To step into the national archives and records office is to step back in time. Its walls are peppered with sepiatoned photographs of mustached men in dark suits and women in feathered hats and frilly dresses. Rows upon rows of congregational records, General Assembly reports and session and presbytery minutes sit waiting to be studied, and personal diaries, mission field maps and architectural plans are neatly stored in a climate-controlled room, just begging to be read.
It is this look back, the glimpse given to the church's past (and indeed, a look at where it is today) that archivist Kim Arnold loves about the archives. One of her favourite pieces is a photo from 1893. “It's our oldest photograph,” said Arnold. “It's of a laying of the cornerstone at Paris Presbyterian Church in Paris, Ontario. It's not posed, there are children and adults, and of course, they're in the dress of the period. It's so special.”
Congregational records from St. Gabriel Street Church (located in Montreal and now part of Knox, Crescent, Kensington and First) dating back to 1794 are another stand-out item. The records are the oldest of their type in the archives. Missionary diaries, uniquely personal and often highly emotional, also come to mind, as do handwritten manuscripts. “They're beautiful. They show the great penmanship that you don't see anymore. You just have to stop and gaze at it.”
The mandate of the archives is to collect, preserve and share the church's information base. It is also entrusted with records management, meaning it catalogues records of the General Assembly, along with its committees and task forces, records of the three theological colleges, and records generated at church offi ces. It also houses records of the Women's Missionary Society, the Atlantic Mission Society and young people's societies, Presbyterian periodicals, and baptism, marriage and death registers. Its collection is document-based.
“It's good stewardship for the church,” said Arnold, who has been with the archives for 25 years. “We are the collective memory of the denomination and all its activities both in and out of Canada.”
The PCC began randomly collecting archival materials back in 1879. The collection eventually moved to Knox College, which didn't become the offi cial archival site until 1973. It remained there until 1995, and then moved to a temporary Toronto location until a brand new facility was built at church offi ces in 1998. One year later, the church was awarded the Corporate Award of Achievement by the Archives Association of Ontario.
Arnold, who works alongside assistant archivist Bob Anger, encourages congregations to build their own archives by pulling out old documents, cataloguing, and preserving them. She said congregations should buy acid-free boxes and file folders (or if too expensive, at least brand new storage tools), lock up the materials, and keep them away from dampness and humidity. Striking a committee to handle the work is helpful, she said, and the archive always welcomes phone calls — and visitors — if further assistance is needed.
Donations are made to the archives when a congregation closes, a minister dies, or even when people move into an old house and fi nd documents in the attic or basement. Arnold said that donating records after a church closes is one way to make the best of a sad situation. “People can know that these items will be looked after and appreciated by those who view or use them. Something good and positive can come out of it.”
Congregations are directed by General Assembly to microfilm their records. Once a copy is made, it is stored at the archives and the originals are returned to the congregation. “We recognize that congregations are regionally based, so we make sure the history that was created in a locality stays there,” said Arnold. “But by microfi lming, it insures the documents, and it adds to the central information bank for the church at large.”
International visitors often stop by to get a fuller picture of their own church. In Taiwan, for example, many records exist surrounding the PCC's involvement in the establishment of the church there; but in Canada, there are different records, and ones that are often met with great delight. “It gives them the complete story,” said Arnold. “We work hand in hand.”
The archives office also works cooperatively with the museum, but is separate from it. While the museum exists through donations, the archives is self-supporting and is staffed through the General Assembly offi ce. Archives staff make a report to the Committee on History, but the archives are not subject to it, as the museum is.
Arnold is happy that artifacts not suited to the archives now have a permanent home at the museum, which wasn't officially created until 2002. “We used to work so hard to find the donation a good home. If we had a communion set and we knew of a congregation that didn't have one, we'd often give it to them. We [the archives] were never meant to store artifacts. Now they're passed onto the museum, and it frees us up to do the work we're supposed to do.”
Visit www.presbyterian.ca/archives for more information.
