This antique doll dates back to the 1890s and resides in the parlor at the Cloyne Pioneer Museum. It was a gift to Ora Wickware from her parents, Philip and Mary. She is a "Flora Dora" doll, made in Germany near the turn of the century. The Wickwares were able to purchase such items during the years that they owned a general store in Cloyne as they had access to an assortment of catalogues. We have a photo of the young Ora standing proudly beside her doll displayed for you to marvel at on your visit. This dear little doll sadly required eye surgery in 2012, as her eyes had sunk into the back of her head and would not come down. She was transported to a doll hospital in Prince Edward County, where a specialist restored her vision and now she is happily back with us. The attending doctor reminds anyone storing an antique doll to lay it on its stomach to prevent this happening. The doctor knows best! More information is available in the museum and on our website cloynepioneermuseum.ca. Please visit!

This switchboard was the heart of the telephone system in this area until the mid 1960s. It was owned by Ellery Thompson and operated as the Kaladar Northern Telephone System, serving Flinton, Kaladar, Northbrook, Cloyne and Ferguson's Corners. Mr. Thompson eventually bought the Plevna and Denbigh telephone exchanges as well. When the dial telephone system was introduced in the 1960s this style of switchboard was no longer used. The unit was first donated to the Sunshine School, a school for developmentally challenged children located between Napanee and Odessa, for educational use, then to our Cloyne Pioneer Museum, where it proudly claims its historical role. Information regarding the switchboard and the telephone network of yesteryear is available in the museum. As you stroll through the many exhibits you will want to ask yourself how this unit could serve the needs of pioneering businesses and households under primitive conditions. The Cloyne Pioneer Museum and Archives website is www.cloyne pioneermuseum.ca. Questions can be addressed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This portrait of Queen Victoria oversees the schoolroom exhibit. Victoria is often referred to as Canada's queen. She was the ruling monarch when Canada became a country in 1867. The portrait is comfortably surrounded by old wooden school desks, with their glass inkwells, wooden rulers (in inches), straight pens, and spelling and reading books. You will find hand-written attendance records; possibly a name or two is familiar or related. Reading some of the "letters to the teacher" may make you smile.

Also on display is an 1889 photo of the SS#1 School just south of Cloyne. We have the sign from the school and also the water jug, used daily by students, to fetch water.

Many grandparents and great grandparents tell of walking to school three miles, uphill, in summer, barefoot - in four feet of snow during winters. For sure, the tales become somewhat embellished with time but we know the students of yesteryear had never seen a school bus, ball point pen, calculator, computer or smartphone.

When you visit the classroom you will get a glimpse of some of the hardships young people hurdled to get an education. You can also visit our website cloynepioneermuseum.ca or contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

As far back as the early 1800s, this area was logging country. Men traveled hundreds of miles through rugged terrain in uncomfortable conditions to carve out a living in lumber camps. Some came with families; others' families joined them later. To accommodate the increased population, the companies built living quarters, hired women to cook and eventually schools and churches began to spring up. The stories of these early settlers come to life in the Cloyne Museum.

When you are at the Sawyer Stoll display, you'll want to glance at the grocery and supply invoices. The prices are difficult to believe, as is the payroll ledger. Some of the available tools used in logging and farming will make you wonder how anyone could work with them. An old solid steel McCulloch #47 chainsaw testifies to the challenges men accepted as routine. The chainsaw was donated to the museum by Frank Meeks. It had been used by James Hawley Meeks until he was 94 years of age. He bought the saw brand new and cut a cord of wood with it every day until he was 94.

The museum is open every day all summer from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is on Hwy #41 directly across from the Cloyne Post Office. We look forward to your visit.

Can someone help us identify this item? We know for sure that the lectern was hand made for the Northbrook United Church. We would like to know who made it and approximately what year; who the minister was; how long it was in use. Any information would be appreciated.

The lectern is on display in the museum along with the pulpit, on loan, from the Northbrook United Church. In the ecumenical corner we display an antique organ (circa 1901) from the Heyburn United Church, donated by Mr. & Mrs. Brownle of Napanee along with old Bibles and other items from area churches. You will see a painting of the five United Churches on the wall. All five, Northbrook, Cloyne, Kaladar, Harlowe and Flinton once had their own church. In recent years they amalgamated and now share a beautiful building just north of the village of Northbrook.

A few facts about the original Northbrook United Church, which is now the clothing depot that we are so accustomed to seeing as a part of the village. The church was built in 1892 where it still stands. The cemetery was already in use at the time. The church was open full time until attendance at churches began to drop off. For years it became the winter church while the Cloyne United, because of park visitors, was the summer church. It closed entirely in the 1970s. The minister up until 1965 was Wayne Hilliker, who had been in the ministry for 60 years by then.

