C r o s s r o a d s
Remembering Melville Hill Tyendinaga’s Keeper of the Records
By Barry Penhale • Photos courtesy Barry Penhale Collection
A 1973 portrait of Melville Hill by Ted Wakeling, inscribed as “To Robert Melville Hill with many thanks.”
T
he chief at Tyendinaga for seven or more years, Melville Hill was the most congenial of companions, a man who easily made friends both Native and non-native alike. I greatly valued his friendship and treasure memories of many good times in his company, be it visits to the reserve on the Bay of Quinte near Deseronto or in Toronto when his appointment to several provincial advisory committees or his band land-claims research drew him to the city. Very few of us can claim such a rich heritage as my old friend Mel. His long family ties date back to the early Mohawk members of the Iroquois Confederation, situated in the Mohawk Valley about 50km northwest of Albany, N.Y. These extraordinary Hill ancestors were the same allies of the British that eventually migrated to Canada in 1784 following the American Revolution. During his lifetime it was often said of Hill that the man was steeped in history, small wonder given such a full background of cherished Mohawk traditions and the exemplary family role models of parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents, all hardworking farmers. The Hills were devout supporters of All Saints Anglican Church and, since 1875, the custodians of the historically rare Queen Anne Silver Communion Service. Made by Francis Garthorne, and in existence since 1712, the communion service bears an inscription on each item: “The gift of Her Majesty Queen Anne by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, of Her Plantations in North America to Her Indian Chappel of the Mohawks.” The treasured Sacramental Service and a Communion cloth was a gift of the Queen to the new Mohawk church, fol-
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Country Roads • Winter 2013/2014
Mel Hill (left) took a great personal interest in the Tyendinaga Waterfowl Project, jointly sponsored by Ducks Unlimited (Canada) and the Reserve’s band council.
lowing a trip to England in 1710 by five (one died en route) Mohawk Valley chiefs. (For more on the Queen Anne Silver please refer to the Spring, 2010 and Fall, 2010 issues of Country Roads). And what part has the famous Queen Anne Silver and the Christian church played in the lives of Mel Hill’s ancestors and eventually his own? The death of his great-grandfather, John W. Hill, on March 27, 1858 resulted from an accident while cutting logs as he toiled to help build All Saints Church. Other members of the band soldiered on and the church was consecrated in 1883. Hill’s widow, Mel’s great-grandmother, Catherine Brant, was the keeper of the silver from I875 to 1897. Mel’s maternal grandfather John A. Loft, a notable figure who always sported a plug hat, was a generous church supporter and also served on council. Melville Hill’s own father, Robert, when not farming was very active in the Tyendinaga community and served as All Saints church warden for 35 years. Perhaps the most impressive of the lot was Mel’s beloved mother Clara Annie Hill whose turn as custodian of the Queen Anne Silver lasted from 1908 to 1954. Then came Mel’s turn. But Melville Hill in his time became much more than simply keeper of the prized silver, as his growing heritage concerns and historical interests ultimately resulted in a one-ofa-kind museum crammed with reminders of the past, all housed in the timber frame house he was born in on March 9, 1918. The house was well over 100 years of age when I first began my Tyendinaga visits. It took Mel over 10 years to assemble a remarkable collection of artifacts which, while
focused on local history, also featured examples of crafts produced by Native artisans across much of Canada. The highly eclectic collection included carvings by former chief, Joel Johnston, a record of the 1885 local election results when Johnston was elected, and rare photos of the Mohawk Fall Fair, including directors of the 1901 fair and the first-prize carriage team owned by Rueben Hill of Picton. An impressive wall display consisted of photographs of elected chiefs from 1870 on, 25 in all at the time of one of my visits. The Queen Anne Silver, secured within a stout safe, was the star attraction among the many fascinating items on hand. But Curator Mel was never hesitant in pointing out to visitors the objects within his collection that meant the most to him. Among these, the birchbark canoe built by the Mazinaw Lake area carver-craftsman Johnny Bey is believed to date back to circa 1850. The canoe was almost entirely made from one log and was prominently suspended from the ceiling except when they removed it annually for celebratory use on Mohawk Sunday during the re-enactment ceremony commemorating the arrival of the first Mohawk people in 1784. Though Mel Hill’s mother had amassed an important collection of largely religious materials by the time he completed his Second World War army service of four-and-a-half years, Mel often attributed the fuelling of his heritage interest to other factors. Among these was a fortuitous meeting with the Honourable Kelso Roberts and the invitation to join with Ontario Department of Lands and Forests personnel on trips to northern Native communities in the James Bay/Hudson Bay region. Mel’s ability to ferret out little-known information from the Native population considerably surpassed the results obtained by non-natives in uniform. As he once told me the situation prompted the creation of an Indian advisory committee, with Mel appointed chairman. Mel’s ongoing association with numerous Native groups quickly expanded his knowledge of their cultural differences and resulted in his practice of returning home loaded down with collectables. The acquisition of additional objects from other regions of the country soon added to his already impressive home-based museum. Eventually items in Mel’s possession included: a Western Plains war club made out of Buffalo horns, an eastern Mi’Kmaq club made from a tree root, and an astonishing number of rattles, each of which produced, upon shaking, a cacophony of sound — Iroquois bark rattles, fish-skin and turtle rattles, and others made out of caribou hide. Mel never once concealed his admiration for the work of the Tyendinaga carver Joel Johnson and never lost an opportunity to draw the attention of guests to a set of napkin rings carved by Johnson.