“My whole life has been the development of the museum and archives,” said Rev. Dr. John Johnston, a retired minister and missionary, and curator of the National Presbyterian Museum and part of the Committee on History for the past 40 years. His work with the museum is a love affair; something he has harboured for all things historic throughout his career.
“Unless you know the past, you're going to make the same mistakes,” said Johnston, on the importance of the church's national museum — the only one of its sort in Canada. “If you don't have roots, how can you grow without starting all over again? It's important to know the reasons why we do things in the church, and to know the strengths of the church; of how they used to be.”
It took some convincing, however, for the church to share Johnston's opinion. After persuading General Assembly to create an offi cial archives in 1973, Johnston convinced the assembly in 1996 to start a museum — as long as he could raise the funds to get it going. (It wasn't easy making the argument in 1973, but Johnston was bolstered by the church's impending centennial, and spurred on by fears surrounding church responsibility for Indian residential schools. Realizing that documents in the archives protected the church from extensive liability, the archives became a crucial resource that the church suddenly wanted to develop.)
A total of $80,000 was raised through donations for the museum, and a location was offered by St. John's, Toronto, for zero rent (the museum handles heating costs and other expenses). Generous contributions of time, supplies and labour were offered up for free or at reduced rates to make the church basement suitable for its new task. The savings enabled the team to build a $140,000 facility at a cost of $80,000. The museum was built without a cent of debt, opened in 2002, and now has $75,000 in the bank, according to Johnston. Its expenses are covered by the interest, and donations — the museum's only other means of income — keep coming in.
The museum gives three-dimensional objects — mission artifacts, pictures, plaques and wall hangings, clerical robes, books and communion ware — a permanent home. Communion tokens, of which the museum has one of the largest collections in the world with some worth $5,000, comprise the most prominent display. (Tokens are lead pieces that used to be handed to the minister by parishioners at communion as a sign of membership. They eventually morphed into communion cards, and were simply a method of tracking attendance). A large collection of tokens donated to the church by an Ontario minister was one of the main reasons for building the museum. Other ministers have since donated their own collections. The oldest token is from St. Andrew's, Quebec City, dated 1810.
Ministers and congregations have also donated entire book collections. T. Melville Bailey, a Presbyterian historian, had his collection of Scottish church history willed to the museum. Col. John Bayne Maclean, of Maclean's magazine and the man who donated land for the Crieff Hills Retreat and Conference Centre, also has some books at the museum, along with the entire reading collection of the fi rst theological professor in eastern Canada. They are all a part of an exhibit known as the minister's study, which houses books from the 16th to 19th centuries. John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, dated 1608, is one of the museum's oldest pieces.
Johnston said the libraries are a tribute to the time when the church was the only library in town. “The minister was the educated man. He had seven years of education, so he had the books. It's interesting to know the place the church had in educating the community.”
Johnston's favourite feature of the museum is its tiny chapel. With its pot-bellied stove, wall-mounted oil lamps, 150-year-old timber on its walls and floor, the chapel is truly a step back in time. When groups visit the museum, a communion service is held there, with visitors seated on old pews and scripture read at an aging altar — both of which came from Eastern Ontario.
“It's the most meaningful to me,” said Johnston. “It's where people broke the bread, set the wine, stood to pray and sat to sing — and where they still do.”
The museum answers to the Committee on History, and is staffed solely by volunteers.
Future plans include putting the entire collection online, “so someone in Hong Kong can see it,” said Johnston. Although they have the necessary software to do such a thing, they're hoping to fi nd someone with the appropriate computer skills to do the job.
“Some of the things are only here; they're no where else in the world,” said Johnston, noting why the PCC is the only denomination in Canada with a national museum. “Canada is still young. We don't value our history the way we will 100 years from now. But if you don't value it now, things will be lost to the future. It was only in the late '50s and early '60s when the church started expanding and began to realize we have a heritage outside Scotland. Before, we were the child of Scotland. We now have a history of our own.”
Visitors are welcomed at the museum, but an appointment is required. Call Rev. Dr. John Johnston at 905-528-2730. Visit the museum's website at www.presbyterian.ca/museum.
