The Guelph Civic Museum is going to party like it's 1827 on Apr. 22. That day is the eve of Founder’s Day, and marks Guelph’s 190th anniversary.
Sure, Guelph is commemorating Canada’s 150th birthday this year, but it's going one better, hitching the community’s 190th on to the national celebratory bandwagon.
“It’s kind of like a nuit blanche style event, with our own art and history tied to it,” said Sarah Ball, the museum’s community relations coordinator, speaking of Guelph 190: History@Night Party.
There’s a tablet affixed to the historic stone train bridge at the corner of Wellington and Macdonell streets that marks the spot where Scottish novelist John Galt cut the first tree in founding the town in 1827. A nearby car wash also has a fading mural depicting the event.
Before Galt arrived and established the community as the headquarters for the Canada Company, the area was a Crown Reserve for the Six Nations Iroquois, and a neutral meeting and trading area for Indigenous tribes of the region.
Galt’s tree is said to have been felled on St. George’s Day, Apr. 23, 1827. The community came to be called Guelph after the British royal family, which descended from the Guelfs, the ancestral family of George IV. Hence, the nickname The Royal City.
The museum is going to take all of that rich local history, put it together in a series of displays, and invite the public in to celebrate History@Night Party on the evening of Saturday, Apr. 22. It goes from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., and involves roaming the museum and taking in pop-art art and history installations.
“All of the installations tie into the Guelph history component,” Ball said. “For example, we have a pop-up exhibit about Charles Raymond and his sewing machine factory. We have Jay Wilson, who is doing out summer backyard theatre, reciting some of the poems of Guelph’s famous poets and telling stories about Guelph’s history.”
The roaming element, she said, is the fun element. There is the possibility of a musical component. There will be a food truck on the premises and a birthday cake at midnight.
Ball said 190 is a very significant anniversary. Together with Canada’s 150, “it is kind of a big year all around,” she said.
“For Guelph, we have come so far,” she said. “There are all of these different elements of our history that we want to highlight, that sometimes get overlooked.”
Before Apr. 22, the museum will have the first in a series of Building Canada lectures. Catharine Wilson will present The Heart of Canada on Apr. 12, exploring barn raising, quilting bees, and other traditional elements of historic rural life in the Guelph area. It starts at 7 p.m.
The lectures are all held on the second Wednesday of the month at the museum throughout 190.
