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Mystery Solved: Missing Methodist Cane Found at Vic U
By Leslie Shepherd
Construction workers preparing for renovations were cleaning out a wooden cabinet in what was once the office of the librarian of the Birge-Carnegie Library when they found an old wooden stick decorated with the names of Methodist Church leaders from eastern Ontario.
“It was carefully wrapped in bubble wrap so we thought it might be something important,” said Ronnie Darroch, the site superintendent for Urbacon.
It was indeed important to the United Church of Canada, which had been searching for more than 15 years for the “President’s Cane of the Bay of Quinte Conference.”
The cane was carved from wood from the Old Hay Bay Church in Adolphustown, Ont., the oldest surviving Methodist church in Canada. It was presented to the Bay of Quinte Conference, an administrative region for the Methodist Church, in 1892.
The Conference engraved the names of its presidents on the staff and used it in ceremonies to install conference presidents at annual meetings until 1924, the year before the Methodist Church joined with Presbyterian and Congregationalist denominations to form the United Church of Canada.
Somehow, the cane arrived at the United Church of Canada archives, which were housed in the Birge-Carnegie Library at Victoria University until 2008. Victoria University is home to Emmanuel College, the largest theological school associated with the United Church of Canada.
The Bay of Quinte Conference borrowed the cane for its annual meeting in Peterborough, Ont., in 2005. But by 2010, it had vanished, until being found at Vic U earlier this year.
The cane has been returned to the United Church, where it is being stored in an archival-quality container in a climate-controlled vault.
Top Photo: Ordination Class of Bay of Quinte Conference, 1893, 1992. 141P/55, F1314 – Bridge Street United Church (Belleville, Ont.) fonds, The United Church of Canada Archives, Toronto.
