Led by Carolyn Beacroft the seven stitchers from Chatham Kent have created their own additional panel. Left to right pictured they are Bernie Morrell, Mary Robertson, Carolyn Beacroft, Karen Macdonald, Diana Overholt, Claudette Rowles and Yvonne Robb.
It tells the story of how Lord Selkirk had hoped a new settlement could be created in Baldoon in 1804/ 1818 but the land proved too marshy so the settlers moved to higher ground to found Wallaceburg. Learning of the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry’s tales of settlement in Canada, the local Tulip Tree Needlarts Guild led by Carolyn Beacroft and Katherine McFadden designed and stitched their own. We knew nothing of this in Prestonpans until they contacted us with the finished artwork telling their story.
Their exhibition, for which we forwarded all the other 37 Canadian panels shown, runs until the end of October when it transfers to Guelph for a month which already had a panel in the original tapestry.
It’s been a hazardous journey for the original 37 tapestry panels getting to Chatham-Kent, with DHL querying the Carnet paperwork and routing via Cincinnati but all was well in time for the Opening Ceremony. Suitably attired left to right Karen Macdonald represents local Scots, Brenda Travis next whose ancestors came to Canada as fugitive slaves on the famous underground railway and finally Carolyn Beacroft herself whose ancestors were United Empire Loyalists who fled from the US after its revolutionary war.
