Welcome

Welcome

Neilson Store Museum Watercolour by Peter G. S. Large
Neilson Store Museum Watercolour by Peter G. S. Large

Amherst Island’s Neilson Store Museum and Cultural Centre opened its doors in 2004. The Museum highlights Island artifacts from Islanders and their history. Items in the collection include the 1857 Wm. Perceval Manuscript Map, and the M.V. Amherst Islander’s ship’s wheel, bell, and logs. Designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, the Museum building itself is also an exhibit having once been owned by James S. Neilson, an Island grain merchant who opened his first general store in 1873. The store remained in the Neilson family for one hundred years.



MUSEUM VIRTUAL TOUR

Please take a virtual tour of the Neilson Store Museum and the Weasel & Easel. This wizardry will let you stroll around the Museum in your browser with the click of a button, all from the comfort of your home. Explore the space, read the points of interest and look forward to a sojourn to our Island in person, post-Covid.

YOUR MUSEUM

We continue to receive artifacts for our collection. If you discover family collectibles that you think are valuable and worthwhile documenting, then please consider sharing your family treasures and heirlooms with us and your fellow Islanders. We are accepting artifacts as donations to the Museum, or on a “lending” basis that will be returned to you, after using in our displays. We have books that outline the history of Amherst Island that we will lend out, 1857 Amherst Island maps for sale, as well as a “Birds of Amherst Island” poster and “Stone Walls of Amherst Island” booklets for sale. Simply contact one of the Museum Board members: Anders Bennick President, Bruce Burnett, Peter Large, Isla Viscount, Karen Miller, Warren Kilpatrick, Janet Scott, David Fleming and Thomas Sylvester. The Museum thanks Bonnie Livingstone and Carol Glenn for their many years of stellar service on the Board.

Your Lifetime Membership $10 supports our building the collection.

We encourage you to get involved as a volunteer and are grateful for assistance with our talks, special exhibits and fund-raising events. You can also become a Museum member and/or donor (with a donation of $200 you will be recognized on our Donors’ Board at the Museum). Donations to your Island Museum are always welcome and are tax-deductible.

The Museum acknowledges that it is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat First Peoples. Regrettably there is little known of the Aboriginal peoples’ lives on Amherst Island.

Some recent additions to the Amherst Island History:

William Perceval 1857 Manuscript Map of Amherst Island

Alphabetical List of Amherst Islanders shown on the William Percival 1857 Map

1935 Assessment Roll description

1935 Assessment Roll Township of Amherst Island

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