Please send any information about the lectern to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or to P.O. Box 228, Cloyne ON, K0H 1K0.

Photo by Cathy Hook

Yes, we once used a phone just like this one that is on display in our museum. There is a nice collection of older phones for visitors to enjoy and reminisce about.

We’ve come a long way from lifting a receiver and hearing “Number please”. If calling far away, we would say, “Long distance, please”.  Another voice would come on the line saying “Long distance” and we would recite the destination and number. (London, England, 5642).  Most numbers were only four digits. No area codes.

To receive a call, each household had a separate number of rings. Could be one long, two short, or any combination of long and short. Hearing your own ring you picked up the phone and said “hello”.

Many lines were shared by several households. If on a party line you could pick up the phone on a neighbour’s ring and hear their conversation. Much news was gathered this way. Gossip as well.

The Cloyne Museum’s season opening is this Saturday, June 25 at 11a.m.

Bring a lawn chair and tap your feet to the music of the Pickled Chicken String Band. There will be a BBQ too. The museum will be open seven days a week all summer. Be sure to visit.  

A ukulele band “Tunes & Tea” provided music before the annual general meeting of the Cloyne and District Historical Society on March 21. The guest speaker was Tom Derrick of the Napanee District Community Foundation. Members and guests from local not-for-profit organizations learned the workings of the foundation. It helps grant seekers, donors and volunteers in the area with the vital community resources needed to make a difference. 

Everyone has heard or read stories of pioneer families and their hardships. Among the few highlights were the visits to the nearest neighbour. That might occur once a year. Traditionally the visit was not pre-arranged as there were no phones or any means of communication. The horse and buggy or sleigh would have to be freed up and the weather suitable. Because the day was not certain, the visitor always prepared a batch of biscuits or a loaf so that the hostess would not be embarrassed at not having something to serve. She would make tea and they would catch up on news and gossip for another year or longer.

Inspired by this practice, the Cloyne and District Historical Society would like you to bring a sandwich and we shall treat you to a bowl of soup on Monday February 15 in celebration of local history. Because it is Heritage Day/ Family Day and a statutory holiday, the Cloyne hall will be the place to gather. The doors will be open at 11:30 and soup should be

ready at 12:00. There shall be old music in the air, old photos on the screen, sharing of stories and memories, and a discussion of Flinton history with Glen Davison. There shall be a social tea time around 3 pm. It's a day off for most, so come on out and experience the event. Everyone is welcome.

In order to encourage local residents to share their unique experiences of local history, members of the Cloyne & District Historical Society have begun inviting area residents and society members to speak at the group’s regular meetings, which take place every third Monday of the month at the Barrie hall in Cloyne.

The talks take the form of an interview, with society president Red Emond leading the questions before opening up the floor to queries and additional personal offerings from guests.

On January 18, Evelyn Petzold was the group’s special guest and she spoke about her unique childhood growing up in Denbigh and the Mazinaw Lake area, where her parents Gene (Pettifer) Brown and Irven Brown owned Brown's General Store at the head of Mazinaw Lake. Petzold spoke of many fond childhood memories when she helped out with chores around the store: pumping gas, hauling ice, packing groceries and other tasks. She recalled the busy Fridays that were always special and memorable since that was the day that the weekly delivery of Foster's Ice Cream arrived by truck, packed and smoking with the dry ice used to keep it from melting. “It was the best ice cream you could imagine and I remember that kids would be waiting around the store on those days to buy a cone, which at that time cost about five cents.”

The store was especially busy in the summer months because of tourists and locals arriving to cash cheques and buy their groceries, which Evelyn's mother Gene would order in.

Evelyn's father Irven also worked at a local saw mill, guided hunters in the fall and ran trap lines in the winter months. When the store required moving years later, Evelyn's father and Cole Cummings built a second store in 1947 and ran it until 1971 before selling it to Ron Pethick.

Petzold recalled spending much of her summers at the beach and in the water and that back in 1949 Denbigh was a much busier place than it is now.

She and her husband William lived in Denbigh where William worked in construction and logging, and she recalled what a huge undertaking it was when they needed a bigger home and property because of their growing family of nine children. “William came up with the bright idea of moving our entire house.”

So William, with the help of a mover who had experience moving homes on the St. Lawrence River, together moved the entire home with all its contents from a corner lot in the village of Denbigh to a property three miles out of town. “They brought in a truck with three large timbers on it and jacked the house up off its foundation. .loaded it onto the truck and drove the entire house, intact, three miles down the road. I remember there was a guy standing on top of the house as it was being moved, whose job it was to raise the hydro lines with a long stick as the house passed underneath them.”

