Photography at Park House - Park House Museum

Bringing History to Life Through Photographs

Bringing History to Life Through Photographs is a working exhibit, and we will continue to add new videos that feature past Amherstburg residents, buildings and stories of interest. Click on each photo to see an enlarged view.

Head and shoulders black and white photo of a World War I soldier with a moustache.

Corporal Albert Edward Thomas

Albert was born on November 9th, 1890. He was a dredgeman (sic) by profession with brown hair and eyes, and stood 5′ 10 1/2″.

Cpl. Thomas joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) in 1914 with his brother Murray and left with Amherstburg’s first contingent in August of that year. He was among the first volunteers in town. He was “reported wounded at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle” in March of 1915. Bert had received a superficial gunshot wound to the head, but he was discharged from the hospital and returned to the 1st Battalion on April 4th, 1915.

Cpl. Thomas was listed as killed in action between April 22 and April 30, 1915.

Letters Home, 1914- 1919 p. 3; 12
Marsh Historical Collection
Library and Archives Canada

Elizabeth Park Slack and her children Charles-Benjamin Slack and Kate Slack

The original painting hangs in the parlour above the piano at the Park House Museum.

Elizabeth Park Slack was the youngest sister of the Park Brothers. She was born in December of 1813 and married Colonel Thomas W. Slack in the mid-1830’s. Although her brothers moved to Upper Canada, she remained in the United States. The portrait was painted by C.A. Band of Boston in 1845.

Elizabeth Park Slack died in July of 1847. Theodore Park Sr. named his daughter Elizabeth after his young sister.

Kate was born in 1836 and died in 1920. Benjamin became a Major and lived a well travelled life before he died in New Orleans in 1897.

Elizabeth Park, daughter of Theodore, became the owner of the beautiful portrait and willed it to Elizabeth and William Aikman. upon her death in 1941.

The portrait underwent an extensive restoration in 1984 and has hung in the parlour since.

Painting Source: Park House Museum Collection
Letter from Lyman Perry October 19, 1884, Park Family History
Amherstburg Echo April 16,1897

Coloured image in an ornate gold frame of a young mother with a boy and a girl.

Black and white photo of middle-aged man in Victorian suit standing with hand on table.

Theodore Jones Park

Mr. Park was born in Framingham, MA on July 11, 1811, the second youngest of 12 children. He came to Upper Canada in the early 1830s to work for his older brothers, John R. and Thomas.

In 1839, he moved into the current Park House Museum, where he resided and operated the Amherstburg expansion of the Park Brothers business. Together they owned much of the dockage until the 1860s.

In 1853 he married the girl next door, Caroline Francis Kevill, and they had seven children between 1854 and 1873.

He was a successful businessman, the proprietor of the Lakeview Hotel (1877 – 1884), an additional business partner with his nephew, and a mason.

Mr. Park died on Sunday, March 23rd, 1884 at the age of 72 years, 8 months, and 17 days.

Photo Source: Copy, Park House Museum Collection
Park Family History
The Parke Society 1985 – Vol. XXII, No 3
Amherstburg Echo, March 28, 1884

Part 2