierce, pictures Nick White

Canada Day 2011

The Set Up Crew
Dick & Marilyn Hughes, Susie Boyce, Bev Boyce, Bobby-Jo Morris,
Mary Jane Throop, Barb Throop, Sharon White (archivist), Bill Kennedy,
Gerry Boyce, Stanley Jones and Lindi Pierce of Heritage Belleville

The Hastings County Historical Society had no shortage of volunteers to man its displays at the Canada Day festivities July 1st. The gang shown on the right pitched in to help make Canada's 144th birthday at Zwicks' Park a big success. The Society has been a participant in Belleville's Canada Day celebrations since the current Canada Day Committee was set up in 2005.

The Society combined its activities with Heritage Belleville and Glanmore National Historic Site to provide visitors with information about Belleville and Hastings County. 

Crying in the Morning Crew
From left to right - Bev Boyce, Bobby-Jo Morris, Barb & Mary Jane Throop, Gerry Boyce, Dick & Marilyn Hughes, Sharon White, John Lowry, Elizabeth Mitchell, Orland & Sylvia French, Bill Kennedy and Bruce Bedel
Not in picture Adele Dibben, Donna Fanno, Marney Black, Katherine Mills, George Pearce, Diane Sule, Mike Shaw (afternoon crew) and Nick White (taking picture)

In addition to historic photographs of the city and surrounding area there were checkers games, history type jigsaw puzzles composed of historic sites, a display of architectural drawings of the proposed Community Archives renovation and the annual Scavenger Hunt.This year there were exactly 200 entries in the  Scavenger Hunt which is comprised of ten historical questions stapled to posts throughout the Canada Day venue. Contestants need to answer all ten questions and deposit their answers in a ballot box with some very nice prizes going to the winners.

A more complete set of pictures of the event (including the huge queue for Daryl Kramp's free hot dogs) can be seen here.

A New Sign in Belleville

To the sounds of the Town Crier, and short speeches by the Mayor of the City of Belleville, Neil Ellis, the Warden of Hastings County, Jo-Anne Albert and the president of Hastings County Historical Society, Orland French the official sign identifying the sity for the new Community Archives was unveiled on Thursday the 30th of June 2011.



Click on the pictures to see a larger version.




An article in the Belleville Intelligencer by Luke Hendry can be viewed at this link


Other pictures taken at the event may be viewed on this album

After the unveiling, drawings of the proposed renovation were on display inside the building.