Blood in the Mortar: Blog was retired and is now being revived as interest in these works has suddenly begun to grow years later

Church

It has stood at 83 Essex Street Guelph since its base stones were set in late June 1880. Its cornerstone was set on September 17 1880 as recorded in the Guelph Mercury and Advertiser. The contents of the cornerstone were described in that article, "Copy of the Holy Scriptures, Hymn Book of the BME Church, copy of the Missionary Messenger - the organ of the church; and copies of the Mercury and Herald." Presumably, the contents had already been placed inside a tin box, hermetically sealed and then painted over before being placed in a carved-out section of the cornerstone, then covered with sand and mortared under the stone above it. The Mercury report noted that the structure was already twelve feet high, with half the basement four feet in the ground and the other four feet above it. The base stones of the church could well be mortared directly onto the same ridge of limestone that extends across the road to where the ground drops behind the southside homes and into a remnant of the quarry from which many of the nearby stone houses had also come. The Guelph BME was, by the 1880's, one of the last stone structures erected in the neighbourhood. The quarry had been owned by the man who had been awarded the contract to raise the church, William Slater, listed in the 1881 city directory as a stone cutter.

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Blog was retired and is now being revived as interest in these works has suddenly begun to grow years later

Given the lack of response to this blog and the three books I wrote, I removed the content but was unable to delete the blog itself, so it will survive here as a spot to order the books should anyone hear of them.

In the last year, several academic and archival institutions have approached me about my work so perhaps I will revive this over time, Beginning by posting a link to a documentary I created with Wightman Telecommunications.