Christmas time makes us think of children’s gifts and toys. So, I thought I would do a bit of research.The first record of children’s toys is in the 14th century when small stone and clay marbles were found in children’s graves in Egypt. – In the 16th century there was evidence of wooden dolls and …
We have recently hung the pennant of the 222 Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force in themuseum. It hung along with its flag for a number of years in St. Andrews Anglican Church inHartney. It was then hung in the board room at the Civic Centre and is now located near thehole in the wall left by …
We are very fortunate in the museum to have a number of artifacts which pertain to Louis Café.There is the original cupboard which was located behind the counter in Louis Café as well asone of the benches from the booths in the café. They are located in the Merchants area and theSports area respectively. There …
In the museum we have a wide variety of things made of ivory so I thought I would investigatetheir origin. Ivory is relatively soft and easily carved. As Portuguese sailors began to ply thecoast of Africa in 1400, they engaged in the very lucrative ivory trade. The ivory was acquiredby African hunter who soon decimated …
We had an inquiry about displaying old currency at the museum and that prompted me to do some research on old currency. In 1870 the government passed the Dominion Notes Act allowing itself to produce Canadian currency. It was originally tied to the British pound but in 1931 became a free-floating currency. There have been …
WHAT’S OLD AT THE MUSEUM? Last October, I wrote about a scale that we have in the merchant area of the museum, which was originally used by the Melgund beef ring. There was information on beef rings in general with it but nothing specific to Melgund. Ewen Mosby called me and said the headquarters of …
WHAT’S OLD AT THE MUSEUM? As I entered the museum yesterday in search of what I would write about, I was struck by the number of artefacts that we have that create music. As I thought about that, it was not really surprising, since before the days of Sirius XM, radios, streaming music and television. …
What’s Old at the Museum? My last two columns I have written about the fraternal Lodges in Hartney. We also have artifacts from the Excelsior Rebekah Lodge, Victoria Chapter of the Eastern Star, Order of the Royal Purple and the Victoria Chapter of Past Matrons. The Excelsior Rebekah Lodge was instituted in 1922 with 2 …
Last month I wrote about the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. There are many more fraternal organizations represented in the Lodge Room and I thought it would be interesting to research some of their histories. The Masonic Lodge – The original Masonic Lodge was founded in June of 1717 in England from guilds of stonemasons …
Recently, I was writing up some talking points about various artifacts in the museum and my Mom was helping me with the research. I wanted to know how old the big ornate lodge chairs were in the lodge room and she did the research on them and found some interesting information. The Independent Order of …