Ken's Journal
No. 6 - Summer 2007

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
August 16-20, 2007 - Days 32-36 on the road. Part III.
  • The next museum I visited was the Yarmouth County Museum. This is one of the best county museums I've seen - it appeared to be housing local artifacts collected over the years and was very well organized and presented. Most local museum's I've seen appear to be poorly funded collections of stuff that didn't sell at local yard sales. This one is definitely a few levels above those.

The main hall as you enter the museum. It's housed in what used to be a large and elaborate church.

This is the ceiling - elaborate and finely finished wood and detail.

A nice collection of Shipwright's tools.

Hmmm. Can you guess what this is?

This is a Concert Roller Organ. This particular one was built in 1902. The crank on the front turns a wooden cylinder which has a pattern of metal pins and pumps a bellows. When this thing is played, the pins operate a series of valves and the air pumped by the bellows makes a sound similar to a full-sized organ.

Rolls for the Concert Roller Organ. The museum has 47 of these rolls, most of which are hymns.

These two stagecoaches were owned by a Stagecoach business founded sometime around 1865. This business ran coaches on routes between Yarmouth, Pubnico and Tusket. The coach on the left was made in Concord, NH sometime in 1965. In operation, it was pulled by four to six horses and carried up to fifteen passengers - nine inside and six outside, in addition to bags of mail . . ! I'm sure it was a right cosy ride . . ! The paint on upper part of the coach is original. The undercarriage was repainted in 1970 to match the original appearance. The coach on the right is believed to have been made in Yarmouth about the same time. This one is a bit more utilitarian and probably carried the common rabble and cargo.

Just a cosy kitchen tableau . . .

Inside of a third order fresnel lens. You can see this lens in the first picture of the main hall on the far right. I'm not sure what lighthouse this came from though.

So, did you guess what that yellow thing was for? No? I'd have never got it either - It's called a Kolon Motor. It's a device that was patented and used during the 1930s and 1940s. The base of the device would have been mounted on your bathroom wall with the base in a vertical position. The contoured plate was placed on your abdomen and when you rotated the handles on the side, the contoured plate would rotate, massaging your abdomen. The plate of the Kolon Motor is a similar shape as your colon (large intestine). It's intended purpose was to "massage" your colon, presumably relieving or preventing constipation. Basically, a mechanical laxative!!

 

 
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