immigration – Swamp Ward and Inner Harbour History Project

Harvest Time on Pine Street, ca. 1970

Laura Murray October 3, 2018 Children and Youth

What’s new and happening today — planting gardens, organic food, chickens in the back yard — that’s what we did! Our whole back yard was…

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Mary Tutak Boswick, a Polish Kingstonian

Laura Murray July 5, 2018 Featured 3 Comments

SWIHHP is delighted to have a guest blog post this month from Joan McCulloch, telling the story of her grandmother’s arrival in Kingston in 1913.…

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Real Fathers, Real Sons

Laura Murray June 17, 2018 Children and Youth 4 Comments

Fernando Monte and Bill Cassidy both live on Raglan Road. Both were raised Catholic, found fulfillment in the arts — and they are exactly the…

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The Swamp Ward and Inner Harbour History Project aims to document the history of two of the oldest areas of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. For Indigenous people through centuries, Ka’tarohkwi was a good place to fish, to gather, to trade. After Europeans arrived, the Inner Harbour became industrial, complete with railroads, factories, and docks; the Swamp Ward, adjacent to it, was where workers and their families lived, went to school, went to church, shopped, and played. The area continues to evolve in new ways. Through archival research and oral history, and starting with a focus on the twentieth century, SWIHHP brings people, time periods, spaces, and issues into Kingston’s story and out of the shadow of limestone buildings and celebrated politicians.