News

We’d like to give a shout out to these local businesses and individuals for their generous donations to support the work of the Newcastle Village and District Historical Society. If you are interested in donating or becoming a member you can do that online or drop by to see what we are all about, any Saturday or Tuesday morning, 9:30 to noon.

Tuesday, March 4, 2025
10 a.m. to noon
Historical Room, Newcastle Community Hall

Join us at the NVDHS to share your memories and photos of life in Clarington for the Golden Tales project! Through our Golden Tales project, we are collecting stories and images from local seniors about their personal histories of life in Clarington which will be shared and preserved for future generations.

About the Golden Tales project

“Golden Tales: Chronicles of Our Community” is an initiative through the Clarington Library, Museum, and Archives aimed at curating a treasury of narratives and portraits contributed by local seniors (aged 55+) who have either settled in or were born in the Municipality of Clarington. The project’s primary objectives are to foster inclusivity, forge social connections, and ignite inspiration through engaging interviews and events with older adults residing in Clarington. Interviews will unveil the rich tapestry of their diverse histories, celebrating the many life events and pathways that have led individuals to this region. This undertaking will not only acquaint seniors with the process of digitizing and preserving their oral histories using multimedia but will also encourage others to embark on similar endeavours.

Interviews with participants will provide them with the social setting to share their stories of how they arrived in Clarington, the families and connections they made, as well as where they worked and how they made their living. The stories shared will give the participants an opportunity to be heard, asked questions and feel a deep sense of satisfaction knowing their stories are being recorded for future years. We live in a time when it is easier than ever to document the life happening around us. We can bridge past and future by digitally recording the stories of our past for future generations. 

NVDHS will be sharing the results of this project with our members.

A brief history of the Walbridge House and the beginnings of Methodism in Newcastle, Ontario. Prepared by Brian Jose for the 200th anniversary of Newcastle United Church in 2024.

It’s a busy season for everyone, but we hope you’ll find the time to join us for some treats and holiday cheer. And of course, don’t forget about our end-of-year donation match campaign.

Saturday, December 14, 2024

Come meet the directors and your fellow members and enjoy lots of Christmas treats, mulled cider, special children’s Christmas craft and Christmas music. We’ll be open from 9:30 a.m. to noon and look forward to seeing you all!

Please note that we will be closed Dec. 17, reopening on January 4.

Thanks to the generosity of one of our members, donations of up to a total of $2500 will be matched until December 31, 2024.

Help us promote and preserve Newcastle history by making it more easily accessible and available to our community and beyond, through our digitization project.

With the help of summer students and our volunteers, we’ve been busy cataloguing and documenting our collection, but we still have lots to do.

We’ve been using our new museum software (CatalogIt) for a while now, and it allows us to mount online slide shows, and makes managing, searching and sharing our collection much easier.

Your continued support has helped facilitate this move, and we are thrilled to be able to show you our first two online exhibits – one featuring our collection of holiday cards, and another of winter scenes in and around Newcastle.

We’re looking forward to the New Year with much hope and enthusiasm – and would be thrilled if you would join in the effort to help fund our activities, including a summer student for 2025. All donations made before the end of day December 31, up to a total of $2500 will be matched. Help us raise $5000 for 2025!

Donate today

You can donate in a number of ways – online or via e-transfer (please contact us if you wish to do that so we can give you the email address to use), or via cheque. Please do not mail cheques during the postal strike – we can pick them up from you or you can drop them off on Tuesday or Saturday mornings from 9:30 to noon at the Historical Room in the Newcastle Community Hall.

All donations are tax-deductible and you will be issued an official receipt.

Thank you!

Donate online

We hope you’ll enjoy the first two of our online exhibits showcasing aspects of our collection of artifacts and documents. We have been hard at work over the past few years digitizing our collection – first in museum software which we ran locally, and now in CatalogIt which allows us to easily mount online exhibits and show the community and beyond at least a small portion of our extensive collection.

First up is part of our collection of Holiday cards – Christmas and New Year’s cards dating back to the 1880s. It’s interesting to see that in the 1880s, Christmas cards often didn’t employ the iconography we’ve come to associate with Christmas – and instead were illustrated with paintings of flowers. At least one of our cards is an 1880s card from S. Hildesheimer & Co., in the UK. Siegmund Hildesheimer was very influential in the growing popularity of Christmas cards, which were first sent in the 1840s. The Victoria & Albert Museum in London has more information on the history of Christmas cards.

We’ve also assembled a small collection of winter scenes in and around Newcastle and we will add to those soon. (We have quite a few that have yet to be added to the catalogue).

View online exhibits

Newcastle over 100 years ago vs Newcastle now…

We thought it would be fun to show you how much Newcastle has changed in 100 years. At the time of the 1921 census, Newcastle’s population had actually declined from 787 in 1891 to 559 in 1921, 2 years after this photo was taken. In 1881, there were a total of 202 dwellings, 31 of which were unoccupied. (Unfortunately, later census data doesn’t include the number of dwellings in smaller towns and villages). The Massey Manufacturing move to Toronto in 1881 definitely contributed to the loss of population in Newcastle, but the entire Durham region lost almost 3,000 people between 1901 and 1921, and the township of Clarke lost 750 people during that time.

A talk by Judith Clapperton and James Breech

Wednesday, October 16 at 7 p.m.
Newcastle Community Hall

Had They But Known Her is a work of historical fiction by former resident of Newcastle, Judith Clapperton, about the life of Olive Wilmot.

Judith corrects the false information that Olive was reviled as a loose woman and depicted as the “prostitute” Mary Magdalene in the magnificent Tiffany stained glass window in the chancel of St. George’s Church, Newcastle.

Dr. James Breech is New Testament scholar and will discuss the Tiffany window.

Free Admission & refreshments following the talk.

We’ve posted a lot of our vintage movies (transferred to video) to YouTube for your enjoyment. From 1920s and 1930s movies of Newcastle residents to parades to the Orono Fair from the 1920s to the 1960s, there is something interesting for everyone. Who knows? Great Uncle George as a baby may just be in that movie from 1931… Check it out!

NVDHS YouTube Channel

Mark your calendars!

Saturday, April 13 at 11 a.m.
Historical Room, Newcastle Community Hall

• Find out what we’ve been doing for the past year
• Elect 2024-2025 Board of Directors
• Participate in our fun and informative Show and Tell
• Enjoy a light lunch afterwards

The meeting portion will be short and then it will be on to the fun of sharing our interesting items of historical interest. Found some mysterious items when cleaning out the basement at Great-uncle Dave’s? Or something amazing you found at a garage sale last summer? Bring it in and share at our very own Newcastle mini “Antiques Roadshow”

Free light lunch.

Hope you can join us! (Please let us know if you’ll be joining us for lunch too, so we can plan appropriate food quantities)