This will be a very skinny column. In Dunvegan at least, February is a dead zone in terms of community news. Those with the wherewithal have quietly slipped out of town for warmer climes. And the rest of us are feeding dead trees into our wood stoves and trying to prevent the tsunami of seed catalogues washing over our mailboxes from reaching the green thumb in our household.
The Glengarry Pioneer Museum is mothballed and, while a thready pulse can still be felt, it will be a month or two before they have news of any import to share with us. In a similar vein, the Dunvegan Recreation Association is on hold. The DRA community hall is undergoing renovations and that is putting a definite crimp in things. And at the Kenyon Presbyterian Church, there’s nothing in the works that I can see — aside from weekly services that congregants no doubt already know about— until their Good Friday, Spring Clean-up, Easter Sunday triptychdue in mid-April.
Orange chairs?
In researching the history of Dunvegan’s former Orange Lodge, now the Dunvegan Recreation Association or DRA Hall, I did uncover one interesting fact thanks to Ken McEwen, a loyal reader for many years.
Ken’s great-great grandfather settled on lots 7and 8 of the 17thConcession, Indian Lands. And his great-great granduncle homesteaded lots 9 and 10. These two parcels of land now comprise the southeast and southwest quarters of the village of Maxville respectively. While the lots on Indian Lands were described in the most recent Discover Glengarrytourist magazine as being 86 acres in size, Ken tells me the actual figure is 83.33 acres. Ken speculates that this odd measurement would mean his family’s original four-lot holding would equal roughly 100 arpents. Support for this comes from the description of a farm in the Dominionville area that was said to comprise 400 acres “French measure,” i.e., 400 arpents.
But I digress. When Ken McEwen and his wife Chris were married in November of 1957, they held their wedding dinner at the Orange Lodge in Dunvegan. This wasn’t a big surprise, as Chris’s father, Duncan Archie MacLeod, was an active member of L.O.L. No. 1158. (And in a strange twist of fate, it was his son, Angus John MacLeod, who was hired in the 1970s to demolish the hall’s second storey and replace the roof.)
When the Dunvegan lodge closed its doors for good in the 1970s and returned its warrant, the members were each given the opportunity to take home a chair from the lodge’s upstairs meeting room as a memento. That’s how Duncan Archie MacLeod came to own a little piece of L.O.L. No. 1158 history. And when Mr. MacLeod died, the chair was passed down to his daughter. In fact, it graces Chris and Ken’s family room to this day. Chris’s father also bequeathed a few other souvenirs of his time as an Orangeman to her. Last summer, Chris donated these artifacts to the Glengarry Pioneer Museum, along with the cancellation stamp her grandfather used as postmaster of the Skye post office.
Now, I think it’s safe to assume that there was more than just one member’s chair in the upstairs meeting room of Dunvegan’s Orange Lodge. My guess is that there would have been at least one per member when the lodge was going full tilt. So chances are good there are a few other seats from the Dunvegan lodge in and around Glengarry. Who knows? Perhaps that antique captain’s chair in your den is an LOL No. 1158 original. If I can, I hope to put a photo of Ken and Chris McEwen’s chair on my Dunvegan-Times.ca blog so you can see if yours is a match.
Family Day… bah humbug
From what I can see, winter weather has turned a large part of February into a string of unexpected “Family Day” holidays. In households blessed with children and two parents working outside the home, these snow and/or ice days must have thrown a monkey wrench into their schedules.
DamnDalton McGuintyand his February Family Day. I want my good old-fashioned August 1st bank holiday back.
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