Missing since 2005, the Bay of Quinte president’s engraved staff returns to the United Church Archives.
As the United Church looks back at 100 years as a unified faith community, we’re reminded of the long histories of our ancestors in faith preceding 1925, which can come back into view in exciting ways. This fall, an artifact from the church’s pre-Union history dating back to 1892 appeared after vanishing for two decades, thanks to a happy accident and some archival expertise.
The staff is about three feet long, made of strong, dark wood, its upper half wrapped in silver name plates and capped with a silver knob that reads:
Insignia of Office
President's Staff
Gift of
Richard Duke
a bit of Old Hay Bay Church
the cradle of Upper Canada
Methodism
1892
Found in a wooden cabinet in the Birge-Carnegie building at Victoria University in the University of Toronto recently, in a room being prepared for renovation, its origin and how it came to be at the university were a mystery to the construction workers and to university staff. The names on the silver tabs, it turns out, are of Methodist Church leaders from eastern Ontario.
The staff had been missing for close to 20 years.
Erin Greeno, Digital Archives Systems Lead for The United Church of Canada Archives, says the staff, or president’s cane, was made from wood of the Old Hay Bay Church in Adolphustown in 1892. It was given to The Bay of Quinte Conference of the Methodist Church of Canada, founded in 1884, with the first president being James Curts.
Each president’s name was engraved on the staff, which was used in the installation ceremony at the annual meeting. As president in 1892, Edward Roberts’s name is the first one on the staff. The last president listed was from 1924, one year before the Methodists joined other denominations to form The United Church of Canada.
“I assume that the Conference had approached the United Church Archives to preserve the staff in its artifact collection, due to its historical significance to the Conference,” says Greeno. “In earlier years, the United Church Archives accepted artifact donations, a practice that is no longer, due to storage and conservation concerns.”
So, when and how did it disappear?
It all started with the Bay of Quinte Conference asking the archives to use the staff for its annual meeting in 2005, Greeno says. The chief archivist at the time authorized a long-term loan and arranged for the cane to be stored at the conference office for use at future meetings.
And then it was gone.
Greeno became the new archivist for the central Ontario conferences, including Bay of Quinte, in 2010. The Conference Archives was located in Toronto, at the United Church of Canada Archives. An enquiry from Rev. J. William Lamb, Methodist historian and editor of the Old Hay Bay Guardian, launched a search for the missing staff.
“I discovered it was not with the artifact collection, nor was it with the Bay of Quinte Conference office, after I confirmed it was on loan. I reached out to the staff of the Bay of Quinte Conference and members of the conference’s Archives and History Committee, and no one had any idea where the staff could be,” Greeno says. “For many, the disappearance of the staff was a considerable loss for the history of the conference, and many with a vested interest in that history routinely reopened the mystery in hopes of one day locating the staff. Rev. Bill Lamb and Rev. Newton Reed, two of those historians, have since passed away.”
Exactly when the staff went missing is unknown. Greeno says it was sometime between 2005 and 2010; during that time, the United Church Archives moved from the Birge-Carnegie Library at Victoria University, to the General Council Office building at 3250 Bloor St. West. Somehow, the staff was left behind.
But it has been returned to the Archives, now located on Oak Street in Toronto, where it will be stored with the rest of the artifact collection in a climate-controlled environment for long-term preservation, says Chris Hogendoorn, General Council Archivist.
In an old photograph provided by Hogendoorn, the staff is front and centre.
“We located a photograph of the cane, being held by William Johnston, the second conference president after the cane was gifted,” Hogendoorn says. “That's why you can only see one metal band at the top, since there was only one president who had added his name to the cane.”
—LA Livingston is Press and Public Relations Lead in the United Church of Canada General Council Office
The views contained within these blogs are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of The United Church of Canada.