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". 

www.studiobabette.ca

www.ruthvenpark.ca

"No Road To Glory"

Le Havre

"At last Jones received orders to join his Battalion in the war zone.  He left the night-club life at the base without regret, and wondered if the front line trenches could be any hotter than Le Havre.

 

The first stage to rail-head was hardly a cheerful affair.  It was an all-night journey, and quarters were rather too cramped for anything but a hedgehog.  There were six occupants in the compartment, and four of these were morose and gloomy, as they were returning from leave.  A ration of bully beef and hard-tack had been issued before entraining, and the novelty, coupled with the idea of real campaigning, rather appealed to Jones.  When he gave voice to his enthusiasm, an Austrian, a particularly hard-boiled specimen of that rugged species, ruffled at having to leave London for 'Somewhere,' cussed the rookie for a 'damned young fool.' "

The Family Home in Haldimand that Thompson Left Behind to Go to War

[Tomorrow:  "On The Hands Down."]

[Written by Major A.R.Thompson for the Canadian Military Gazette.  Thompson's own experiences appeared as a series in the publication during the war years 1940s]

"For where two or three are gathered together..."

Sunday, June 8 at 2:30 p.m. East Seneca Church ~ "The Little White Church in the Country."

151 th Anniversary Service

[Photo files ~ lbw]

 

D-Day June 6, 1944

 

[Photo: lbw] 

Oral Tradition ~

The Old Brewery Bay Leacock's Home Orillia

"The most striking aspect of Leacock's style is the illusion of a speaking voice, which is so strong in all his works.  Like his masters, Dickens and Mark Twain, Leacock was a great lecturer and raconteur, and many of his pieces must be read aloud or recited for their full effect.  North American humour has always been rooted in the oral tradition...
"Much of the humour of his best pieces comes from their modesty of tone.  They seem to be recounted, as simply and straightforwardly as possible, by someone who is not intending to amuse us and would probably find our amusement puzzling."

~ The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature 2nd ed., Eugene Benson & Wm. Toye, 1997. Oxford University Press Canada.
(Leacock photos:  lbwalker)

Laura Secord

Laura Secord House Queenston



Historians of the War of 1812 have recorded various accounts of Laura Secord's walk from Queenston to Beaver Dams. 

Ruth McKenzie, author of Laura Secord, the legend and the lady*, writes,  "Laura Secord had found her niche in Canadian history as the agent of victory at Beaver Dams.  It was a distinctive niche because it was held by a woman, and in the next two decades women played a large part in bringing the name of Laura Secord into prominence as a great Canadian heroine."

*McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1971.  Maracle Press.

 

Today visitors can sit in the adjacent tea room and enjoy the historic surroundings.  North-west corner of Queen and Partition streets, Queenston, Ontario.

Lundy's Lane Niagara Falls

Photos:  lbw Click on photos for larger image.

Battle of Stoney Creek ~ Canada

"The country which the government of the United States has undertaken to conquer."
~ David Longworth, American Statesman's Kalendar, 1812. [An almanac of census figures, time tables, federal gov't. depts., and army & navy lists.]

Billy Green

www.battlefieldhouse.ca  Photos:  Battlefield House Collection lbw

Stoney Creek Battlehouse Park

The Battle of Stoney Creek took place on June 6, 1813

Fort George had been assaulted and "taken by the Americans.  At Stoney Creek, a British force captures two America generals who mistake them for friends in the darkness."

~ The Invasion of Canada 1812 ~ 1813,  Pierrie Berton, 1980 McClland and Stewart Limited.



Chandelier from Mark Twain's home

 [Correction:  Walt Witman may have been a man of contradiction but the only contradiction here is our error in identifying the chandelier.  It belonged to Mark Twain, not Whitman.  Our thanks to Jeremy Henatyzen who made the correction.]

Mark Twain said, "Man is the Only Animal that Blushes.  Or needs to."


Mark Twain's chandelier hanging in The Powerhouse, Stoney Creek, Ontario, is one of many items collected by the restaurant's original owner.

