1965

Merrickville Blockhouse Becomes Museum

 

Helen peers through gun slots, while Kathryn sits on restored gunwalk and looks down to filled in moat. Boiling oil was poured through openings onto invaders who got close to blockhouse.

 

Col. Duncan Douglas inspects the massive stone fireplace in the second floor living quarters. The fireplace was recently rebuilt as part of D.O.T.'s restoration program.

A view of the second floor, showing living quarters partitions, top of the staircase and the massive beams which support the ceiling.

 

The exterior of the 130-year-old blockhouse at Merrickville, Ontario is virtually unchanged from its original construction. Used as a fortress to drive off warring Indians, the blockhouse was encircled by a moat (now filled in) and had a total of 12 gun slots at second storey level.

 

With Canada's Centennial less than two years away, an ever­increasing awareness of our country's history is evident.

 

Individuals, governments, business, labor, universities and grade schools have all been busily rediscovering our past and searching for ways to present it in a fuller and more meaningful light.

 

The Department of Transport, too, is pitching in to help make Canadian history live.

 

For the past two years or so an old stone blockhouse at Merrickville, Ontario-about 40 miles from the Capital-has been gradually restored to its original form and appearance.

 

Restoration completed, it has now been leased to the town of Merrickville to be operated as a museum by a municipally­appointed board of keenly interested citizens.

 

The Merrickville blockhouse, a pocket-sized edition of Hollywood's wild west fort, was built in the 1820's when Colonel By of the Royal Engineers came out from England to oversee the building of a canal from Ottawa to Kingston.

 

There were some 42 buildings of various kinds erected along the Rideau Canal in the 1820's and 30's, but the blockhouse at Merrickville is the only one which still exists in a form comparable to its original construction. The others have either been torn down or converted into one or two storey dwellings for D.O.T. canal staff. But at Merrickville the stone and wood exterior is virtually unchanged, and now the interior has been redone according to the original plans.

 

Over the years there have been several efforts to turn the old blockhouse into a museum. In 1938 the department gave some thought to turning it over to the federal Department of Mines and Resources, Lands, Parks and Forests branch, for preserva­tion. The building, however, was in use as a storehouse for canal equipment and Transport decided it couldn't get along without it.

 

The department still needed it as a storehouse in 1945 when one of Merrickville's most prominent citizens, the late Harry F. McLean, offered to put on permanent display a collection of antique guns on behalf of the town.

 

In 1961, Deputy Minister Baldwin decided that the blockhouse was no longer essential for D.O.T.'s canal purposes. The department asked for the help of the Grenville historical society to decide on its possible future as a museum. In 1962 the society set up a provisional committee to meet with D.O.T. officials and the upshot was an agreement on a gradual restoration of the blockhouse.

 

The task was made easier by finding the original building plans tucked away in the Public Archives. First step was to cedar shingle the roof in the fall of 1962. The following year workers moved inside where the biggest job was to remove several partitions to check the second floor beams and replace them where necessary. The second floor fireplace was also rebuilt and the walls, partitions and gunwalks were restored.

 

By 1964-65 the basement, underpining and first floor timbers got most attention. A new floor was required on the first floor, plus a new staircase leading to the second floor.

 

Meanwhile the town of Merrickville was working on the administration framework for the blockhouse. The municipality passed Bylaw 777 in the spring of 1965. This was done to take advantage of provincial grants which can only be made to a municipal corporation or a board or body created by it.

 

Duncan Douglas, a retired army colonel, and his wife Jane are two of the local citizens who have put a great deal of time and effort into the museum project. Colonel Douglas, who was appointed secretary of the museum committee, has acted as a liaison between the town and the department. He has done a great deal of research in order to advise D.O.T. on the blockhouse's original interior. Mrs. Douglas, as a member of the exhibits committee, has gone all around the countryside asking for and getting pledges of either donations or intentions to loan antique furniture, china and crockery, farm implements etc. She herself has donated a setee from the growing collection of Canadiana which graces the old graystone farm house the Douglas' moved into in. 1960. (They had scoured the triangular area from Kingston to Montreal to Ottawa in the years prior to Col. Douglas's retirement searching for such a farm house until they found what they wanted overlooking the Rideau River near Merrickville.)

 

Merrickville's efforts and those of the Department of Transport have resulted in the preservation of an important era in the history of the Rideau Canal and the National Capital area. The blockhouse has a new lease on life-130 years after it was built-representing the very thing it was intended to be.

 

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