Mackenzie House

Yesterday, Mom and I went to Mackenzie house.

The first thing we did was some work in the print shop. We worked on a souvenir for the "City Cider" at Spadina Museum.

First we checked for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and spacing issues.

After we were satisfied, we checked again on the Proof Press.
I got to ink the galley.

I put the paper in place and then I used the proof press.

Here I am checking the proof.

Here is the layout of what we printed.
If you want to see what we did, you have to go to City Cider tomorrow.

I got to use the guillotine!

I cut all the paper for the souvenirs.

We printed another proof with the right sized paper and then we packed up the stuff they would need for tomorrow.

After the work in the print shop, we went on a tour of the house.

We have been there many times before, and so we started off with a slightly different tour.
We checked out the front vestibule.

There is a cool door knocker that I hadn't noticed before.

Here are a couple other pictures from the front.

We learnt about flow blue. The blue glaze runs when the porcelain is fired. The kaolin clay that was used in fine China was too expensive and so they used a cheaper material, making it more affordable. But, the blue ink runs making it blurry.

In the parlour there is a portrait of John Montgomery, owner of the Tavern where the 1837 rebellion started. Even though Montgomery was not at the tavern at the time, he was arrested as a sympathizer of Mackenzie. The people who were involved in the rebellion wanted political reform. Mackenzie had escaped arrest by fleeing to Navy Island.

Montgomery managed to escape prison, and he too fled to Navy Island and met up with and supported Mackenzie.

Mackenzie declared a separate "Republic of Canada". He recruited supporters by promising them land.

The British were not happy with this development and they captured the steamboat, the Caroline, which Mackenzie used for supplies. One American died.

When Mackenzie and his supporters left Navy Island, Mackenzie was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison for violating the Neutrality Laws.  He was released after 11 months because he was granted amnesty.


We continued on with our tour and we looked at some items that were original to the house.
This slipper chair was embroidered by Janet Mackenzie, William Lyon Mackenzie's daughter.

This dresser was owned by the Mackenzies.

And this sampler was sewn by Isabel Baxter (Mackenzie's wife) in 1813, when she was 13 years old, before she migrated to Canada from Dundee, Scotland. It includes the names of members of her family.

Thank you so much to Chris and the staff at Mackenzie House for a nice, quiet afternoon out.
See you again soon!