117-year-old window falls victim to act of vandalism

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

To whoever broke it, it might have been just a window.

But that certainly wasn’t the case when the etched glass window was made 117 years ago.

The window was one of a pair gracing the front entrance doors of Churchill Mansion Inn in Darlings Lake. Over the weekend the window, along with several mailboxes in the area and a sign outside the inn, were vandalized.

Bob Benson, owner of the inn, is discouraged by the damage that happened in the early morning hours of Sunday, Aug. 3.

“We can get a duplicate made but it’s still not the original, that’s the point,” he says about the smashed window. “It’s gone, never to return.”

Benson says it’s a shame that people don’t realize what they’re destroying when they break or damage the property of others.

The design in the etched glass, he also notes, is carried throughout some of the architecture of the mansion, which was built in 1891. The company Kinney and Haley Manufacturing were responsible for the windows and other interior work, says Benson.

There was nothing found near the broken window to indicate something had been thrown through it. The damage, along with about five knocked over mailboxes on the road, was reported to the RCMP.

Benson says there was a party happening down the road when the damage occurred, but he doesn’t know if the two are connected.

This has been the first case of damage at the inn, where something irreplaceable has been destroyed.

“It seems that the local people respect the mansion, and that was true all of the years when the mansion was vacant,” says Benson who brought the building in 1981. Prior to that it had sat empty for many years.

Aside from losing something original to the construction, Benson’s other concern is how this reflects on the area in the eyes of tourists.

“We had guests that night that were from Texas, Minnesota, Fredericton, Germany and Newfoundland, so they all were aware and they’ll go home and say we stayed there and there was vandalism, that’s not a good image for Yarmouth.”

Particularly, he says, when tourism is already taking a hit due to low numbers.

But if operators are lucky, tourists come and go.

The window, on the other hand, is just gone.