Watson's Corners Museum, Ontario
Small Exhibition Near Ottawa Features Province's Oldest Library
A slice of Canada's pioneer past can be found in a little-known museum in the back of the local Community Hall.
Thinking outside the box when you visit Canada's capital city means taking a drive through the breathtaking countryside to visit a little-known library and museum; a nearly two-hundred year old slice of Canadiana once supported by the venerable Lord Dalhousie himself.
Watson’s Corners is a pretty little village. Like so many other Ontario hamlets it is off the beaten path; a modest settlement seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but with a big past that once discovered, sends the imagination soaring.
It is a story that is unique, yet was repeated time and time again when Canada was still in its infancy and its future looked both bleak and promising: Ships crammed with Scotsmen fleeing to a land of plenty; a new world where good soil and perfect pastures would bring prosperity. But the task of settlement was daunting. The land was rocky, the terrain rough. The weather could break the spirit even the strongest soul.
Ron Johnsons tell the tale so matter-of-factly. “The library was started by the Scottish settlers. They brought books with them when they came here in the early 1800’s," he says.
We have just entered into a time warp. In the small room tucked in the back of the Watson’s Corners Community Hall – across the street from St. Andrew’s Church, along the third concession of the former Dalhousie Township and about 15 kilometres from the picturesque village of Lanark – is the oldest library in Ontario, one of the oldest in Canada.
Stepping onto yellowing 1940’s linoleum and into this special place is like finding buried treasure. Shelves of unfinished pine (or “cupboards” as the settlers preferred to call them), constructed in 1827 by James Parks, still house volumes that speak of the times, with titles like, On the Improvement of Knowledge (1834), Klondike: A Manual for Gold Seekers, New Edinburgh Almanac (1845), and bound copies of The Scottish Christian Herald (1837) securely fastened with a thick leather cover.
At one point there were as many as 800 titles on these shelves. Today, estimates are that fewer than 400 remain.
The oldest books are tucked away on the top “cupboards.” Here you will find the remaining six volumes of a 20-book set of the 1797 Encyclopedia Britannica, which was printed in Edinburgh. It is enough to feast my eyes on them. Dragging the fading thick books of knowledge out of their home seems somehow disrespectful.
The Dalhousie Historic Library and Museum has been in this place since 1948. But this is not where the story began.
Lured by the promise of free land and an opportunity to build a better life, the first Scottish settlers arrived in Brockville, bound for Lanark County, in 1815. A people who valued religion and learning, the Scots brought their favourite books along for the journey. When they arrived at their final destination, in 1816, the Scottish pioneers began exchanging their literature.
In 1828 the Governor-in-Chief of Canada, the 9th Earl of Dalhousie, responded to a request from the St. Andrew’s Philanthropic Society for his assistance in starting a library. The Earl, who was born at Dalhousie Castle, Midlothian, Scotland in 1770 and named George Ramsay by a father of the same name, understood the value of literacy in the colonies. He sent the settlers 100 pounds sterling and 120 books, each stamped with his coat of arms.
That same year the settlers built St. Andrew’s Hall, a crude log structure that served not only as a library but also as a place of worship and centre of social activity for the Scottish exiles. They added their own books to the collection donated by Dalhousie, in an effort to encourage the acquisition of knowledge and to assist in the building of a new civilized life.
Every two months generations of book-loving Scots would travel excruciatingly long distances to attend “issue day” – the day when members could sign as many books as they liked out from the library. Members with names like Bryson, MacLaren, Gemmill, McIlquham, Leitch and McNicol, paid an annual subscription of three shillings for the privilege.
Over time the cold and drafty St. Andrew’s Hall became inadequate and the community’s treasured book collection was moved to the Sons of Temperance Building. By 1900 membership had fallen to a mere 12. For a time the library disappeared because the community lost interest in the books. They remained packed away in boxes for years until a new community hall was built. They were put back in Parks’ “cupboards” in 1948.
The “Guardians of the Dalhousie Public Library” owned the library for a time, eventually selling it to the township when only two “guardians” remained. In 1964, the Archaeological and Historical Sites Board of Ontario erected a plaque outside the hall to recognize the library’s significance to Canadian heritage.
Today the Dalhousie library is a museum. Its caretakers, such as Mr. Johnson, would prefer that you don’t touch the books. But he smiles and willingly shares his passion for this place when visitors are particularly enthusiastic, looking the other way when I just have to turn the pages on several of the volumes.
“Half the Father’s of Confederation, 13 Prime Ministers since John A. Macdonald and more than two million Canadians today trace their ancestry to Scotland,” says a University of Guelph newsletter (2000), written for its Scottish Studies Program.
The Dalhousie Historic Library and Museum in Watson’s Corners is a significant example of the tremendous impact of Scottish traditions, literature and culture on the development of Canadian Society.
Visitors are welcome at the library by appointment only. Call 613-259-2765.
