This is part two of a three-part series on the research, scripting, writing, and staging of the 15th annual Guided Spirit Walks at Victoria Lawn Cemetery. Read part one: character biographies.

Each year our annual Guided Spirit Walks feature a fresh, new script featuring original research. Sometimes familiar names make a return to the walks, especially when the script is set in an era similar to their previous appearance. The script for 2026 only has one historic person previously featured, however. This is especially remarkable considering the tour route through the cemetery is similar to the last few years, highlighting just how historic and important Victoria Lawn is to the story of our city.

In part two of this year’s accompany blog series (read part one here) I’m sharing some insights into the research and source material I used to craft the script.

Don’t miss our annual theatrical tours through Victoria Lawn Cemetery, September 10-12 and 17-19. Tickets and information are available on our website.

The Research Process

As I’ve written before, the research for our annual walks is so specific and focused by the names of the people included on the tour that I am always introduced to new (new to me, anyway) primary sources, archival materials, topics, and ideas. Even stories or topics I’ve researched before are often expanded or viewed through a new lens revealing another historical trail of crumbs to follow.

I’m often asked about the research process for the walks and it’s complicated to explain. The easiest way to explain it would be to have you come live inside my head from March to June when I’m working on putting it all together. In lieu of that, think of any multifaceted project where you have a desired outcome, but that outcome is susceptible to several variables and inputs along the timeline of the project. For example, the 1870s is a decade that has many options for historic persons to include since many of the “movers and shakers” from that era died around the same time (1900-1910) and are buried near to each other at Victoria Lawn. Indeed, over 30 different historic persons could make an appearance on this year’s tour without changing the route (but that would be a very long tour…). Tour route: check! The decade was much better documented than others, or at least official sources don’t have big gaps as earlier eras suffer (the 1820s is very challenging). Enough source material to craft a script: check! The number, age, gender of volunteer performers also dictates selection of historic persons for them to portray. There might be a two-dozen interesting persons to portray but if I don’t have the performers to portray them (age, gender, etc…) then they might not make the cut. Performers: check!

Put all those variables together and simultaneously look for (somewhat) interesting threads or crumbs of narrative and you’ve arrived at the starting line.

It’s most time and energy efficient to delay fully researching until those inputs are settled but often there are bits of narrative already at work. From there, interesting narrative that happened to or plausibly around or nearby the historic person can be included for use in the script. Since often it’s rare to have information by or about the specifics of one person, I use the historic environment around that person as a grounding for the narrative’s premise and dialogue.

Then, I go further to be able to answer several of my own historical-based questions but also to be able to answer questions that the performer or even the character might have. It’s an interesting thought exercise to think as a character might think and to ask questions that they might ask. One can only answer (plausibly, anyway) if the narrative and historic environment, not solely the biography of the person, are well developed.

Every archive has gaps and the Museum’s archives is no exception. However, we are extremely fortunate to have a very well developed and maintained archival collection, access to decades of research notes, newspapers, photographs, and more. Between our archival resources here at the Museum and other archives around the city, it’s not arduous to get to the bottom of some of those questions – at least for the 1870s. Other decades, not so much. But that’s a blog post for another time.

From there, I write and edit ad nauseum until I reach a sense of completeness marked by concise scene dialogue, character driven narrative, a fulsome narrative arch across the tour, and most importantly: I edit for time.

Source Material

Another exciting part of the research for the walks is how often I’m pulled in unexpected directions. This year, the walks were to be centered on the 150th anniversary of incorporation of the City of St. Catharines. Of course, St. Catharines had to be big enough already to become a city and the community has highlighted the anniversary this year as a way to mark not just the last 150 years of history but indeed the whole history of the city and community. Regardless, I thought there might be some exciting, thrilling political activity in 1875 and 1876 leading up to incorporation. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

The celebrations of incorporation in May 1876 seemed to be well attended. But it didn’t seem to capture the civic imagination of most people. Afterall, not much tangible change would have been registered in the daily lives of residents. One source that confirms this is the diary of Adam Borrowman. Kindly transcribed by descendants, the diary has one line about incorporation on May 8, 1876:

“A fine, rather cold morning. Went to the Young Men’s Prayer Meeting at 10 o’clock, thence to another prayer meeting afterward. Election today for our new City. Torch light procession and a bonfire at Church for another [prayer] meeting. Walk with Miss W. A. Splendid night and very warm and clear.”

Initially, I dismissed Borrowman’s diary because it really doesn’t include many observations about civic life and instead discusses his daily business as a clerk (busy or not busy) and his sometimes 3-a-day prayer meeting attendance. That is until I came upon several other clues about the social gospel movement arriving to St. Catharines in this era.

The social gospel movement was a prominent Protestant, intellectual, socio-political movement that peaked from the 1870s to the 1930s in the United States and Canada. It aimed to apply Christian ethics and biblical principles of justice and charity directly to collective social problems like industrial poverty, inequality, and child labor. Its influence was wide ranging, and its tenants were adopted widely from urban planning to public health.

