Bowden Pioneer Museum in BOWDEN Alberta, Canada

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The Museum also has a number of historically interesting Bibles on display which have been in local families for a number of years. The Doherty Family Bible was donated to the Museum (along with a stone block from the families stone house) in the summer of 1989 to commemorate the family's centennial in the area. The family also had a large reunion on this occasion and donated a small book of their family history which is also displayed with the bible.
Other significant Bibles displayed here are the Jerrold Family Bibles printed in England in 1735 and 1737 (two volumes). While they are not in terribly good condition, their very age alone makes them remarkable.

The doorknob/pencil holder was acquired for the museum by Mr. D.A. Freeze, a brother-in-law, of Roy Anderson. Mr. Freeze worked in public works in Ottawa and was in charge of the redecoration of the East Bock of the Parliament buildings. The door know comes from the door of Sir John A. Macdonald's office, and the wood comes from the door itself. This is a truly unique artifact and we were very fortunate to have acquired it.

The Museum has two of Emil Vikse's wooden models in our collection. One is a church, and the other a hay-sweep. The hay-sweep was used to stack hay. Two men would stand on top of it and the horses would pull the hay up the ramp, where it could be forked down onto the stack, rather than having to be forked up from the ground. Mr. Vikse has modeled a great deal, and has made an entire town and model farm similar to the models we display. Some pictures of these models can be found in the display rack of pictures by the Hoare Studio.

The large collection of trunks are a particularly interesting bit of Canadian history. They are known as steamer trunks and were used by early European immigrants to transport their goods by ship and train to Alberta from their former homes. Most of the older trunks are from the great immigrant rush to the West which coincided with the completion of the railroad, 1892. A good many of them pre-date this century. William Hoare, Bob's brother, had a trunk the states Calgary N.W.T.(NorthWest Territories) which pre-dates Alberta as a province (1905).

The Henderson Collection of China and the small cabinet which holds it has an interesting story. The china was owned by the family and was made in the USA. One cup and saucer in 1806 and the rest in 1834. The cabinet itself was originally a phonograph.

The yard goods measuring device works by pulling cloth through the mechanism, which then takes the measurement.

The colored "depression glassware" is so named because it was produced in the depression years. Not all of the glass displayed here is actually depression glass, but no one seems to be able to agree on exactly which pieces are and which are not.

The long flat electrical artifact on the shelf with the irons is a tie presser from the 1930's. The tie was wrapped around it and then heated. One can only speculate as to how well it worked, but certainly not very many were ever produced. It is often amusing to have guests try and guess its function before telling them.

The paintings of "Aunt Jane" and "Mrs. Adams" are early settlers to the area or, in the case of Aunt Jane, a relative of a settler and Mrs. Adams maybe J.G..'s wife and secretary to the Anglican Women's Auxiliary.

A very interesting piece of early craftsmanship is found in the "decorative hatpin" display . The Hatpin with the large translucent glass head is in fact a 19th century souvenir of Niagara Falls and can really surprise a visitor. When the head of the hatpin is put to the eye and held against the light, it reveals six tiny, well-detailed paintings of Niagara Falls. It is extremely ornate despite its age, and goes with a man's watchfob kept in one of the display drawers. (The watchfob has no special characteristics that we know of.)

Many of the dolls and toys in the museum's collection are quite old.. The baby buggy is likely from around the turn of the century.

The rubberized canvas bathtub in our War Memorial display was used in a hospital in the 1920's. People often find it very interesting.

The harpsichord was the property of Lindsay Henderson. While this one, at two or three decades, is not particularly old, the harpsichord is a particularly old instrument, and very historically important.

The old wooden organ donated by Bob and Pat Wood is difficult to tell the exact age. Pat Wood says it may be as old as two centuries the early 1800's.

The propeller clock is a relic of the Bowden Elementary Flight Training Center, which trained allied pilots in 1940, during WWII, on the grounds of what would become the Bowden Institute in April of 1951. It is from a plane which crashed on a local farm possibly the Thompson Farm. The propellor was salvaged and converted to the existing clock.

The white wooden cabinet was used as an icebox in years past.

The large wooden cash register from the M&M store was actually in use there, until relatively recently.

The box of Nisbet arrowheads was found on the Nisbet farm through a period of years. While some of these arrowheads are no more than 100 years of age, they embrace a great many styles and levels of sophistication. Some may be a good deal older than 1000 years. Others represent styles not common in Alberta, and could be from a band or individual who had wandered much further afield than usual.

One of the most interesting items in our display drawers is the 1865 Prince Edward Island $2. bill. Many people do not realize that P.E.I. was an independent British Colony before joining confederation in 1872.