One of the most unique insights into the social history of Renfrew County will be played out this coming weekend in both Pembroke and Barry’s Bay.
The Opeongo Readers’ Theatre, a group of literary performers who have been entertaining audiences throughout the area for the past year, will launch a new show at the Pembroke Public Library on Saturday afternoon. The free performance, Ailments & Ointments: Dr. Codd’s Life in Pembroke, 1847, is based on a young physician’s private correspondence written 173 years ago and sent home to Norfolk, England. Dr. Codd set up his lone practice of medicine in what would eventually become the city of Pembroke, but back in 1847 it was simply a tiny village called Moffattville. (Photo above: Pioneers of Pembroke Township 1820 to 1850, Pembroke Heritage Murals, pembroke.ca)
It had fewer than two dozen homes that were little more than rustic shanties hewn out of the forest along the Ottawa River. It had two small stores, a grist and lumber mill and the beginings of two small churches, barely big enough to be considered chapels, one Catholic and one Methodist. But, in February, 1847, Moffattville also had it’s first and only physician, Dr. Francis Codd.
“It is no ordinary story,” said Barry Conway, the show’s producer. “The letters home of that 24-year-old physician who braved the elements to come to Canada along what was then the most westerly frontier of the Ottawa Valley — his letters open up such a rich and vivid window on the social and economic history of this city, this county, this country that they are like no others.”
Dr. Codd’s letters tell a wild, if personal, story of rough and ready lumberjacks involved in murder and mayhem, as well as humourous mishaps. For instance, Dr. Codd, after building the first sailboat to ever sail around Allumette Island, gets chased by a bear, nearly drowned in the Spring breakup, before ultimately escaping some equally rough and ready ladies hellbent on marriage. But those same letters also tell of the Pembroke to come, a place of bewildering beauty, bountiful nature and beneficent opportunity.
“The life he had here in 1847 was a strange mixture of deathly experiences, giddy inspiration, and sometimes withering disappointment,” added Conway. “But he’s got such a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed exuberance about him that, despite all he sees or suffers here on the frontier, you can’t help but notice how he slowly and surely falls in love with the best that this country has to offer.”
Ailments & Ointments: Dr. Codd’s Life in Pembroke, 1847 will be performed at the Pembroke Public Library, 237 Victoria St. at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, January 25 and again at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 26 at the old train Station in Barry’s Bay, home of the Opeongo Readers’ Theatre, where they help support The Station Keepers MV, a non-profit corporation set up to preserve and promote local culture and heritage. Admission is free to both shows, but donations to the Pembroke Public Library or The Station Keepers MV are much appreciated.
The show will also be recorded for podcast and available on The Opeongo Line, a free podcast in support of The Station Keepers MV.
Conway,B. Station Keepers MV (2020,Jan.18) Ailments & Ointments: Dr. Codd’s Life in Pembroke, 1847 [media release]
