BUILDING THE TRUE LOG CABIN

 

Three of fourteen pages How to Build Your Cabin or Modern Vacation Home by Harry Walton/ POPULAR SCIENCE, Harper & Row, 1978

Located on the Historic Court House Grounds Cayuga

1835 Pioneer Log Cabin

The Old Railway Bridge at Cayuga *

TRAVEL

The railroad track is miles away,
        And the day is loud with voices speaking.
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
        But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,
        Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
        And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
        And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
         No matter where it's going.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay  [Feb 22, 1892 - Oct. 19, 1950]  First woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

* The old Cayuga railway bridge is scheduled to become a walking trail. Photo lbw

Haldimand County Museum and Log Cabin

On December 12, 2016, Council ratified Councillor Morison's motion to demolish the museum and move the 1835 log cabin off the Court House Grounds.  The artifacts will be scattered among five libraries and the basement of the planned new admin building.  The archives will be housed in 600 sq. ft. of the planned new Cayuga library.

This story is not over.

Haldimand County Museum & Archives and 1835 Log Cabin

"County Council now has an opportunity to do the right thing.  Defeat this report!"  Will our elected representatives listen to their constituents or will they simply ratify the administrative staff's recommendations?

Haldimand County Councillors have approved Report PED-GM-10-2016 which essentially dismantles the Haldimand County Museum, moves the 181-year-old Nicholas Log Cabin* to windswept Cheapside and sets the stage for the sale of the County Court House Grounds.  The current Administration Building which also sits on the grounds "...will go to ground", stated Mayor Hewitt at a Council in Committee meeting on November 15.  Councillor Corbett made it clear at the same meeting that the money from the land-sale is required to build the new centralized $18,000,000 administration building.  Many question the need for a new administration building and the lack of fiscal responsibility.

ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 12 at 6:00 p.m. councillors can and will most likely ratify the recommendations.  We encourage everyone to attend.  Let our elected representatives know that their constituents do not agree with the decisions they are making.  Please continue to send  letters, phone calls, emails expressing concern to councillors.   Mayor Hewitt conceded at the November 15 meeting that because of the volume of public response, council needs time to consider.

At a time of year that we celebrate family traditions and find time to socialize with friends, it is an effort for folks to follow the procedures and actions of municipal government, prepare presentations and appear in the council gallery.  In spite of Christmas festivities residents turned out in numbers at the hastily organized, eleventh-hour open house organized by Ward 2 Councillor Morison.

     * Tomorrow:  History of the Nicholas Log Cabin

Court House Grounds Summer 2016

This is the photo that has offended Haldimand County Councillor Fred Morison.  At the Council-in-Committee meeting on Tuesday, November 15, 2016,  Councillor Morison adamantly expressed his disapproval of a petition circulating and comments on social media prior to administrative staff reports coming to council and before council decisions.  Morison would have preferred that a better time for the petition would have been after the Council-in-Committee meeting when Report PED-GM-10-2016 was brought forward.  This report was made available to the public late Thursday, November 10 and can be ratified on December 12. 

A petition on Change.org (Search key words: log cabin), requests that Haldimand County Council save Cayuga Court House Grounds, parkland, museum, archives and 1835 log cabin.

Council has already approved at the Nov. 15th meeting to break up the museum collection and distribute it among the libraries.  Morison is holding an Open House, TUE., NOV. 22 at 2:00 and 6:30 p.m. in the Cayuga Kinsmen Community Centre to discuss these latest developments.  Please note change in location for the Open House.

[Photo:  lbw]

 

Today We Remember

 

 

Court House Grounds

Zoned Residential

Court House Grounds

The historic Court House Grounds are zoned residential.  OFFICIAL PLAN SCHEDULE "B.2"  CAYUGA URBAN AREA LAND USE PLAN ~ Map Prepared by:  Haldimand County Planning & Economic Development Dept. 

