Trent University students getting hands dirty for Oshawa heritage

By Aly Beach/The Oshawa Express

In a partnership between Trent University and the Oshawa Museum, students are digging in the dirt to learn more about Oshawa’s heritage.

An excavation for artifacts is being done in areas around the Henry House, where the Oshawa Museum is located. Trent University archeology students have had a chance to look for artifacts in 2011 and 2015, and 2018 marks the first year they have dug on the north side of the Henry House.

According to Helen Haines, archeology professor at Trent University, the artifacts help to tell the real story of how people used to live, such as their class, income and eating habits.

“History is really, very good at recording what people think is important, but it doesn’t always tell you the stuff, later on you want know,” says Haines.

The Henry House is a valuable part of Oshawa’s history, and not just because the museum is there. Thomas Henry, who owned the house, was an early Irish settler in the City of Oshawa (formerly known as East Whitby Township) who came to Canada is 1811.

He worked as a judge’s attendant, a Christian reverend and served in the military during the War of 1812. The Henry family, much like the Guy and Robinson families, had a great impact on the early history of Oshawa.

As the land where the Henry House now sits was once a farm, there are plenty of historical ‘goodies’ to be found. In past excavations, students have found pottery pieces, nails, animal bones and intact cutlery. In 2011, coins dating back to 1885 and 1820 were found, the latter made prior to Canada’s Confederation.

While finding nails and animals bones may be important to learning about the site’s history, there have been many more interesting finds. For example, on May 9, students found a large six-inch nail. No one is sure what it was used for yet, but the discovery of it was exciting to participants.

“With the littlest finds, it’s always exciting. Like, ‘oh look, a piece of glass!’ but then when you see something like that [the nail], and it’s just really good,” says Terech.

Other discoveries made have changed the way the museum views the Henry family. While it was previously thought the Henrys were middle-class, the discovery of high-end imported pottery pieces says otherwise, according to Terech.

“It’s helping us learn a little bit more about the family and how they lived their lives…all of the pottery that they discarded has told us they had a lot more money than we assumed,” Terech explains.

The digging sites are established by creating test-pits, where a 30 cm wide and 30 to 45 cm deep hole is dug to determine artifact concentration. This year, a large portion of the former Henry family farm was tested and the area they decided on is also where the Oshawa Museum is planning their expansion.

The museum is planning to build a 10,000-square foot building north of the Henry House and west of the Robinson House. The building, currently set for completion in 2024, will create more room to store and display artifact and archival collections, and make new room for early Oshawa and East Whitby Township municipal records, which the museum is trying to bring home from the Archives of Ontario. The new building will also create more programming space.

“We’ve had occasions where we’ve had to turn groups away because we just simply don’t have the space to accommodate them,” says Terech, “And that’s not what we want to do, we want more people to come and experience [the museum]. “

The dig allows students to learn through experience, thanks to a partnership between the Oshawa Museum and Trent University. Haines says there was once a gap in where archeology students could gain hands-on experience, but the museum filled it in a “marriage made in heaven,” between the two organizations.