Chalk signature of P.E.I.’s Province House architect emerges after more than 170 years

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CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — When Ian Scott gazes up at one of many beams within the Confederation Chamber at P.E.I.’s Province Home, he cannot consider what he is seeing.

On the beam, there is a signature in chalk that reads “Mr I Smith.” Scott mentioned he’s satisfied it belongs to Isaac Smith, the architect who designed and constructed Province Home Charlottetown within the 1840s.

Scott’s private connection to the Island architect is thru his spouse, who’s certainly one of Smith’s great-great-great-granddaughters.

Delving into household historical past, Scott has explored artifacts shedding mild on the Island architect, with many objects bearing his signature.

The current discovery of the signature in Province Home occurred through the ongoing restoration of this historic web site.

Scott and one other Smith descendant, Kathy Giant, have been invited by Parks Canada on a tour of the location on Nov. 15 to verify the authenticity of the signature.

Scott mentioned he couldn’t consider the writing had endured for greater than 170 years.

“It was very thrilling, very thrilling to really see that signature had survived, hidden beneath layers of wooden and plaster and paint all these years, solely to be revealed years later, many generations later, for descendants,” he informed SaltWire in an interview Nov. 15.

As for Giant, the sight of the signature and the tour deepened her understanding of her great-great-great-grandfather.

“It will need to have been an thrilling day when he truly took the time to jot down his signature with that piece of chalk up on the beam above us,” she mentioned.

‘Connection to the previous’

Smith, alongside together with his household, moved from North Yorkshire, England to P.E.I. in 1817.

Together with his brother, Henry Smith, and enterprise accomplice Nathan Wright, they shaped the agency Smith Brothers & Wright, which performed a key function in developing Province Home, beginning in 1843. The legislature first met in Province Home in 1847, and closing touches have been accomplished in 1848.

Through the Nov. 15 tour, Scott introduced alongside household objects, together with books handed down from the architect, that includes his signature.

After fastidiously evaluating the signatures on these books with the one on the beam, Scott believes they match.

“It is fairly superb as a result of it is a connection to the previous,” Scott mentioned. “There is a very outdated custom through which carpenters have signed inside hid partitions. There’s additionally custom of placing hid objects in partitions. Child sneakers have all the time been put inside partitions.”

As Giant observes the signature, it evokes reminiscences of her aunt, Marianne Morrow, who extensively researched Isaac Smith and printed an article about him within the Island Journal in 1985.

“My aunt did a whole lot of unique analysis on Isaac Smith and his relationship to our household. And she or he would like to be right here right now to see the proof and the connection that the signature locations Isaac Smith inside this constructing, as a result of she spent many, many hours in archives, each right here in P.E.I. and in England, gathering details about Isaac Smith. So, it is very thrilling from that standpoint as properly,” Giant mentioned.

Thinh Nguyen is a reporter with SaltWire in Prince Edward Island. He may be reached by e mail at [email protected] and adopted on X @thinhnguyen4291.