Jack Hanna
Is the reverend at a Centretown church now sitting behind the desk that once belonged to Thomas D’Arcy McGee, the famous Father of Confederation?
That’s the tantalizing tale being told about the newly installed, elegant minister’s desk at Knox Presbyterian Church at Elgin and Lisgar.
“It’s pretty cool to think D’Arcy McGee perhaps was seated at this desk when he wrote the soaring speeches championing the creation of Canada,” says Knox’s Rev. Jim Pot.
The story making the rounds at the church is that, long ago, someone donated the elegant desk to Knox. It was set aside in the church’s basement boiler room. There it remained, covered in dust and junk, until recently when a volunteer handyman decided to lovingly bring it back to life.
And so now a beautiful antique desk has prominence of place in Pot’s office at Knox.
But is it actually the desk of the famous and tragic Father of Confederation?
The BUZZ made inquiries at Knox.
One old-timer recalls being told long ago that someone who worked at the national archives had obtained the desk from his workplace and donated it to Knox. But the old-timer never was told the name of the donor.
In recent months, a member of the congregation decided to investigate. Alison Hare is a historian and former journalist who has written a book-length history of Knox.
She could think of one individual from Knox’s past who would fit the bill as the donor.
Norman Fee, who died in 1973, was a long-time and active member of Knox. He also was a senior executive at the Public Archives of Canada (now Library and Archives Canada).
Hare turned up a fascinating clipping of an interview with Fee in The Ottawa Citizen in 1957.
A Citizen writer interviewed Fee upon his retirement after a distinguished career. Fee had worked at the Archives for 50 years, literally, and held a variety of senior positions, including Deputy Dominion Archivist.
Fee had a favourite story to tell the journalist. He said that, in his office at the Archives, he sat at D’Arcy McGee’s desk.
Fee was quoted as saying he had discovered the desk while “poking around” in the basement of the Langevin Building on Wellington Street (recently renamed Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council). Documents in the desk drawers attested to it having been McGee’s. Fee had the desk moved to his office.
That is all the newspaper piece says about Fee and the McGee desk.
In the early years of the Archives, officials used historical artifacts in their offices. For instance, visitors to the office of Sir Arthur Doughty, Dominion Archivist until 1935, could plunk down on General James Wolfe’s leather campaign chair. (Wolfe was the victorious commander at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, where Britain seized Canada from France.)
Until the 1960s, the Archives had one of Canada’s foremost museums. But exhibit space was limited to three rooms and so artifacts were displayed in hallways and offices. As one historian put it, “Nearly every usable surface was considered an opportunity to showcase the collection.”
Fee might indeed have sat at the desk of D’Arcy McGee.
However, there’s no known written record of Fee taking the desk from his workplace, or of him donating it to Knox.
The oak desk with new black leather top looks right at home in the minister’s office in Knox, amid Gothic stonework and varnished oak millwork.
And, of course, the fable that the desk once belonged to the prominent D’Arcy McGee adds to its lustre.
McGee was a journalist, poet, leading politician, and famed lyrical orator. He served in Sir John A. Macdonald’s government and was a champion of Confederation.
In the wee hours of April 7, 1868, McGee famously was assassinated by a gunman outside the Sparks Street rooming house where he had lodgings.
A charismatic orator, McGee was renowned. At his funeral procession in Montreal, an estimated 80,000 people jammed the route in a city with just 105,000 residents.
The desk at Knox is of a style called a partner desk, fashionable during McGee’s time. A partner desk is meant for two people, seated opposite each other across the desk. There are knee holes and drawers on both sides.
In the 1800s, the partner desk was popular with executives. It combined prestige with practicality. An important man had to have a magnificent desk. But he also needed to be able to hand documents back and forth to a colleague. The partner desk was the answer.
Of course Knox’s minister Pot knows the legend that his new/old desk belonged to McGee is tenuous. But it’s still a terrific tale.
“Who knows?” says the grinning clergyman, “D’Arcy’s ghost could be sitting right across from me while I’m working on next Sunday’s sermon.”
