New Canadian Church Historical Society journal focuses on the Mohawk Institute in the 1870s
[Anglican Church of Canada] The Canadian Church Historical Society has published a special edition of its annual Journal, focusing on the Mohawk Institute, the oldest continuously operated residential school in Canada. Entitled Documents of the Mohawk Institute: The Journals and Reports of Robert Ashton, 1872-1876 and the Diary of Alice Ashton, 1877, the volume consists of primary sources.
Robert Ashton (1843–1930) was superintendent of the Mohawk Institute as an employee of a charity called the New England Company, based in London, England. He arrived in October 1872 with his wife Alice Turner Ashton (1840–1920), who worked as matron. They took up leadership of the institute along new lines proposed by the New England Company, bringing the first radical changes to the school in forty years.
The introduction gives the background information that is required to make sense of the Ashton journals. The historical documents that follow include Robert Ashton’s journals and reports from 1872 to 1876 and Alice Ashton’s diary of 1877, with minimal footnoting. The result is a small book that sets out the terrain of, and the influences on, the Mohawk Institute in the 1870s.
Read the entire article, including how to obtain a copy of this edition of the Journal, here.
