Oakville Museum

“The greatest art in the world is the art of storytelling.” – Cecil B. DeMille

Oakville Museum exemplifies DeMille’s claim about art by sharing and celebrating the stories of the people, places, and the community of Oakville, as its mission states. While most of us would think of museums as places that collect and display artifacts, Oakville Museum does much more than that. It is a place that gathers and shares human experiences related to the Town of Oakville.

The Oakville Museum is comprised of a complex of historic buildings that make up the Erchless Estate, which was once the home of the Chisholm family. Colonel William Chisholm founded the town and built Erchless overlooking his new harbour and Lake Ontario. As an enterprising merchant and shipbuilder, in 1827 William bought 960 acres of land from the Crown at the mouth of Sixteen Mile Creek and planned out the Town of Oakville and Oakville harbour. The first brick building on the estate was constructed c.1835 and served as a storehouse and possibly an early Custom House.

Today the museum is a home to a diverse collection of objects reflecting the rich history of Oakville, including fine and decorative arts, costumes and textiles, ethnological artifacts, and Chisholm family-related materials. According to Julian Kingston, the Supervisor at the Oakville Museum, “the oldest objects are some 400-million-year-old fossils. They're not particularly valuable, but they are interesting as they're from here and they date from a time when Ontario was the bottom of a shallow tropical sea. However, here at the museum it’s not really so much about the age or the intrinsic value of the objects, but rather the story — the connection of the artifacts to Oakville as this is where the true value of our artifacts comes from. So, an example of a valuable and important artifact at the museum is the painting called Mill on the Sixteen. It was done by a prominent Canadian artist named Frederick Arthur Verner who was a student of a very famous Canadian artist named Paul Kane. The painting is important to us because Mill on the Sixteen is actually William Chisholm's mill  and Sixteen-mile creek is the creek that runs beside the museum. Therefore, it is a view of Oakville in its early days; at its start. Similarly, another interesting and important artifact at the museum is Colonel William Chisholm’s sword. He was an ensign in the British Army who was promoted in his regiment until he was the colonel in command of it. When he retired, they presented him with a ceremonial sword.” For more information on donating artifacts to the collection, you may visit the following page.

Unfortunately, like all museums, Oakville Museum had to close during the pandemic but was able to stay in touch with the community through an enhanced version of the virtual tour (available here), Facebook live videos, and through a number of other channels that were pushed out on Facebook and Twitter.

Mr. Kingston adds, “at Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre, we have a permanent exhibit space. We are waiting for it to open to the public as right now it is closed due to COVID-19…We have a fun exhibit over there called Read Me a Story about fables and fairytales. If you're familiar with the story of Cinderella, for example, we have a spinning wheel, a dress, and other things from our collections that go along with the story. As noone's got [sic] to see it during the pandemic, we're going to keep it up for a while afterwards.”

The museum, as well as, a number of satellite locations have temporary exhibits. The current exhibit at the museum is called Flower Power. It celebrates Spring and Summer as the time of year when everything in nature is in bloom through pictures of floral dress designs that are displayed on the exterior walls and windows of the museum. Floral themes are depicted on the beautifully designed dresses, including one of the museum’s oldest dresses from the 18^th century called a robe à la française. It has a very detailed embroidered floral spray design. Referencing the stories that the Oakville Museum was built on as one of its foundational values, Mr. Kingston shared with us that “the floral silk from the dress was actually designed by a prominent fabric and textile designer from England and the dress was worn by a woman who came with her husband who was an engineer in the army. He was posted to the Canadian colonies, and his wife accompanied him, the dress came with her and eventually it ended up here at the museum.”

Some other temporary exhibits include Commemorations and Celebrations, which demonstrates how we use different objects to mark occasions and remember a particular moment in time. Another one is the Preserving Peace exhibit which showcases Canada's 50 plus years as a leading member of UN peacekeeping missions through displays of uniforms, medals, and other souvenirs.

Mr. Kingston notes that “one of the more interesting and important stories here is about Branson Johnson's pocket watch. Branson Johnson was a free-born black man who left the United States probably around 1855 and came to Oakville in 1863. The watch became an heirloom that was passed down from father to son, [and eventually] to Joe Johnson who was the great-grandson. Over a hundred years later, in 1976, Joe was cleaning it when the back popped open and in the back of the watch, they found Branson Johnson's freedom papers. This is part of what makes our museum unique as a lot of people don’t realize that Oakville has a rich early black history. Being a port, it was an entry point for people fleeing slavery. We are really delighted that Joe and the Johnson family decided to donate this item to the museum. The ongoing presence and stories around black people in Oakville are something that the museum has worked very closely [on] over the last 20 or so years with the local community, and has done, I think, a pretty good job of trying to tell those stories. Going forward, in a similar vein, the museum is surrounded by an area that's very rich in indigenous history and that's a story that we have to do a better job of telling. Part of our recent strategic plan is specifically focused on acknowledging that there's an important historical and ongoing indigenous presence here in Oakville.”

Diversifying and making its content relevant to young people is something that Oakville Museum is doing a great job with and is very proud of. “Museums should interact with children and youth in a way that’s appropriate to them at each developmental stage,” said Mr. Kingston. Right now, in the summer, there is a summer camp for children to provide them with an introduction to museums. There are also elementary and secondary school programs, volunteer opportunities, internships, postgraduate internships, and student jobs for university students to get involved with.

Mr. Kingston states that “Our goal for 2021 is to stay open. I am really glad to be able to have the museum reopened at the moment. We're able to do pre-booked tours, so you have to sign up at oakville.ca/museum. Additionally, you may follow Oakville Museum on the museum’s Facebook page and/or Twitter handle. It's great to have camp and programs running again and we've been able to figure out ways to do all of that safely. We're able to meet all of our COVID-19 restrictions and protocols and cleaning. We’re hoping that those will ease in the near future and we'll be able to open up our exhibits and some of our self-guided experiences again. Recognizing there are still going to be people who are more comfortable visiting in a virtual format, we plan on having a mix of both in-person and virtual programs available into the future.”

This article is a part of the Local Journalism Initiative