History of the Pitt Meadows Heritage and Museum Society

The Society began in 1977 and incorporated in 1980. It is the governing authority of the Pitt Meadows Museum and Archives, which includes both the Old General Store (1886 c.) site and the Hoffmann & Son Machine Shop (1936c) site, both located on Harris Road, South of the C.P.R. tracks. The Museum's main site, located in the Old General Store is a municipal designated heritage structure owned by the City of Pitt Meadows and is leased to the Museum Society. The Museum's second site, the Hoffmann and Son Machine Shop building, was donated to the Society and the community of Pitt Meadows in October 1999, by siblings Hans and Elfriede Hoffmann.

A meeting to organize a Heritage and Museum Society in Pitt Meadows was held at the Municipal Office on October 24^th, 1977. A constitution was later drawn up, and the Pitt Meadows Heritage and Museum Society was registered under the Societies Act.

The Charter Members were Henry W. Doerksen, Albert Black, John Harder, Alf Jensen, William Mitchell, Meryl MacGregor, R.F. Bailey, Isabel Karyula, Pamela B. Walker, and Marjorie Black.

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On October 24^th, 1977, in Pitt Meadows, an organizational meeting was called to consider the formation of a municipal heritage advisory committee. It was originally called the Pitt Meadows Historical Committee, but by January 11^th, 1978, the name was changed to the Pitt Meadows Heritage Society. The first bylaws and constitution were adopted on March 8^th, 1978, utilizing a copy of the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Heritage Society bylaws and constitution with a few changes. By October 11^th, 1978, the Society started calling themselves the Pitt Meadows Heritage and Museum Society which they are still called today. On December 13^th, 1978, they wrote to a local group, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Historical Society, asking them to remove the Pitt Meadows from their name, as the PMHMS had now established themselves and they didn’t want confusion between the two groups.

According to the original constitution of the Society, the purpose of the group was to promote study, research, and interest in the history of Pitt Meadows, to preserve and protect historical objects and sites in Pitt Meadows, to establish and maintain a museum in Pitt Meadows, to erect memorials, tablets and other objects of like nature to commemorate historical events and personages of the District, and to award prizes and give rewards for meritorious literature concerning the history of Pitt Meadows.

Originally the Society met and worked out of the “heritage room” at the Recreation Hall in Pitt Meadows. Members worked hard at establishing a museum and a historic house at 12480 Harris Road which was granted to the Society by the City of Pitt Meadows in 1979. This site would become the first museum in the community and would open its doors to the public on June 25^th, 1980. The PMHMS was incorporated as a Society in January 1980.

In 1980, the Society hired Annette Code to begin the process of cataloguing the objects in the museum. The work was short lived due to lack of funds, but Annette remained on as a volunteer and eventually became the President of the Society. Originally the Society had a large record book that kept a list of all the items within the collection. Each record was written in pencil with a drawing to accompany each object as photographs were too expensive for the small society at the time. On October 14^th, 1981, it was decided that a call out to the community for objects would be put in the gazette (local newspaper). It was decided that any objects with a connection to the history of Pitt Meadows would be collected. A committee was established on October 13^th, 1982, to determine what objects to keep and accession. It was a group of volunteers of the PMHMS that slowly worked to determine how collections should be taken in, managed, and processed.

By 1993, the collection was already outgrowing the small house, and the municipality offered the 19235 Davison Road building as a new museum which the Society accepted in 1994 on the condition that a larger acceptable site be found. The second site was larger than the first but still the collection was almost bursting at the seams. During the time at the Davison Road Site, the Maple Ridge Museum Curator Val Patenaude and Maple Ridge Historical Society President Sheila Nikols assisted with professional advice for the PMHMS in regard to their collections and setting up the new site. In October 1995, the Society hired Curator/Manager, Leslie Norman to attempt to modernize the collections (entering files into the newly purchased computer, update accession numbers, locate items that were not accessioned, conservation of existing collection). During this time, she created two more separate collection categories from the existing main collection: archives and teaching collection.

In December 1998, the Pitt Meadows Museum officially opened in their new site at the old General Store in Pitt Meadows (12294 Harris Road). This site would replace the small house on Davison Road. Late in 1999, Hans and Elfriede Hoffmann donated the Hoffmann and Son Site including the buildings and grounds to the Museum Society, which would become the secondary site of the PMHMS.

Today, The Pitt Meadows Heritage and Museum Society is still the governing body of the Pitt Meadows Museum and Archives. The collections are a reminder to the community about the history of Pitt Meadows. There are still first settler families who have descendants in the area who continue to contribute material and objects to the collections (McMyn, Park, Struthers, Austring).

The mission that the original group of citizens had was to collect and commemorate the history of Pitt Meadows. Although the mission hasn’t really changed almost 50 years on, the stories we are telling and collecting are changing. We are now collecting histories beyond the “white European” ones who also settled in the area. There has been a renewed focus on the Japanese Canadians that were here prior to 1942 (which we created updated signage for with a grant from the Japanese Canadian Legacy Fund),and the Indo-Canadians that were here as well. We have also created an exhibit in partnership with Katzie First Nation x̌ʷəq̓ʷəl's q̓ʷəyíləx the Wapato Dance: Katzie Harvesting, the Wapato Gathering and History which is on display in our main galleries.

The Pitt Meadows Heritage and Museum Society is here to tell all the histories of Pitt Meadows. We do our best to be the keepers of the history of the area, but we acknowledge that we just don’t have everything. We are working at building our histories to accurately represent the historical record of Pitt Meadows. It is slow but meaningful work that will continue on.

Thank you to all past, present and future members of the Pitt Meadows Heritage and Museum Society. The Pitt Meadows Museum and Archives would not be able to function without all of your hard work and dedication.