July 27, 2008 (Sunday): Merrickville to Burritts Rapids (twice)

We were delighted to find the Merrickville United Methodist Church right across the bridge on Lawrence Street, so that is where we went to worship this morning. Luckily we had checked in advance and knew that the service had been moved up to 9:30 am during the summer so we were on time. This stone church construction dates back to 1890 when the congregation outgrew their original small stone church nearby. The curved church pews were crafted out of bead boards and had unique end pieces. The ends were ornate cast iron likely forged in the furnace we saw yesterday in the museum. The wood was a beautiful honey color and I just have to comment that the old folks must have been smaller than we were because the seats were somewhat shallow. In 1909 The Carnegie Foundation helped the church obtain the pipe organ which is still in use. Today the music was from an upright piano played by a church member who was thanked for playing by the minister. Reverend Christine Lowson led the service with a message from Matthew 13: 31-34. Her message was on how we are ministers of the Kingdom of God and she expounded on the mustard seed analogy with a description of how mustard will take over a garden where it is planted, and about how it was used to add flavor to food and also valued as a medicine. The service closed with congregational reading:

Blessing:

Go forth, you yeast of the Kingdom of God and let the hope rise.

Go forth, you pesky mustard ministers and watch the yield of grace grow.

Go forth, you treasures of God’s delight and live in faithfulness.

May Creator, Christ, and Spirit abide with us and hold us in love’s welcoming embrace.

Since church was over so early, we decided to take a bicycle ride before lunch. On our ride headed northeast on highway 2 we discovered so many horse farms you would have thought we were in Kentucky. Many had huge indoor riding rings and acres of corrals and split rail enclosed pastures. The fashionable equines wore their Sunday blankets even in July. All along the way we passed a variety of home architectures. There were normal modern suburban homes, neat farm houses amongst the barns, and some very rustic log cabins. There were also lock houses built of limestone is a very familiar two story house with arching stonework over the door ways. We read that many of these were built by masons who built their own homes close to the river during the canal construction These old houses some times were fenced in by hand laid low stone fences.

When we arrived at Burritts Rapids, we stopped at the General Store, built in 1851, for a fresh banana muffin which we snacked on in the sunshine outside on a picnic table. Across the street was the large stone mansion built in 1793 as Burritts Rapids was founded by Col. Stephen Burritt, who was a British Loyalist from Connecticut, who moved north after the American Revolution. We rode our bikes across the wooden swing bridge over the canal that had to be rotated for us to come through on our boat. When we reached the locks, we stumbled on a community festival which included a children’s fishing tournament and a hot dog roast by the local Rotary Club. It was fun to have a hot dog with them by the locks and I saw three fish caught while we were dining. Back on the River Road we completed the loop cycling back to Merrickville for a 12 mile roundtrip. We cast off around 2:00 pm to head back towards Hurst Marina and wound up waiting an hour and a half to get into the first lock because of a medical emergency on a boat below us in the locks. After descending the first set of three locks, we pulled into a marina to get some water. There was a white headed guy in a powder blue polo shirt and khaki shorts standing on the dock and as soon as I heard him speak I knew he was from the south. Sure ‘nuff, he was from Atlanta and he and a friend from Virginia were in a boat spending the summer in the locks.

What is really fun is that we have taken the boat back to Burritts Rapids tonight and are now docked by the picnic table where we had lunch. Docked next to us is a large touring boat making the run from Kingston to Ottawa. It carries 47 passengers and has been filled on every journey since 1980. We met one of the travelers who was familiar with New Bern, the Trent River, and had had his boat docked at the Sheraton for a while. It is a small world.