The good folks at the Cabbagetown-Regent Park Museum are throwing a fundraiser at the end of the month. Currently located in the “Resident’s House” at Riverdale Farm (Torontonians of-a-certain-age will remember this as the Zookeeper’s House from the Riverdale Zoo days), eventually the museum will have a permanent home. Community museums like this should be added to our (now very long) challenge post on Thursday where we asked readers to tell us what they love about Toronto. So many cities don’t have any civic museum to speak of, but Toronto has many very local ones. Take a look at their website — they’ve already got over 60 hours of oral history videos and 250 artefacts from the area — and if you’re interested in getting involved they are always looking for volunteers.
The fundraiser event’s speaker, Karolyn Smartz Frost, will be talking, in part, about her book “I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land” that details the lives of Lucie and Thornton Blackburn, escaped fugitive slaves who emmigrated to Toronto in the year of it’s founding and eventually started Toronto’s (and Upper Canada’s) first cab company. The image above is an “1840ish painting of Thornton Blackburn’s distinctive yellow horse-drawn cab pelting down King Street” and is certainly yet another of Toronto 175’s historical bits to celebrate.
WHAT: Cabbagetown-Regent Park Museum Fundraiser:
WHEN: Saturday, March 28, 2009, 3-5 pm
WHERE: Daniel Lamb House, 156 Winchester Street
Award-winning author, tenacious archaeologist, and celebrated historian, Karolyn Smartz Frost, will be giving a talk, Cabbagetown as the Promised Land? The Story of Lucie & Thornton Blackburn, to support the work of the Cabbagetown-Regent Park Museum in Toronto.
The event will be held at historic Daniel Lamb House, 156 Winchester Street, in the heart of Cabbagetown. Enjoy a great talk. Meet the author. Soak up the historic atmosphere. Consume some light refreshments. Support a community museum. And if you can’t attend the lecture yourself, consider buying a ticket to be given to someone else from the local community.
Tickets cost $50 (a $30 charitable receipt will be given). Cheques should be made out to The Cabbagetown-Regent Park Museum Inc. and mailed to 156 Winchester Street, Toronto, ON M4X 1B6. Reserve early, as seating is limited. Tickets can be mailed out or picked up at the door. For more information contact the Museum at 416 816 4994 or cmooreede at sympatico dot ca .
