Silver fever

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])

 

Admission free

The Santa Claus Parade will be taking place on Saturday evening (November 28th) at 6.30 in Deseronto’s Main Street and Rathbun Park.

To start getting you into the seasonal spirit, here is an advertisement for the Bay of Quinte Meat Company which appeared in Deseronto’s local newspaper, The Tribune on December 9th, 1892. This store was located in the Baker Block on Main Street, on the route of Saturday’s Parade.

The advertisement reads:

CHRISTMAS
We intend making the finest display of
Beef, Pork, Lamb, Mutton, Veal, Game, Poultry, Vegetables, and every variety of
FRESH and SALTED MEATS
This Christmas that has ever been seen in Deseronto, or in fact, in Ontario.
—————————————-
We are already booking orders for Turkeys. “Now is your time to do likewise,” and thus be sure of your Christmas dinner before the turkeys see this ad. and strike.

Our store on Christmas Eve will be far more worth seeing than any Christmas Tree. Arrange to bring your families to see it, no matter whether you require anything or not. Just come along and have a look, and if it does not make you hungry to see so many nice things ready for the oven it won’t be our fault. Owing to our increased trade, and anticipating an immense rush of thousands of new customers during Christmas week, we are now trying to make arrangements with Mr. Baker to add another hundred feet on to his already fine block.

Some of our customers are buying their turkeys now, and eating them too, so that they will not be left when the rush comes.

Do not be afraid – we will have enough for all. Only give us your order now and not have to wait, as we were only able to secure the services of a few less than fifteen men to serve you on Dec. 24th. So come one and all and see the great Christmas Fair.

ADMISSION FREE

THE BAY OF QUINTE MEAT CO’Y

Baker Block, Deseronto

A good illustration of the fact that the use of humour in advertising was not a twentieth century invention!

 

Fancy a stroll?

We’ve got a group of Women’s Institute members coming to visit Deseronto next week. The Archives won’t be open, as they are coming on a Tuesday, but we have put together a small exhibition for the group to see. They will also be having a look around the town, so we have also made a brief tour guide which pinpoints some of the significant buildings, past and present, including photographs and descriptions. It seems that this might be of interest to other visitors to Deseronto and it is now available to download.

 

New shelving

Possibly you have to be an archivist or librarian to understand my excitement this morning when I came into the Archives and found that the archive fairies had been at work and installed our new (recycled) shelving and processing area.

Many thanks to Don Simpson, the chair of the Deseronto Public Library Board and to Frances Smith, Deseronto’s Librarian, for being the brains and brawn (not necessarily in that order!) behind this much-needed installation. Also a special mention to library volunteer Sean Woodcock who did a lot of the heavy lifting!

 

Archival excursion

Wrapped volumes at Peterborough Museum and Archives

Every year, the Municipal Archives Interest Group of the Archives Association of Ontario holds an Open House at one of its member archives. On September 26, archivists from around the province gathered at Peterborough for a tour of the Peterborough Museum and Archives, a business meeting and a barbecue. This sort of event is very valuable for the province’s municipal archivists, many of whom are the only professional archivist on their municipality’s staff.

Peterborough’s archives are extremely short of space (something that is true of many other archives, too), so it was interesting to see how Mary Charles, the archivist there, had managed to make the most of the shelf space that is available to her. One solution that seemed to work well in a number of ways was the wrapping of bound volumes in acid-free paper. Archivists often enclose bound volumes in specially-made acid-free boxes, but this is quite an expensive option and can take up a significant amount of shelf-space. By wrapping them in paper, the volumes are protected, easier to handle and can be stacked more closely together without causing them further damage. The volumes were a source of dust and the air quality of the storage space (which is also the reading room and archives workspace) has improved markedly as a result of this work.

Peterborough’s fall colours seem a little in advance of Deseronto’s right now. This is a view of the lift lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway in the city:

Lift Locks on the Trent-Severn Waterway

 

Metcalfe Foods

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
?
Susan Maracle
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

 

Snapshots of North America, 1907

In the summer of 1907 Harold McMurrich Rathburn took a trip across Canada from Deseronto to Edmonton. He took his camera with him and Deseronto Archives holds the negatives that Harold made. Luckily, the negatives were kept in two albums which were indexed by their owner, giving us useful information about the subjects of each shot. His journey took him first by steamer from Owen Sound to Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay). Below is the view of the American Soo Canal that he shot from the deck of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s steamship Alberta near Sault Ste. Marie.

"Entering American Soo Canal"

Harold and his companion, Harry Jones, seem to have made some business-related visits while in Port Arthur. The picture below shows them standing with another man in front of an elevator which belonged to the Canadian Northern Railway. At this time, the Rathbun Company ran the Bay of Quinte Railway in Deseronto and surrounding areas, so this visit might have been related to the company’s railway interests.

"Harry & H.M.R. at C.N.R. Elevator"

The two men continued their journey on the Canadian Northern Railway which had reached Edmonton two years previously. Harold took photographs of a number of buildings in Winnipeg and Edmonton and also several snapshots at Warman Junction in Saskatchewan, including this charming photograph of a group of men watching a boy with a gopher.

"Boy with gophir at Warman Jct."

We are gradually digitizing all of the Harold M. Rathbun negatives and many of them are now available on our Flickr pages.

 

The Steady Gleaners

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.

 

Deseronto’s oldest house

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 – this is how it looks today:

94 Fourth Street today

 

Railways and the fourth dimension

Many archivists and local historians view their environments through an historical filter. We see what is there now, but there also is a strong awareness of what was there before. The view below is of the junction between Main Street and Mill Street in Deseronto as it appears today.

Main Street and Mill Street

People with a strong awareness of the town’s past cannot help but look at this view and imagine how it looked with the buildings that were there 100 years ago:

Main and Mill Streets, c.1900

One might think that this is just a quirk of historians and archivists, but recently, through our Flickr account, we became aware that other people have this habit of looking at townscapes with this past-filter in place. In this instance, the point of view is that of a railway enthusiast: one who has spent a lot of time imagining the town with its early twentieth century railways and industrial sites still functioning. Not just imagining, either: this particular enthusiast has re-created the town in this image, in the form of a railway simulation.

In his words:

Deseronto Spur- This is roughly 8 miles long and will be the first part of the route that I will finish. It will be modeled as a dilapidated branchline serving several industries in the town of Deseronto. …I have tried to make it as accurate as possible… Some of the industries here will include a frozen food cannery, a steel fabricaton plant, an agricultural co-op, team track, and a lumber yard.

This information has been taken from a publicly-available web forum, which is how we became aware of this work, as the author, Jason Sills, has used images from the Deseronto Archives Flickr account to assist him in his simulation. He has created this simulated railway with tremendous attention to detail and has shared many screenshots of the line on the forum. We don’t have a contact email for him, so if you are reading this, Jason, please get in touch and let us know whether you object to us sharing your work!  In the hope that Jason won’t mind us sharing his pictures here, we are using the image below to demonstrate what he has been doing:

This picture, showing a train heading east, imagines that the Bay of Quinte Railway line is still in existence on the south side of Main Street in Deseronto, with the present-day Centennial Park in the background, next to the waterfront. The Archives has a photograph of a steam locomotive heading west along the same stretch of track in the days when the Bay of Quinte Railway was still running:

Steam locomotive heading west

Jason has shared a large number of screenshots on the Train-Sim forum and it is a really intriguing mixture of imagination, creativity and history. Particularly since Jason is 15 years old and having to cope with a fair amount of school work as well as this project. Thanks to Jason for sharing his simulation and for acknowledging the Archives as a source of useful information!