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
~ Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) American poet, 'Song of Myself' (written 1855) pt. 51.
www.thepowerhouse.ca  Photo: lbw

Lundy's Lane

"During the battle of Lake Erie in 1813, Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, was so badly damaged that he was obliged to abandon it and row to the Niagara.  after finally forcing the British fleet to surrender, Perry made no reference to the exigencies of the battle in the dispatch announcing his victory.  It read simply, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours."

{Perry's words are memorable, but have become immortal through the parody on them by Walt Kelly's inimitable cartoon character, Pogo: 'We have met the enemy and he is us.'}"

*Oliver Hazard Perry, (1785 - 1819), US naval commander.

~ THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, 1985

(Photos:  Lundy's Lane, Niagara Falls, ON. Click on Photo for larger image. lbw)



THE ROBIN
by Emily Dickinson

THE robin is the one
That interrupts the morn
With hurried, few, express reports
When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one
That overflows the noon
With her cherubic quantity,
As April but begun.

The robin is the one
That speechless from her nest
Submits that home and certainty
And sanctity are best.

~ Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) American poet.

www.ruthvenpark.ca (Photo:  A single dwelling remaining in the ghost-town of Indiana, Haldimand County)



Early Telephone Operator, Brantford



BIRTHDAY OF ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL ~  March 3, 1847

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland March 3, 1847.  Bell eventually held three citizenships:  U.K., Canadian and U.S.A.

Bell Homestead ~ Brantford Ontario

"Some of the old people thought the man was foolish to spend so much time flying kites. 'It seems like a damn fool thing to do,' they'd say.  And I can hear Dr. Bell laugh yet when he heard that.  He'd throw back his head and his whiskers would bounce.  'They think I'm some kind of nut,' he'd say.  'You're a useful nut,' I'd tell him.  They'd classified him as one." ~ Mayme Morrison Brown, neighbour.

Born in Edinburgh Scotland, the innovator, inventor, teacher eventually held three citizenships:  U.K., Canadian and U.S.A.  Bell died in Nova Scotia, Canada, August 2, 1922 at the age of seventy-five.

www.bellhomestead.ca

~ Genius At Work Images of Alexander Graham Bell, Dorothy Harley Eber, McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1982.
(Photos:  Summer 2012 lbw. Click on photo for larger image.)



Ruthven Park 243 Hwy. 54, Cayuga

 "From Ruthven to Passchendael" ~ a play with puppets by Studio Babette.

Remembrance Day, Sunday, November 11, 2:00 p.m.

PD Day, Friday, November 16, 10:00 a.m.

This production commemorates the upcoming anniversary of World War I by honouring the sacrifices made by the Thompson family of Cayuga and Brock's Rangers.
Watch for upcoming event.  Please visit   www.ruthvenpark.ca or www.studiobabette.ca for information.

Photo:  lbwalker



Her Majesty's Royal Chapel

 Mohawk Chapel Brantford ~ Open Wednesday through Sunday 10:00 - 5:00 until October 28

Approach from The Grand River



2012 Addition of Accessible Entrance

 

Joseph Brant's Vault

 www.mohawkchapel.ca

Photos:  lbwalker

www.bellhomestead.ca for historical information and photographs

The Bell Homestead ~

Bell Homestead National Historic Site, Brantford, ON



Brian

"So much of the practical development of the telephone has been in the United States that I think the fact that the telephone was invented in Canada should be more widely known than it is ~ at least in the United States." *

~ Alexander Graham Bell (1847 - 1922) inventor.

Brian, our tour guide today, ardently describes the scientific breakthrough that led to the invention of the telephone and points out the path to the banks of the Grand River where Alexander sat in a spot he called his "dreaming place."  (Thank you, Brian.)

Visit:  www.bellhomestead.ca for information and photographs.

* Address, "The Substance of My Latest Research," Empire Club of Canada, Toronto, 1 Nov. 1917.
~ Famous Lasting Words, Great Canadian Quotations, John Robert Colombo, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2000.
Photos:  lbwalker

Photos: lbwalker