70 Years Ago
January 21, 1948
– In a recorded 7-2 vote, Napanee council decided to go ahead and ask the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) to reconsider its bylaw authorizing a $306,000 expenditure on a new west ward school.
Despite the OMB’s declaration that ratepayers should be able to have input into whether or not a school should be built, council moved forward without a referendum on the issue. The majority of councillors felt, however, that the school board had received more fixed cost estimates for the build.
The town received tender bids from eight different firms and the one selected was the lowest by $40,000. The town could also receive a 50-per-cent grant from the province to build the school.
– The Napanee fire department was called to the local A&P grocery store to extinguish a smouldering fire between the metal cover and fire pot of the furnace unit. No damage was reported, but the entire store was filled with dense smoke for several minutes. An investigation suggested the fire was started by a lit cigarette being dropped into the grating over the furnace.
– Charles Martin, the superintendent of insurance firm Eastern Agencies, told the Napanee Lions Club Canadians will not form the basis of a great country until they consider themselves Canadians first, rather than French Canadians, Scotch Canadians, English Canadians or otherwise.
40 Years Ago
January 18, 1978
– The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte turned down a meeting with MP Jack Ellis in Ottawa over the Turton-Penn lease of land in Shannonville.
The lease, in effect for over 156 years, allowed non-Mohawks to live on territory land for 30 good barrels of good flour per year. The Mohawks hadn’t been paid in about six years after they deemed the flour was not of acceptable quality.
Tyendinaga Township offered to pay cash in lieu of flour, which the Department of Indian Affairs accepted, but Chief Donald Brant said there would need to be a majority consensus of his people before they would accept the money. In a pair of referenda, the Mohawks twice rejected a settlement between their council and Indian Affairs.
– Lennox and Addington County Warden Ernest Marshall warned that with the likelihood of less grant money flowing from the province and increasing costs for wages and education, council may have to reduce program funding in several areas. Marshall said the library system and the museum were two areas where cuts might occur, noting the museum would be “ regarded as a nicety rather than a necessity.”