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CCVS - 211 YEARS OLD - Celebrating July 15 - 17, 2011 BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
In Lamoureux Park SPRING HOURS The Cornwall Community Museum
is now open Wednesday to Sunday from noon to 4 pm. Admission is free, info. 613 936-0842
The photographs and postcards are from the collection of more than 10,000 images at the Cornwall Community Museum. If you are interested in learning more about our history, the museum has a wide selection old and modern local histories for sale, .
Former student Judge Pringle relates that the school was never "...comfortable, even in the earliest stage of its existence, and age loosened its joints and widened the cracks in the walls and floor, it became alomost unihabitable. The author recollects to this day the weary hours spent in it during the winter months. It was almost impossible to feel any heat except in the immediate neighbourhood of the stove, and the unfortunate scholars whose seats were a distance from it had to bear the cold as best they could. The room was fitted up with long desks, at each of which eight or ten boys sat, the seats provided for them being common benches without backs." Pringle continues that the school-house was even said to have a ghost. A copy of a painting of the original 2nd St.East, Cornwall Grammar School, used from 1807 to 1855. CCVS traces its origins to a private school, opened by Anglican Minister John Strachan in his home, shortly after his arrival in Cornwall in June 1803. Classes moved into the new church in 1806 and a year later Strachan was successful in having a frame school-house constructed. "As a result of of the Grammar School Act of 1806, Strachan's school became the Eastern District Grammar School. A year later the school became a public institution. Image courtesy the Toronto Public Library.
Bishop of Toronto, the Reverend John Strachan, Rector of the Church of England's (Trinity) Cornwall Parish from 1803 to 1812, founder and first headmaster of Cornwall's first grammar school.
Left: The four room Cornwall High School, built in 1877 at an estimated cost of $7,775 by William Atchison of Cornwall. The entrance faces 4th Street East. This third school was authorised by the Ontario High School Act of 1871, and for the first time "...male and female pupils were to be admitted on equal terms. The emphasis placed on the teaching of classical languages was to be relaxed, and more attention paid to English, the natural sciences and modern languages."
Cornwall High School Greek Class, 1899 - 1900. Right to left: James Dingwall, Malcolm Dingwall, W.A. McLeod, (future MD), J.R. Runions, Oscar D. Skelton, (future Secretary of State of External Affairs.) On the ground, John McMillan, A. Ross Alguire, (future M.D.)
Cornwall High School Belles, 1906. Cornwall High School Greek Class, 1899 - 1900. Right to left: James Dingwall, Malcolm Dingwall, W.A. McLeod, (future MD), J.R. Runions, Oscar D. Skelton, (future Secretary of State of External Affairs.) On the ground, John McMillan, A. Ross Alguire, (future M.D.)
Below: The Sydney Street entrance in 1923. The school became Cornwall Collegiate Institute in 1925.
The Reverend Hugh Urquhart, minister for St. John's Presbyterian Church and headmaster at the Cornwall Grammar School from 1827 - 1840. Urquhart was affectionately nicknamed "Polycarp," an acknowledgement of his great scholarship and simplicity of character. Friends, students and clerical colleagues spoke of his unparalled grace and kindness.
THE LOCAL SEEKER (July 8 - pg. 3)
BUSINESS ADS: 613-935-8101
www.thelocalseeker.com