The Ladies Christian Association, one of many, for instance began the efforts to organize and fundraise for the Protestant Home (children’s orphanage) in the 1870s. The business directories from the period are full of temperance organizations and men’s and women’s bible and prayer associations. The newspapers are full of the briefest descriptions of prayer and camp meetings but at such a frequency it’s hard to imagine there being enough people to sustain this activity. That is, until I realized how widespread participation in prayer meetings and associations of all kinds was to middle upper class residents.

Having studied it regularly, I knew and expected to see lots of social gospel activity because it was leading a lot of civic action in this period. But I was not expecting to find a full-blown protestant revival behind the vigor with which the movement applied its principles.

At least for Adam Borrowman and his bride-to-be Lily Wilson, prayer meetings were religiously significant but socially vital. The meetings were very well attended and the schedule of meetings and associations available to us from the business directories expose the popularity of such meetings. It sounds as if Adam and Lily were sincere adherents and participants in the revival movement, but they also enjoyed the social aspects and frequency of meetings. Like others of the Victorian era, good social standing (also good religious standing) was a vital foundation to financial success, friendships, and enjoyment in life.

Termed the “Third Great Awakening” (c. 1850s-1920s) and comprising of many branches, the revival movement spurred forward the social gospel movement in the 1870s so that it is difficult to tell the difference between the two sometimes. Famous Methodist preacher Pheobe Palmer visited Hamilton and led a months-long camp style prayer meeting in the mid-1850s which further inspired and brought the revival to St. Catharines. The language of social gospelers, especially where temperance was concerned, adopted much of the same language that the Holiness movement espoused, including sanctification and finding Christian perfection. Palmer’s enthusiastic religiosity was always paired arguments for ending child labour, the restriction of intoxicating liquors, and the relief of the poor and destitute. Solving social ills like drunkenness were instantly paired with being a good Christian, or famously: a good Christian solider. Increasing mechanization, industrialism, and urban development also encouraged the revival as adherents looked for the Kingdom of God to come to earth as the solution to the evils of capitalism and industrialism. Tied up together in the political arena, the social gospel movement and revival of the 1870s is incredibly important background to the “main event” of incorporation here in St. Catharines.

As widespread and influential as this revival was, there were many other threads that I pulled on to reveal just a little more of the background for incorporation. A new canal (the Third Welland Canal) under construction brought fearful changes to the city’s establishment industrialists. Increased immigration, encouraged by the new federal government brought people from all over the world to small cities like St. Catharines, rapidly changing the socio-cultural makeup of the once-small, mostly white, British, Irish or American population. Mechanization and electrification arrived on the scene, making available technologies that could alleviate poverty, seasonal labour, and support reforms in child and social welfare. Suddenly, there’s a lot more depth to the history of our city in 1876 than just municipal incorporation.

All these topics and more make their way into the pages of the script for this year’s walk, expanding our understanding and knowledge of our city on an important anniversary such as celebrated this year.

Come and experience the results of this research. Don’t miss our annual theatrical tours through Victoria Lawn Cemetery, September 10-12 and 17-19. Tickets and information are available on our website.

For those interested in a informal bibliography, the source material used for scripting this year’s walks include:

• Political history and research on incorporation contributed by Kathleen Powell.
• Individual reference files for families and individuals including Brownlee, St. John, Collier, Ranney, Copeland, and Barwick.
• Municipal Corporations (Baldwin) Act of 1849
• Diary of Adam Borrowman, St. Catharines Museum
• Obituaries as collected in “Sincerely Lamented” compiled by Paul Hutchinson
• Clippings from the St. Catharines Journal, St. Catharines Evening Standard, and the St. Catharines Consitutional
• Business Directories for 1875, 1875-1876, 1876, and 1877
• “A Walk Around Town: St. Catharines, Canada West, 1856” by Oliver Seymour Phelps (Junius), 1856.

Beardsley, Frank. A History of American Revivals. American Tract Society, 1904.

Brighty, Isabel McComb. The Diamond Jubilee History of the Protestant Home of St. Catharines, 1874-1934. St. Catharines, 1934.

Braun, Maggie. Evolution of Municipal Incorporation in Canada. KICLEI, 2024.

Long, Kathryn. The Revival of 1857-58: Interpreting an American Religious Awakening. Oxford University Press, 1997.

Handy, Robert. Social Gospel in America 1870-1920. Oxford University Press, 1966.

Smith, Timothy. Revivalism and Social Reform. Harper Torchbooks, 1957.

Stokes, Mary Margaret Pelton. Law, Autonomy, and Local Government: A Legal History of Municipal Corporations in Canada West/Ontario, 1850-1880. Osgoode Hall Law School, 2018.

Adrian Petry is a public historian, Visitor Services Coordinator for the St. Catharines Museum, and is the writer and director of the annual Guided Spirit Walks.