In only two and a half months a national historic site in uptown Saint John, Loyalist House, was totally transformed and the organizer of the work, Barry Ogden, is a well known figure in the community.
The cost to restore the building which sits at the corner of Germain Street and Union Street was $600,000. Ogden says he went around and asked people to participate and says Irving Oil was the biggest sponsor and there’s 25 companies and contractors that donated their time.
“The whole community came together, and the community paid for this,” says Ogden. “I think that shows something about what we think of our history and what we think of ourselves.”
Ogden says one way for Saint John to become empowered is by believing in ourselves and to do that we need to know ourselves. He says the Loyalists were American exiles.
“They came from New York and New Jersey and this was the first large crowd of refugees in Canadian history and they came to Saint John, New Brunswick and 15,000 people arrived here in one year. And they slept in tents.”
Loyalist House itself was built between 1810 and 1817. Read about the re-opening of Loyalist House on Wednesday evening here.