She recalled that a glass of water sitting on a table inside the house remained undisturbed for the entire trip and that the event attracted more onlookers than the local Denbigh fair.

Petzold spoke of long walks to school and later of an army truck that took her to high school. “The truck was wired closed at the back where you could see the snow coming in.”

Following her talk, Shirley Pettifer Miller, a cousin of Evelyn's, presented her with a collection of stories, yarns, songs and poems put together by Evelyn's mother Gene titled “Old Logs Leave Good Memories Sometimes”, which tells of the history of Denbigh and the many local events that took place there. “To me this is very valuable and for that reason I copied it all and will include it in a book that I am making of our family's history and memories”, Miller said when she presented the collection to Petzold.

Tales of local history tend to attract outsiders looking for information about their own family histories and that was the case for one Belleville resident who made a special trip to Cloyne for the talk. Dwight Malcolm heard about the event through his daughter-in-law and came out to find out more about his grandparents, John and Alice Malcolm, who he thinks settled in the Denbigh area in the 1870s. Following the talk Malcolm joined the society and said that he plans to come back to learn more about the history of the area.

Coming up at the society’s next regular meeting will be an interview with Glenn Davison, who will be speaking about early life in Flinton on Monday, February 15 at 1pm. Anyone interested in joining or learning more about the society can visit pioneer.mazinaw.on.ca or call Red Emond at 613-336-8011.

At their meeting on November 16 at the Barrie hall in Cloyne, members of the Cloyne and District Historical Society were treated to a special presentation by local artist Brian Lorimer about his Project Remembrance.

Lorimer grew up in Belleville, Ontario and made regular trips throughout his life to his family cottage located on Massasaganon Lake. He eventually moved to the area in 2002, where he met his wife Margaret. Lorimer was trained in art at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and has had an impressive career. He started out designing exhibits for trade shows between 1984 and1989 before becoming a free lance artist.

It was a famous Toronto restauranteur, Peter Oliver, who gave Lorimer his first break by asking him to paint a huge mural for one of his many renowned restaurants. A series of other mural commissions for various locations in Canada and the United States inspired Lorimer to start his own mural business in 1995, called Lorimer Murals Inc. Since its inception, Lorimer has created hundreds of large scale murals, many of which measure 76 feet in length.

A trip to Asia in 2008 led to a series of works titled “Landscapes of Solitude”, which depict the people and places from that part of the world. In 2009 he painted his “City2Sunrise” series, and used the proceeds to help fund the building of a school at an orphanage in Cambodia. In 2010, a trip to Ethiopia inspired his “Omo Series”, comprised of various portraits of tribal culture from that country.

It was a friend of Lorimer's who first asked him to do a painting of Vimy Ridge, which led to his exploration of Canada's role in World War 1. That first painting inspired him to create 36 large scale works measuring 6 feet in width, and to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the onset of WW1 with a project he titled as “Project Remembrance”.

The paintings were begun in November 2011, and were completed over a period of two and a half years. Painted in oils, Lorimer's palette is unconventional for paintings that depict war. His colours are far from muted and muddy - they are intense and vibrant, showing his intention to create works that are “explosive in both colour and energy”.

Influenced by Canadian artists like Alex Colville, the Group of Seven, and Charles Pachter, Lorimer's works are powerful and compelling and capture the intense activity and feelings that must come from experiencing war first hand. In an effort to better understand what soldiers living and fighting in the trenches experienced and to capture the feeling of that place and time, Lorimer hired a back hoe to excavate a 40 foot long by six foot trench on his property. “I wanted to get an idea of what it might have been like living and fighting in those conditions and the experience proved both therapeutic and cathartic for me.”

He also traveled to Belgium and France in 2013 to do further research for the project, an experience that he says left him with “the palpable emotions that the unprepared and overwhelmed soldiers must have felt”.

Lorimer says he painted the works from a very Canadian perspective and chose to focus on Canada's key contributions in WW1 like the battles at Vimy Ridge and the Third Battle of Ypres. “I am a proud Canadian and a big advocate for all things Canadian and have long believed that Canada first came onto the world stage in World War 1”.

Project Remembrance was 100% funded by Lorimer himself and he is selling the works to recoup some of the funds he spent. To date 20 of the 36 paintings have been sold. Also included in the project is a book titled “Project Remembrance” with pictures and descriptions of the works and the artist. The proceeds from Project Remembrance will go towards the Support Our Troops Fund, which helps support military families. For more about this impressive collection and/or to purchase a copy of Project Remembrance visit www.projectremembrance.ca