A glimpse into Canada's past
Treasures from the Jon Church Collection come to auction
Canadiana Collector Jon Church poses with the Miller & Miller auction catalogue for the June 15 & 16th sales. Highlights from Jon’s collection are featured in the June 16th auction of Canadiana, Advertising & Historic Objects.
Much like a well-stocked library, Jon Church’s collection of Canadiana brims with stories waiting to be shared. While his treasures can be appreciated for their beauty and craftsmanship, it is their unspoken narratives steeped in Canadian history and culture that he values most. Those narratives led him to build a thoughtful gathering of Canadian history that unfolds like a storybook.
Jon was born and raised in the small town of Palmerston, Ontario, a Canadian National Railway hub with a population of 1,500. While the railyard provided jobs for many of the town’s residents, farming was also a common livelihood due to the surrounding agricultural lands.
“I never lived on a farm,” said Jon, “but many friends did. My visiting farms while in high school led me to raise exhibition poultry in our backyard.”
A photograph taken in the 1910s at the CNR Roundhouse in Palmerston, Ontario is offered as lot 49 in the upcoming auction at Miller & Miller.
A closer view of the photograph.
As his poultry grew, so did Jon’s passion for farming and sustainability. After graduating from OAC (now the University of Guelph), Jon and his wife joined CUSO, a humanitarian organization that sent them on a journey to India to promote sustainable fish farming and egg production practices to impoverished villagers. After a year in India, they accepted a two-year posting in Ghana where they continued to promote the CUSO initiatives while also teaching secondary school students.
Upon his return to Canada, Jon managed the international CUSO programs from Ottawa before establishing a career on Parliament Hill. He recalls his favourite parliament job: a position with Mitchell Sharp, Secretary of State for External Affairs in Pierre Trudeau’s first government. Jon’s career in government spanned a number of departments, culminating in his retirement from Global Affairs.
Along the way, Jon developed a passion for collecting. His presence at shows and auctions— always well dressed and usually sporting a fedora—was almost guaranteed. His adventures, combined with a minor hoarding problem (his words), led to his impressive cache of Canadian pottery, general store advertising, railway collectibles, and historic objects. Miller & Miller is thrilled to bring highlights from his collection to auction on June 16th as part of the Canadiana, Advertising & Historic Objects sale.
Jon took great care in organizing his collection, ensuring that no chapters in the story were left untold.
“No item Jon collected came without his careful research,” says Ethan Miller, co-owner of Miller & Miller Auctions. “He’d handwrite notes on paper and fix them to or stuff them inside the objects they pertained to.”
The pottery in Jon’s collection features an impressive curation of rare decorated crocks, jugs, and pots—crafted by some talented characters.
"Most decorated stoneware features a flower, if you’re lucky," explains Ethan Miller. "But birds and trees are exceptional."
Two pieces by Samuel Skinner feature such decorations. Skinner was the second successor to a renowned pottery business in Picton, Ontario in the mid-1800s. He was known for creating the company’s best-decorated pieces during his tenure. Lot 108, for example, is a three-gallon crock adorned with Skinner’s rare "tree-of-life" motif—a now coveted centerpiece for collectors of Canadian pottery. Lot 109 is a two-gallon cream pot with a depiction of a "running" bird. Skinner's bird motifs are seldom found and are highly prized by collectors.
One of Jon’s personal favourites is the mid-1800s Tree-of-Life Merchant Jug (lot 101) by John S. Edgar, noted Napanee chemist and druggist. Very few jugs and crocks bearing Edgar’s name are known to exist, and the tree decoration in this example enhances its rarity.
When asked about his affinity for pottery, Jon alludes, “with both stoneware and earthenware, one gets exceptional craftsmanship and striking colors, and perhaps most importantly, insight into life at that time”.
Providing a more direct view into the lives of Canadians from the past, the auction includes two outstanding railway broadside posters from the late 1880s.
The Canadian Pacific Railway’s 1884 “Settlers' Fast Excursion Train” broadside poster (lot 205) enticed Ottawa residents to migrate west on a special rapid-speed train with their furniture, belongings, and even livestock in tow. The travel package included comfortable first-class carriage options and required passengers to BYOB (bring-your-own-bedding, of course).
The other broadside (lot 206) promotes a train trip from Picton, Ontario to Napanee for the Dominion Day celebrations on Friday, July 1st, 1892. The poster promised passengers a day filled with horse races, horse rides, bicycle races, a baseball tournament, dancing, music, and even a theatrical performance by the Napanee Dramatic Club. All of this, of course, was available to those patriotic Canadians who could afford the round-trip ticket price of 50 cents.
Lot 205: CPR 1884 Settlers' Fast Excursion Train Broadside. Click to enlarge.
Lot 206: Dominion Day, 1892 Napanee Horse Racing Broadside. Click to enlarge.
Lot 154 provides a peek into Canadian life in the 1940s—a bleak chapter in any history book. It features the Canada Food Board "Hoarding" Poster, one of many militaria posters offered in the sale. Created by the Soldiers of the Soil, a national program run by the food board in the Second World War era, the poster reads, “Are YOU breaking the law? Patriotic Canadians will not hoard food.” The image shows a nervous couple hiding their hoarded sugar and flour from a passing officer, while the man's full stomach bulges in his vest. It goes to show, as seen with the toilet paper hoarders during the recent Covid pandemic, some things never change.
Jon's collection of rare general store advertising signs, cabinets and displays provide a glimpse into the everyday needs of Canadians from the early 20th century.
In the late Victorian era, clothing was an important signal of status and class. Dyeing clothes enabled women to upkeep a vibrant wardrobe without purchasing expensive new garments. Dye cabinets with colourful lithographed panels like the Diamond Dyes 'Ages of Women' Cabinet (lot 23) were designed to attract women to buy the dyes inside.
The Humphreys' Specific Medicine Display Cabinet (lot 24), on a less glamorous note, contained cures for every ailment imaginable. The contents include remedies for worms, “faceache”, “cold in head”, malaria and of course, bedwetting.
Lot 23: Diamond Dyes 'Ages of Women' Display Cabinet
Lot 24: Humphreys' Specific Medicine Display Cabinet
The Hay’s Revolving Cash Register (lot 133) is one of Jon’s favourite general store items. Crafted in 1907 in Woodstock, Ontario, this rare patented cash register was a remarkable innovation for its time. When the till is opened, the register revolves to display the purchase total to the customer. Upon closing the till after the money is placed inside, the register swivels to face the cashier again, ready to record the next transaction. Perhaps the first step on a century-long journey to the self-checkout kiosk.
When asked to explain his motivation for building such a diverse collection, Jon admits, “I have always denied it, but like many others, I have been a long-time hoarder. But more to the point, I enjoy the hobby and it allows me to interact with other collectors and to learn from them and to share long-standing friendships.”
Jon Church's journey, from his small-town Ontario roots to his overseas adventures and career on Parliament Hill, mirrors the richness and diversity of the objects he collected. The upcoming sale at Miller & Miller offers collectors the opportunity to take a page from Jon’s book, and carry the stories of Canada's past into the future.
Story by Tess Malloy
Tess is a freelance writer and history enthusiast who enjoys unearthing interesting stories about remarkable people and objects. Tess has written for The Miller Times for six years.
SALE DETAILS:
Canadiana, Advertising & Historic Objects
Featuring the Jon Church Collection
June 16, 2024 | 9am EST