BHS News

January 2013

At the Annual General Meeting the following were elected to the Executive for 2013. Congratulations!

President-Alan Harrington

1st Vice President - TBA

2nd Vice President - Colin Morley

Treasurer - TBA

Secretary - Noreen McNairn

Archivist - Sonia Nicholson

Digitizing Archivist - Jane Irwin

Past President - Les Armstrong

November 2012

January  14         BRITISH HOME CHILDREN-Penny Morningstar

February 11               GONE FOR A SOLDIER-The Lives of Fighting Men in the

                           War of 1812-Renee Lafferty

March 11           CANADIAN BROADCASTING  HISTORY- Kealy Wilkinson

April 8               THE HISTORY OF THE WELLAND CANAL-Terry Hughes

May 12               SITTING PRETTY-The History of the Toilet-Bev Dietrich

October 2012

The Executive has agreed to help with the restoration of the Freeman Station by generously offering to match donations of the members to the FOFS up to $5000. So, if you are thinking of donating to FOFS,  please inform our Treasuer of the amount of your donation to FOFS so we can ear mark the matching funds.

January 2012

January Annual Meeting - Executive elected for 2012

Les Armstrong - President
Dave Morris - Past President
Alan Harrington - First VP
Colin Morley - Second VP
Brian Ryder - Finances
Noreen McNairn - Secretary
Jane Irwin - Digital Archivist

From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, when the Burlington area was known as "The Garden of Canada", market gardens were a major source of local prosperity. Fruits and vegetables were shipped in freight cars from the Grand Trunk Railway station in the hamlet of Freeman, to be sold in Toronto and Northern Ontario, or to be shipped from Montreal to Britain and South Africa. 

Farm owners realized the benefits of hiring First Nations pickers for tender fruit. Their "soft hands" left the fruit unbruised. Generations of Burlington farming families would hire generations of Six Nations families in Ohsweken to live and work on the same farms, summer after summer. 

A wonderful group portrait from 1900 in the  BHS Archives shows pickers from Ohsweken on the Fisher Farm on Guelph Line:  David Jack, his wife Maggie, and 32 others, including infants. One of the small boys in the front row still worked summers on the farm in 1967, at age 73.

http://images.burlington.halinet.on.ca/20042/data?n=3

[  Full Image size:   http://images.burlington.halinet.on.ca/20042/image/57276?n=2

Some First Nations workers lived year round in Burlington, and their children attended Burlington schools. An archival image from 1953 shows a tomato harvest on the farm of M.M. "Bobby" Robinson on Maple Avenue. The farm manager,  Alex Barnes, a Mohawk, is at left, and his daughter Georgina, at right. In the centre are Bouke, Matt and Weiki Kamstra, immigrants from the Netherlands. The Barnes family are well remembered as kind friends and "very fine people" by former neighbours and fellow students.

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[Full Image size        http://images.burlington.halinet.on.ca/2322083/image/982969?n=8 

The February meeting· will be "Tragedy and Triumph: Ruby and Thomas B. McQuesten", by Dr. Mary J. Anderson. It will be held at The Burlington Central Library Feb. 13, 2012. Members and the general public are welcome!

 Expanded Exhibits and Local History Articles Section

See our expanded section "Exhibits and Local History Articles". We will from time to time add articles that have been previously published. We felt these were worth republishing for your interest!

The BHS is very pround of it's members contributions and we will highlight them here!