Clar-Mill Community Archives celebrates 10 years

Jeff Green | May 18, 2016

Bethany Armstrong founded the Clar-Mill Community Archives soon after she published a reprint of her father's book, “Away Back in Clarendon and Millar”.

“As I was working on the book, I went to the township office and asked if I could look through the archives for some material. They said there were no archives, and that's how we got started” she said.

The archives that she started, with help from Heather White of the Plevna Library and the support of Ian Brummel, Marg Axford and the crew at the Cloyne and District Historical Society and Pioneer Museum, celebrated their 10th anniversary on Saturday, May 14 at the Clar-Mill Hall.

The celebration was organized by Brenda Martin, who has taken over much of the administration of the archives, freeing up Bethany Armstrong to focus on research, and it took the research into the area's general stores to another level. Not only were there displays of material about 10 or so stores, there was also a recreated general store at one end of the hall.

As part of the program there was a panel discussion with former store owners and workers from Fenleigh, Plevna and Ardoch. Well-known author and story-teller Mary Cook also gave a talk about the general store she grew up with in Renfrew County.

Mary Cook also came to the fifth anniversary celebrations of the archives in 2011 and talked about Pioneer Women.

On Saturday, she talked about the general store in her own community in the 1930s, painting a picture of poverty and resiliency in her own well-known homespun way, underlining how the local store was the glue that kept small farming communities from descending into starvation in those lean years.

Her family was too poor to purchase oranges when they came in at Christmas time, but they did get the purple paper that the oranges were wrapped in from the storekeeper.

“We would iron the paper and set it aside, and when the minister or some other important person came to visit, one of us was dispatched to the outhouse to replace the old catalogues with the purple paper for the important guests,” she said.

The stores were also communications hubs, affording the men with a place to congregate in the evenings (women seem to have met in houses over tea), and housing the phone switches and post offices. Store owners were also bankers in effect, offering credit to their customers, even if reluctantly on some occasions.

During the panel discussions, the former store owners were asked about extending credit, and while they all did it, some said they were often worried about people who never seemed to be able to pay. But eventually, the vast majority of customers cleared their bills.

The community archives are housed at the Plevna branch of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library, where a new sign has just been erected. Senior staff were on hand to mark the 10th anniversary. While the library is open for limited hours each week, the archives are involved in a major digitizing effort, building materials and features into www.clarmillarchives.ca. Under the photos tab of the website there is a directory of communities, with loads of information and pictures from the archives. The archives are always on the look out for materials. They can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 613-479-2542