"Council is not forging ahead with residential zoning as the petition [Save the Parklands, Museum & Log Cabin*] states.  There has not even been discussion about that." ~ Ward 2 Councillor Morison.  Letter to The Haldimand Press and The Sachem, Oct. 27, 2016.

*  Change.org (Search key words i.e. log cabin)  Thank you for signing.

[Photos:  lbw]  UPDATE:  Since Report PED-GM-10-2016 became available on Thu., Nov. 10, it has become public knowledge that the County Court House Grounds are currently zoned "Institutional". 

Haldimand County Museum & Archives and Historic 1835 Log Cabin

Haldimand County Council conducted an Administrative Accommodation Review last year and chose to build one new administration building in Cayuga.  This decision renders the current building redundant;  in other words, "surplus administrative property".  The future of the museum, log cabin and surrounding County Court House Grounds is unclear.

 

Current Haldimand County Admin Building Cayuga
 

 

We have been away.  Not from the bookshop.  Just from our blog.  So many things have been happening that we need to tell you!

We won't try to relate to you everything today.   We will post some photographs and some news stories each day.  Thank you for coming back.  We miss our readers.  Just to get started, we have been preoccupied reading Administrative Accommodation Reviews on the Haldimand County Website.  The reason?  It took a while for us to realize and understand that our six councilors and one mayor have been discussing the future of our current administration building and consequently our museum, log cabin and our historic County Court House Grounds.

Parking Lot and Admin Building

Tomorrow:  We will briefly summarize surplus administrative property, specifically our Haldimand Administrative Building.

 

 

The year's at the spring

And day's at the morn'

Morning's at seven'

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing'

The snail's on the thorn:

God's in his heaven ~

All's right with the world!

 

~ Robert Browning (1812 - 1889) English poet, playwright.

 

[Photos:  Ruthven, June 2011 lbw]

 

 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21 at 1:00 p.m.

 

KIRK DU GUID & ROBERT OTTERMAN

 

Author Kirk Du Guid interviewed two dozen Haldimand Veterans and published "in their own words",

 

Soldiers' Stories

 

Join us in the bookshop ~ Coffee & tea always on...

 

 



 

 

Kirk Du Guid interviewed soldiers in the Haldimand area and in their own words published for posterity their stories.

"[Soldiers]  hope by telling their stories they will leave a legacy, so that our youth can understand what happens in conflict, and why people go to 'serve'."
~ Kirk Du Guid.

Other books by Kirk Du Guid THE FIRST COLD CASE, THE FIRST DRUG SQUAD, Du Guid's Anthology and To the Last Round.

The Neat Little Bookshop is pleased to make available a limited quantity of Soldiers' Stories.  We also have limited quantities of THE FIRST DRUG SQUAD and Du Guid's Anthology.  Books by local authors make thoughtful gifts.

The second printing of Soldiers' Stories includes additional special soldier stories.

"When I was a boy, and for quite some time after that,  all work on Township roads was done by the farmers living on that road.  When the tax slip came around, besides the taxes in dollars and cents it had so many day's road work.  I suppose that would be for a man and a team [heavy horses] because about all that was done on them was team work ~ levelling or putting earth in low places with a scraper. 

Every once in a while, depending on the road boss who was one of the farmers, the big grader was brought on. I don't know who appointed him. That required one or two furrows to be plowed in the ditch and three teams were put on the grader and the road was graded.  Needless to say, for some time after that, it wasn't any more than fit to drive on but there were no cars and roads were all alike.  It wasn't noticed, only when a low spot was raised with scrapers and not levelled off was there fault found and some bosses were noted for that.  Needless to say, they weren't popular and their term was short.

Most road work was done after seeding and before haying.  That was always a big day for the kids.  They lived on the road that day while the men went back and forth on the road.

That system probably was the best for the time but times have changed and the Township got road machinery and lately steady-paid workers and the roads are kept up to a much higher standard than they were.  Change is always going on.  For the better?  Sometimes that might be debatable but we will have to give the ones that are responsible at the particular time of doing the best they think.  If it doesn't work that way, the next council will change it.  The country has been brought to the present state by the trial and error method and probably that is the best method to follow."

