Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 2 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
o o o
A Conundrum
No doubt, many of you have nagging problems which tend to be put aside until you have time to look after them someday. Others of course ignore the matter in the hope that it will go away. Unfortunately for me, I come under the first classification.
My personal puzzle concerns Asa Meech's church-cum-school at Old Chelsea. One of the descendents of Meech has put it on record that the reverend gentleman had had constructed such a building adjacent to the old burial ground. In fact he may have had a hand in it. And if I may be permitted a pun, he was known to be a short hand expert.
There exists a photograph taken well before 1900 of the Old Dunn House. To the east of the old inn another building appears in the picture. This edifice has very narrow windows similar to what are called lancet windows on churches, but these are flat on top rather than pointed.
WHAT HAPPENED
In 1900 the Dunn House burned right to the ground. What likely happened was that the church-cum-school -- it was a church on Sundays and a school on week days - met the same fate.
We do know that the inn was rebuilt as a photocopy of the defunct one. We also know that the other building was rebuilt - this time as a school only - both of them in 1901.
Although the second Dunn House still stands, the school was torn down by Bernard Trudeau in the 1940s. He remembered that it was painted red and there was also a cupola, but no bell.
When the school was razed the building of H.W. Edmonds, which had served as the first "official" post office, was moved a few metres to the site of the little red school house. And there it sits to this day.
It is astounding that two other inns, Sweeney's and Dean's (general Store and the Chelsea Restaurant) have not been taken by fire.