Sudbury, Ontario, author releases book on Chapleau, Ontario, Residential Schools

Submitted by William McLeod

William E. “Bill” McLeod has just released his 408-page book “St. John’s (Anglican) Residential Schools, Chapleau, Ontario, 1907 to 1948.”

Like many other residential schools, St. John’s was funded by the Federal Government and administered by the Anglican Church. There were two schools at separate locations. The first operated between 1907 and 1921 and the second between 1921 and 1948.

During the years the schools operated, more than 100 children died, mostly from tuberculosis.  Many are buried in a hidden or lost cemetery on the outskirts of the town of Chapleau.

Hundreds of pupils were brought to the schools from as far north as Moose Factory, Ontario, and Waswanipi and Mistissini in Northern Quebec.  The hometowns of some of the children stretched from Montreal to Sarnia.

The children were ill fed, ill shod, ill clothed and were denied medical care except in the most dire of circumstances.  They were severely beaten and/or humiliated for the most trivial of offenses.

They spent only about eight hours a week in the classroom as opposed to the mandatory 27.5 hours in Ontario’s elementary schools and they were all kicked out at the end of the term following their 16th birthday.  They were subjected to more hours of religious indoctrination than in learning to read, write and do basic arithmetic.  Much of their time was taken up with hard physical labor.

Rev. George Prewer, Principal of the schools from 1913 to 1923 was the personification of evil but his reign of terror ended in 1922 when Andrew Chisholm, a lawyer from London, Ontario, went to Chapleau and took sworn statements from the parents of a number of abused children.  He sent the statements to Ottawa along with a thinly veiled threat to take the matter public if Principal Prewer was not removed.  He was gone in a matter of months.

I could not find out who engaged Andrew Chisholm, who paid him or if he was ever paid.

There is no shortage of villains in McLeod’s book.  He writes about six bad Anglican Bishops, all of whom turned a blind eye to what was going on at the schools.  Three were out and out racists who were not at all shy about making their feelings about the area Cree Aboriginals known – in writing.

The book retails for $29.95 and information on how to purchase a copy can be obtained by phoning the author at 705-522-3858 or by e-mailing him at wemcleod@sympatico.ca.  His website is billmcleodbooks.com