~ J. A. Turnbull (1890 - 1975)  East Seneca, Haldimand County.

The Eye Opener ~ Blackheath Feb. 24, 1933  [Paper found in family files.]

In presenting this copy of the eye-opener, the editor wishes to extend the greetings and good wishes from the Blackheath Literary Society to the Society at this place.  We are engaged in a common task not only furnishing clean amusement but education as well.

What better way is there to find out the latest talent hidden away in the country places than by taking part in a program of this kind - in practising plays - debates - recitations - songs, etc.?  Who know but what the future premiers are getting their start right now on some Literary Society platform in some small country place.  But we can't all be premiers, yet each one of us that takes part feels some advancement in the education that is necessary to make a life.

It has been said that the present generation is loosing the power and ability to amuse itself choosing rather to go to places of professional amusement.  But the crowds that are drawn to these literary meetings and the excellency of the programmes give the lie to both statements and long may it continue.  And in this work we hope you will continue to help make out of the rising generation men and women that will be better fitted for the journey of life than they otherwise would be -- and they looking back -- will bless the efforts of those who are carrying the burden of what I must confess sometimes seems a thankless task.  But it is not so.  We shall reap if we faint not.

~

Jack - Speaking about dreams, I dreamt last night that - er - I proposed to you.  What's that a sign of?
Nelly - That's a sign that you have more sense when you are asleep than when you are awake.

~

Teacher - And you don't know what letter comes after H?
John - No, Miss.
Teacher - What have I on each side of my nose?
John - It looks like powder from here, Miss.

J.A. Turnbull

Karen Richardson, Curator Haldimand County Museum

Dedicated genealogist and historian, Margaret Clause

Guest Speaker, Karen Richardson, Curator of The Haldimand County Museum & Archives hosted the Literary Group on Thursday.

The opening paragraphs of Looking For Old Ontario ~ by Thomas F. McIlwraith

"Many people have looked at Ontario's landscape without really seeing it, or have been bored by what they saw.  Charles Dickens, writing in 1842, found Ontario very flat and 'bare of scenic interest';  the Canadian Illustrated News a few years later described it as 'tame and domestic.'  An 1894 tourist guide bluntly stated that between Smiths Falls and Perth 'the country is unattractive.'  John Kenneth Galbraith called his childhood area, west of St. Thomas, in the 1920s 'an uninteresting country.'  A Manitoban used words such as 'sober,' 'stable,' and 'serene' to describe his adopted province in the 1960s.  A British colleague of mine once spoke of 'beautiful monotony' after spending a day driving up and down the straight roads near Lindsay...
"The rumpled countryside is a marvellous place that Ontarians have inhabited and continually reinvented.  It may be ambiguous and perplexing, but surely not dull.
"To appreciate a living landscape we must also draw on the written record from such sources as biography and legistlative studies, to understand long-gone events."

~ University of Toronto Press, 1997
[Tomorrow:  more of Ontario.]

Authors and poets write about them.   Artists sketch and paint them.  Photographers capture their beauty.

Many a tree has sheltered animals and birds, providing wildlife their homes.  Trees speak to us from a position of strength and longevity.  We played under trees as children, spend hours sitting beneath them as adults.

We plant trees to commemorate special events.  Trees comfort us when remembering lost loved ones.

The Neat Little Bookshop is launching a Favourite Tree contest in the next few weeks.  We encourage you to think about the trees that have meant something special to you and invite you to submit either a photo or a story telling how a tree, or trees, have played a part in your life.

Deadline for submissions:  May 31, 2015.
[Photo:  Cayuga Tennis Court park on the Grand.  lbw]


Find The Neat Little Bookshop on Facebook

In the following weeks, The Neat Little Bookshop is launching a Favourite Tree contest.