Page 13

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Title: Page 13

Full text: 12 INTRODUCTION Hall by William Bill and his pupils on February 6, 1857. On February 16, 1860, an entertainment—Tableaux les Vivantes— with appropriate songs and piano accompaniment was given by some ladies and gentlemen of the town in Temperance Hall in aid of the Church of England. On April 1, 1862 a concert, provided by the young men of the town for the benefit of the Lunenburg Rifle Company, was given in Temperance Hall. On that occasion minstrel songs were sung. A similar concert was given on April 28,1863, in aid of the fund for the purchase of musical instruments for the Volunteer Band, which was being formed by the Volunteer Rifle Company. In 1865 a number of the young men of the town organized the Lunenburg Glee Club. On February 28, 1865, it gave an amateur concert, with Miss Bessie Buckley playing the melodion, for the purpose of raising money to purchase maps and other supplies for the Academy. It gave a second per- formance the next evening. On July 6, 1865, the Liverpool Brass Band consisting of nine members, gave a concert in Temperance Hall. A benefit concert in aid of a blind girl, was given in the same building on January 1, 1867. On July 17,1871, four men arrived in town to sell a patent medicine, —King's Instant Relief. They advertised an open air concert for the eve- ning and then using their travelling wagon, lit by torchlights, as a stage, they sang a number of comic and sentimental songs, to the accompaniment of the guitar, in order to attract customers. The Easter, Christmas and New Year's customs of Lunenburg in those years are of interest. Gaetz notes the practice of "tipping" eggs on Easter Monday. On December 31,1861, "the old boys and the young boys," Gaetz records, "are firing away the old year out and the new year in." The bell of the Lutheran Church tolled the old year out and then rang the New Year in with a merry peal. A service was held in St. John's Church of England in the evening, and the Methodists held their usual watch-night service. At the end of 1865, as the clock struck twelve, the cannon boomed from the Blockhouse Hill, the bells rang a merry peal, "and the Volunteer Band dis- coursed good music through the streets, bidding an everlasting farewell to the old year, and ushering in the new." The Christmas customs included a Christmas tree at a festival or concert of the St. John's Church Sunday School on December 26, 1866. "A large Tree stood in the Centre of the School Room," Gaetz states, "lit up with wax Candles and decorated with Confectionary and other Christmas Gifts." In 1864 the year of the Free School Act, the ratepayers of Lunenbu'rg met and unanimously agreed to build an Academy in the town and to sup- port it by taxation. On September 8, 1865, the frame of the Academy was being erected. The diary of Adolphus Gaetz is a document of interest, particularly for local and regional affairs, from 1855 to 1873. It is a record not only of the weather and of marriages and deaths, but also of many phases of the life of the community. C. BRUCE FERGUSSON