Wednesday Talk: November 19, 10am-12pm – hybrid
November 19 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
David Rayside, History
Title: “The Biography of an Early Upper Canadian House”
Introducer: Jim Gurd
Abstract: One of Ontario’s oldest houses faces the St. Lawrence River in the small village of South Lancaster at the eastern end of Ontario. It was built 230 years ago by two young Scottish merchants soon after white Loyalists began taking up Glengarry County farm plots. In the words of a major specialist in Canadian heritage architecture, this is an important building, in part because the original structure remains at its core.
This house has been in my family for half of its life, and for some time was important in my own story. For that personal reason and in light of its importance, I have tried assembling the story of how the building was constructed and changed over the decades, and as well as chronicling what I can of the three families who have used it since the early 1790s. This talk will include laying out some of the challenges encountered in creating this history, and spotlight a few of the personalities linked to the house.
Bio: David Rayside is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science, and was founding director of the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. His writing has included books on sexual diversity, the role of religion in Canadian politics, and partisan conservatism, though his first was an ethnographic exploration of the small town of Alexandria in Glengarry County. On formally retiring and then completing academic projects he took up more informal writing that led to the creation of illustrated essays destined for web-site posting. Most are within the broad realm of social history, including elements of memoir. Most are focused on an eastern Ontario village on the St. Lawrence waterfront. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2014, and added to the National Portrait Collection of The ArQuives (Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives) in 2019.
The link to register is https://forms.office.com/r/WLERcfHBG0
The deadline to register is the Monday before the event at noon. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
