Project to turn historic Moore House into aviation museum begins
Posted Mar 4, 2010 By Jeff Maguire
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Tweet ThisEMC News - Work began Monday on interior renovations to the historic Moore House, on Bridge Street opposite the Carleton Place Town Hall. By this summer it is expected an aviation museum centred on the remarkable story of local World War I ace Captain A. Roy Brown will open in the log structure.
Councillor Jerry Flynn, the town's representative on the fledgling 'Roy Brown Society' which is responsible for the museum, told a committee meeting last week he expects the long awaited interior renovations will be completed in 60 days.
"We've given ourselves a two-month window here and I expect the building will be accessible to us (the committee) by the first of May," Flynn states.
The society, headed by Carleton Place businessman Rob Probert, is still very much at the formative stage. But three official meetings have now been held. Members and volunteers, recruited partly as the result of a plea for assistance issued in the EMC in January, are in the midst of compiling data for the museum and aviation/avionics archives which will also be established.
Besides the large number of war-time pilots from Carleton Place the community also has a long history in the avionics industry, related to several industries past and present, which have played significant roles in the aviation history of Canada and the world.
Probert says only a small part of the available records, along with some donated artifacts, will be housed in the museum initially.
"It will be a fairly small space," he observes.
However, data and materials will be compiled and stored with the objective of putting them in a larger facility which is the long-term plan of the Roy Brown Society. The group is working closely with Carleton Place head librarian Janet Baril in terms of how to safeguard and store numerous historical documents.
The town's unofficial historian Brian Costello, a long-time council member who served three terms as mayor of Carleton Place, is an active member of the society. He is playing a major role in terms of collecting and archiving materials, mainly due to his close friendship with surviving members of the Brown family, including the famed airman's only surviving child, Margaret Harmon-Brown.
She has donated numerous family artifacts, all related to her famous father, some of which will be displayed in the new museum in Moore House.
Council set aside $150,000 in the 2010 capital budget to pay for the required renovations to the home which has been the source of considerable controversy since it was purchased by the town in 2007. In April of that year the building was moved from its original location on Moore St. to the current site adjacent to the municipal parking lot, opposite the Town Hall.
Positive move
Flynn is confident that despite public concern about how much money has gone into moving and improving the log structure, one of the town's oldest surviving buildings, the current program will be a success.
"I think everyone would like to see something positive happen with the house," Flynn says. "Here is the opportunity."
In terms of an official opening for the aviation museum, plans are strictly at the formative stage.
"I see no reason why that can't happen this summer," Flynn predicts.
Among the initial ideas discussed by the small committee are an opening reception and the establishment of a photo display which would be open to visitors to the community, hopefully on a regular basis.
Plans will be made and refined as the committee continues its deliberations. Probert says details will be publicized as they become available.
Ultimately the society and town council would like to see an interpretive centre and museum established, possibly in Roy Brown Park an as yet undeveloped site at the end of Lake Ave. W.
But that could be years down the road, once necessary funding has been acquired something that's expected to be a lengthy process.
At the centre of the planned museum will be the exploits of local hero Brown.
Costello authored the 1979 book 'A Nursery of the Air Force', about Roy Brown and 14 other Great War (World War I) pilots from Carleton Place. He has worked closely with family friend Mrs. Harmon-Brown to secure important artifacts and memorabilia associated with her father which have now been formally donated to the society. She visited Carleton Place last October to iron out the final details.
In an exclusive interview with the EMC Harmon-Brown, 88, who now lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina (near Asheville), said she is thrilled steps are being taken, in his hometown, to formally recognize her late father's contribution to the story of flight.
"We (surviving family) are all so proud of him and what he accomplished."
Local native Captain Arthur 'Roy' Brown is the First World War flying ace credited with shooting down famous German aviator Baron Manfred von Richthofen in 1918. At the time of his death the German flyer had recorded 80 "kills" the most of any pilot during World War I.
Aerial duel
It was on Sunday, April 21, 1918, in the skies over war-torn France, that the aerial duel which would end with the Baron's death occurred. It was Brown, 24, who was responsible for downing the man who would eventually become world famous as the 'Red Baron'.
Following the war he went on to establish an aviation firm which helped open Canada's then undeveloped north. He died in 1944 at the tender age of 50, partly as a result of injuries sustained in a plane crash in England near the end of WW I from which he never fully recovered.
Besides the Brown story the museum will also detail the lives of other Great War pilots from Carleton Place as well as the community's connection to the "bush pilot era" following the war (which helped open Canada's far north) as well as the largely untold story of World War II pilots from the town.
Important sidelights will be Carleton Place's proud tradition of military service. The town had the second highest level of service, per capita, of any community in Canada during the two world wars. A total of 99 local citizens perished in World War I, World War II and the Korean War.
Also included in the aviation museum will be material on the town's involvement in the flight recorder and instrument industry (mainly through the former Leigh Instruments) and more recently the aero-space industry through such firms as Leigh, its successor DRS Flight Safety and Communications and the Ottawa firm Neptec Design Group, which was founded by Carleton Place resident Paul Nephin. Neptec is a prime contractor for NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States) including working on the Space Shuttle program.
Anyone who has information which might be of assistance to the society is asked to contact chairman Probert by e-mail at: rob@canada-career.com.
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