The Arnprior and District Museum was opened in 1967 as the Town of Arnprior’s official Centennial project. The Museum occupies a unique red stone landmark, built in 1896 as the Post Office. In 1962, Mr. and Mrs. David A. Gillies purchased and donated the building to the town; the building was renamed the David A. Gillies Building; in 1977, the municipality designated the building as a heritage site (under the 1974 Ontario Heritage Act). The Museum’s mandate was to collect artifacts, maps, books, and documents that record the history of Arnprior and the area, from the fur-trading days when Indigenous people had encampments during the Champlain era through until 1825 when the Scottish Laird of McNab (Archibald McNab) brought 80 settlers to the area from Scotland to the lumbering era dominated by the McLachlin and Gillies families (about 1860’s to 1940’s).
Language
English
Acquisition Source
Transferred from the Arnprior Museum, c/o Helen Golding, curator, in September 1993. (In 1993, the Museum Board and the Archives Board agreed that those archival holdings now in the Museum which pertain to local history be transferred to the Arnprior and District Archives. The first transfer was made in 1993.)
Scope and Content
Collection consists of 14 Series: 1. Schools; 2. People; 3. Industry; 4. Hotels and Taverns; 5. Hospitals; 6. Churches; 7. History; 8. Lumbering; 9. Recreation; 10. Businesses; 11. Renfrew County; 12. Cemeteries; 13. Music; 14. Library.
See separate Series level descriptions for more details about the contents of these series.
Arrangement
The Arnprior District Museum collection consists of 14 Series. Some of these Series are broken down into Sub-series; some are not. When records were housed in the Museum, each Series was dedicated to a box; these boxes were placed in alphabetical order on the shelf. Also included are some of the index cards used by the Museum curator to keep track of donations; the cards were in triplicate and filed according to 1. donor 2. category or subject 3. accession number. This card filing system was not fully maintained during the transfer. Intellectual access to the records is now gained by consulting the finding aid.
Notes
Titles taken from transfer agreement form.
Accruals
Further accruals are expected on an ongoing basis.