March of Time – A Bicentennial Commemoration of the War of 1812

Reproductions of works of art related to the war

The new exhibition running until July 6 (2013) at the Elgin County Museum is composed of a series of fine art posters each with a calendar page covering a month in the chronology of the War of 1812.

The full exhibit covers every significant event and personality of the war. Full colour reproductions of contemporary and period art work adorn each calendar page.

The exhibition provides a context for the story of this area’s experience during the war.

Though lightly settled along the newly opened Talbot Road, this area felt the full brunt of war with settlers serving in the militia on the frontiers and suffering repeated raids by traitors and enemy soldiers, particularly during the last year of the war.  Details of the losses experienced by these settlers and examples of tools and furnishings from the era are also on exhibit.

This event will also see the launch locally of the Route 1812 Map and Guide Book.  Route 1812 is a series of historic roadways used by troops, natives, settlers and refugees during the War of 1812. Now winding through dense cities, rich farmland, small towns and exceptional natural areas, these roads lead past markers, museums and historic sites that tell the story of how each region experienced the War of 1812. A full, narrated tour of the trails can be accessed at www.theheartofontario.com.

One section, The Talbot Trail, takes visitors past ten sites across the County of Elgin including the stops in Richmond and St. Thomas of American general Duncan McArthur made during his raid in the fall of 1814, burning mills and pillaging farms.

It also marks the homes and resting places of the earliest of the county’s settlers near the historic Backus-Page House and ends at the monument in Port Glasgow which includes mills stones from the Talbot mill in Port Talbot, burned by American sympathizers in 1814. Interpretive plaques for these sites will be erected during the year by the County of Elgin’s War of 1812 Bicentennial Committee.

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For more information contact:

Mike Baker

(519) 631-1460 x 159