HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1974-08-21, Page 24• C-
GETTING A REST — Paul Haley of Seaforth saw a
linotype that his father Tom used to operate when it
was used to set type for the Huron Expositorjat the
Huron County Pioneer Museum. The Expositor
donated the over 50 year old linotype to the museum
in Goderich several years ago. (Staff Photo)
SHOWING MUSEUM — Rev. and Mrs. J. Ure
Stewart of Seaforth often take visitors to the. Huron
County Museum in Goderich. Above Mr. Stewart and
a visitor,, Mrs. Helen Peck, Ktchener, turn the wheel
that sets a miniature grist mill in motion.
(Staff Photo)
Our own museum-it's worth a visit
Founded by
J.H. Neill in 1952
There is a fascinating attraction in Goderich that tourists seem to know all about. Huron County people don't use their Pioneer Museum as much as the tourists do and they, the people of Huron, support it with their tax dollars. This situation strikes County Council's. Property Committee which oversees the Museum s being a little unfair. "We want more people from the county to see their museum" Huron Warden BM Elston. says. "They should bring their visitors here but they possibly don't know we have such a fine place." In an attempt to let the people in the area outside Goderich know what they are
missing at the museum, seveal county
councillors and the museum staff recently
took the press of-Huron County on a guided
tour of the building.
Cradle to Grave
The life of the pioneers who settled our
country "from cradle to grave" was what
the unusual man who started the County
Museum, J.H.Neill wanted to show. Neil!
was a Gorrie harness maker with a
passionate interest in Canadian history.
The Museum was his project from 1952
when he persuaded County Council to open
it until his death at 85 in 1969.
Mr. Neill knew, long before the Ontario
Science Centre was ever contemplated,
that the best way to learn, is to participate
and touch and to figure out from scale
models exactly how things work. Mr. Neill
himself made many painstakingly
complete, working models of pioneer
industries and agricultural methods.
They are still there and they still work
and the children and adults in the museum
when we were there were having a ball
activating them by hand crank.
Wandering around the museum one is
struck by the many ways in which J. H.
Neill was ahead of his time and how lucky
we are that he lived in Huron and collected
the many ordinary articles of pioneer life. His Essex car, fitted out much like a modern camper, is on display in a room filled with early vehicles. In 1935 he travelled across Canada in it, picking up many of the things now on display at the museum. Bring Visitors Museum curator Raymond Scotchmer says that he wants to encourage local people to "bring their visitors to see what we have here" and to come often themselves. Mr. Scotchmer, from Bayfield, has been curator since the spring, of 1969. Mrs. Friedel Nanz is his assistant curator and
four students, all girls, join the staff as
guides from June to September.
This year's guides are: Barb Britnell, 19
of Goderich; Darlene Warner, 15 of
Bayfield; Cheryl Hoy 17, of Goderich and
Brenda McClinchey, 17 of Ben Miller.
The museum is open from April 1 until
October 31 every year. Hours daily are
from 9 until 5:30 but the ticket office closes
at 4:30. Sundays it's open from 1 until 4:30.
On Sundays in April the museum is closed.
Admission costs are $1 for adults, .75 for
high school students and .25 for children.
Cataloguing
Three extra students are working at the
museum this summer cataloguing all the
exhibits. Salaries have been provided by a
provincial government grant. Photos are
being taken of every one of the 12,000
items in the building and the cataloguing
system will be the same as that used by the
Royal Ontario 'Museum in Toronto.
The museum, on North Street, one of the
"spokes" on the Square, is an old red and
yellow briCk building that once was Central
School, built in 1856. The old stairs that
rise up out of the centre hall are worn to a
polished curve from the hundreds of feet
that have tromped up and down.
A series of five additions at the rear of
the original school building have enlarged the museum to more than twice its original size. The total display area is now about 40,000 square feet, curator Scotchmer said. As well as early farm and home life the museum has a small old time grocery store, pharmacy, dental office and chapel. There are old tractors, threshers, carriages and buggies, a covered wagon, a hearse, and on the ground floor a complete railroad steam engine. Music from a Victorian "Orchestral Regina Organ" (a sort of ornate player piano) plays constantly through the halls. Spirit of Huron The locomotive called `The Spirit of
Huron' was brought to the museum in
1959. One of the guides said Mr.Neill slept
in the cab until the building was closed in
around it. -
The locomotive was a yard engine in
Goderich, "a real work horse" according to
train • enthusiast Dave Hooten of
Mississauga who spent part of his summer
holiday cleaning up the brass trim and
generally restoring the old engine.
"My great grandfather was on the first
CPR train to go through Goderich in 1907
and I was on the last CN passenger run
through here a few years ago" the Ontario
Rail Association member said.
The Huron County Pioneer museum has
brought in up to 25,000 visitors annually.
The museum management wants you to
take advantage of your own museum and
go and see just what the big attraction is.