cktimes.ca Archives for Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
The loss of the Wellington Street Church is a loss for the community
Tuesday, May 3, 2005
You've gone by it a thousand times. You probably glimpsed the bricked in windows that vaguely resembled something a bit more regal that what was called for in a seed store. You might have even, in passing, wondered about its past. You may even have, in your busy daily life of "getting and spending" momentarily contemplated what existed beneath its modern exterior and vowed to find out someday. We all do it. We all believe in a thousand tomorrows but forget that there is only one to-day.A fire is a deadly and destructive force devoid of emotion. It can obliterate 160 years in a matter of hours. It can deftly turn historic edifices, or forgotten shells of history, into ashes, rubble and ultimately into gaping ,vacant lots.
When dawn arrived on Friday morning ( April 22) , it witnessed the destruction of an old, ugly, green brick structure hidden underneath a dilapidated old seed store that the former owner wondered why "it hadn't been burned down 15 years ago" as it was nothing more than "a fire trap".
You had to look closely to uncover its hidden past. The best view of it was heading east on Wellington Street. As you slowed down for the railroad tracks you needed to look to your right. If you looked carefully enough you could see the remnants of a small church (trefoil) window near the peak of the roof and what was left of the original church entrance.
The loss of any historically significant building is always a loss for a community but this one may have had a special place in Chatham-Kent's history. Although I stand to be corrected, I believe that the structure we lost last week was the oldest existing building that once housed a formal church in all of Chatham-Kent!
My records indicate that in January of 1842 the United Presbyterian Congregation "purchased a site on Wellington Street at the curve west of William Street for their church and building began that year" and was probably completed by 1844. Most of the other churches that one might consider to be older and historic, most still operational, date to the 1850s or 1860s with many of the larger ones being built in the 1880s or 1890s.
The oldest church ,that I know of, that is now still standing in Chatham-Kent is Trinity Church, Howard ( on old Hwy.#3) built in 1844, followed by the Moravian Mission Church, Moraviantown (1848), Howard Road Botany United Church built in 1856, Christ Church, Chatham ( 1861), Providence United Church, Raleigh (1866), Christ Church, Ridgetown ( 1869) and St. Andrews, Chatham ( 1869).
Churches that one might consider to be old are really not that old. For example, St. Peter's Church, Tilbury ( the third one on this site) was built in 1896, Park Street United
Church, Chatham ( 1871) , Holy Trinity, Chatham ( 1875), St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Chatham ( (1884), and First Presbyterian, Chatham ( 1893).
When the town of Chatham was surveyed in 1837, a ten acre site was reserved for the Church Of Scotland. This tract of land was bounded by William, Wellington, Prince and Park Streets and the first church to be built on that land was the church that burnt. It is described in First Presbyterian's Church History book ( 2000) as "the first building to house a Presbyterian congregation in this part of the Canadas."
At this time in history there were three separate Presbyterian groups – the Free Church, the Established Church of Scotland (the Auld Kirk) and the United Presbyterians. In the early days of Chatham all three had congregations. The Free Church at the corner of Wellington and Adelaide, St. Andrews representing the Auld Kirk and the recently burnt United Presbyterian Church on Wellington.
Eventually the Free Presbyterians and the United Presbyterians joined forces, in 1875, and used the United Presbyterian Church on Wellington Street until 1889 when the congregation decided that larger facilities were needed. Since the CPR tracks had been built a short time before, and were dangerously close to the entrance of the church, it was decided to sell the Wellington Street Church. It was sold to the CPR for $7,000.00 and subsequently replaced by First Presbyterian Church which was built (corner of Fifth and Wellington) in 1891.
It should also be noted that at the time the U.P. church was sold, a decision was made to move all the bodies that had been buried in the attached graveyard to Maple Leaf Cemetery. Whether unfound graves still exist on the adjacent pieces of property is an unproven possibility, but based on other grave relocations, it is not improbable.
It will probably sit for awhile, "lay in state" as it were, as mute testimony to another local historic site lost to neglect, fire and time. Its sides have been unceremoniously ripped open, 160 year old bricks lay scattered in disarray and its old church belfry rests askew and forlorn. No bell will ever sound from this historic old church shell again and we, as a community and as individuals, are the poorer.
There should be a death knell sounding all over Chatham Kent this week, even if it is only a silent one in our hearts and minds. It should be one that causes us to recall that we should – "not ask for whom the bell tolls, but know that it tolls for thee".
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
