memories of 1870

[piranha]

butter church, comiaken hill, cowichan bay the photo is processed. :) black and white looks much more "right" for how the place felt. it's desolate.

this stone church was built 1870 by a father rondeault. it was financed by the sale of butter from the church dairy herd which the good father allegedly churned himself, and it's therefore known as "the butter church". church politics lead to the abandonment of the building in favour of nearby st. ann’s -- i am curious what those politics were because st. ann's is really close, and it makes no sense to me to build another church this close when people from as far as shawnigan came to worship here.

the windows and doors of the butter church were taken to saltspring island were they remain in st. paul’s church -- i gotta go check that out. there were no wooden pews, the congregation sat on mats on the floor back then.

walklog:

04-30 somenos marsh, somenos garry oak preserve; butter church 2.57 km 1:32. the garry oak preserve is gorgeous. so small, but beautiful. must write a separate post on it.

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

That's lovely, really atmospheric.

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

butter church

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks -- i really like how it came out after i did a bit of fiddling to get a dynamic contrast.

here's the original:
http://pics.livejournal.com/pleonastic/pic/000q9e3g

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Wow. Terrific picture.

butter church

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[flarenut.livejournal.com]

purty. Do you know the reasoning behind the no-pew business? Certainly lots of churches back then had them, but it might be a theological decision or (looking at the desolation of the area) simply a matter of resources.

[mayaknife.livejournal.com]

The desolate look is misleading. There are plenty of trees about now and there would have been more in 1870.

The resource lacking could have been time or money. It doesn't look like a church for a very large congregation.

butter church

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

no, i don't, except that it probably wasn't a matter of resources per se; the area is rich in those, especially wood.

it might be worth mentioning that the congregation was mostly native people. maybe they were used to sitting on the ground. or maybe the white folk decided that natives didn't need to sit on pews.

now i wonder whether st. ann's had pews. well, that should be easy to find out. services at the butter church were only held for 10 years before st. ann's was built -- and interestingly enough, st. ann's burned down several times (being a wooden church).

the sisters of st. ann ran a school and orphanage nearby -- they were in general quite instrumental in educational matters; they ran missions all over BC in the 1800s.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Nice one.

Is it a shingle roof? It looks almost holeless.

butter church

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yes, wooden shingles. it has some holes, but remarkably few.