Sherbrooke Village turns 50
Cussing.
That’s what got me chucked into this jailhouse.
Not drinking or smoking or running my horses through town like them others in the two cells down the hall. No, my transgression is nothing more than foul language.
I pass the time on my thin mattress, looking at the pictures and words scratched into the wall by those before me — a ship, a name, a date. I’m looking at the likeness of a schooner when a whiff of gingerbread causes me to bolt upright. The grub in here is better than home. Some’s been known to break the law at Christmastime, just to get a plate of the jailer’s wife’s turkey dinner.
Peering between the bars of my cell, I can see the family’s side of the house all the way down the hall to the door of the kitchen, but I can’t see inside. The slap, slap, slap of the butter churner, the splash of hot tea poured into a tin cup, and the smell of warm gingerbread sets my mouth to watering.
I don my bowler hat, straighten my collar and vest, and call out, “A slice of that good gingerbread smeared with fresh butter sure would take the chill off this damned dungeon.”
Thereupon, I slap my palm over my mouth for fear I have just landed myself another couple days of free room and board.
HANDS ON HISTORY
Jail time is just one of many experiences — chair making, printing, cooking, blacksmithing, attending school among them — that deeply immerse visitors into life at Sherbrooke Village in the year 1867.
“Upstairs was the women’s prison,” said Phyllis Jack, supervisor of Hands on History.
Accompanying Jack is Jo-Ann Flemming, lead interpreter for the visitor reception centre. She adds, “A woman went to jail if their husband was in debt.”
Hands on History is an initiative with two levels of immersion. Through the Explorer program, visitors dress up for the day and explore the village. To join the Discoverer program, visitors must book ahead.
“You still get dressed up,” said Jack, “but you become a character like a blacksmith, farmer, wood turner, or even a temperance lady.”
The two spring me from jail to show me around the rest of the village.
“This is the real deal,” Flemming said. “A real town.”
Only the blacksmith shop and a couple other structures were moved to the village. Otherwise, the 25 buildings stand on their original foundations.
“The only thing missing is a 700-ton tall ship sailing up the river.”
It’s so real the courthouse held trials until 2000.
“They’d be having court and people would be peeking in the windows,” said Jack. “We had to tell them, this is a real session.”
“Close your eyes,” said Flemming. “You can still hear the sounds of the village. You can smell the forge and the gingerbread. It makes it a tactile experience.”
TEMPERANCE TIMES
We meet up with Jo-Ann’s husband Stephen Flemming, the executive director at Sherbrooke Village. I ask him why 1867 is the year represented.
“The heyday of this place was around the time of Confederation,” he explains. “It was a happening place. Putting it into today’s numbers, just shy of $1 billion in gold came out of here in about 10 years. Can you imagine what that did to this place?”
While Sherbrooke was very prosperous at the time, lifestyle was restricted by temperance values with the persuasion of the courthouse, church, temperance hall and my jail cell.
One woman in particular — Sarah Cumminger — embodied the Victorian ideals of the time. She happens to be a four-times great aunt of Flemming’s.
We arrive at her three-storey Victorian house, described as the jewel in the Sherbrooke Village crown. Its gingerbread trim is as ornate as my guides’ dresses.
“She was the iconic temperance lady,” Jo-Ann Flemming explains. “Very well to do.”
John and Sarah Cumminger employed two maids who lived next to the basement kitchen and a gardener who stayed in the attic.
Pouring tea in the informal parlour, Flemming said this is where Mrs. Cumminger entertained with Bible readings, poetry recitals and stereoscope viewings.
In the upstairs hallway, or relaxing room, Mrs. Cumminger would read or do needle work.
“It’s said that she would sit in that window and pine away,” Flemming said, “waiting for her husband’s ship to come up that river and dock behind the Cumminger store.”
When one of the Cummingers wanted a bath, maids would haul 14 buckets of water up from the kitchen. When finished, they’d have to carry the dirty water back down again. Flemming says the interpreters who play the maids have fun with this tidbit of history.
“They’re not supposed to, but sometimes the maids must have heaved it out the window.”
It’s this mix of impossibly high ideals and human flaws that gives Sherbrooke Village the air of authenticity so many visitors enjoy.
As Stephen Flemming puts it, “The typical visitor wanders around and after interacting with our interpreters in costume taking on characters, suddenly the light comes on and they’re stepping into 1867.”
A LEGACY OF RICHES
“This year marks our 50th anniversary,” Stephen Flemming says. “Celebrations were a bit muted by COVID-19, but we pushed forward with our legacy project, Riches — the Rural Institute for Cultural Heritage and Environmental Sustainability. When you already have 50 years under your belt, you’re looking forward decades.”
Riches is off to a roaring start, having received a donation of nearly 900 acres of land along the banks of the St. Mary’s River that flows through Sherbrooke.
“Some of these pieces of land have been harvested, so we see a teaching opportunity. How do you bring back Acadian forest?”
The institute is also supporting efforts to establish a whale sanctuary on the coast and developing courses on a range of topics for residents and visitors.
“Riches is the outreach arm of Sherbrooke Village,” Flemming says.
Even as Sherbrooke Village is planning its future, Flemming and staff are winding down 2020. Visitors are welcome to walk around the village any time of the year. While the popular old-fashioned Christmas dinner isn’t possible this year, Flemming said, “We’re going to have ‘A Touch of Old-Fashioned Christmas’ on the last week of November and first week of December.”
Some 40 volunteers decorate the village with 60,000 to 80,000 Christmas lights and 10 kilometres of handmade garland. The spectacle attracts as many as 6,000 people on opening night. Accommodations from Antigonish to Liscombe fill up for the event.
At the end of my trip to 1867, I return my bowler hat and clothing to Jo-Ann Flemming and Phyllis Jack. We talk about next year and better times, when more visitors than ever will hopefully return for the Explorer and Discovery programs to help launch the next 50 years of Hands on History.
As I say goodbye, Flemming and Jack present me with a pound of that freshly churned butter from the jailhouse kitchen, my criminal cussing forgotten.