Anthony Flower House, The Life and Art of a Country Painter: Anthony Flower (1792-1875), Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

The Anthony Flower House

by Dawn Bremner

Queens County Historical Society and Museum Inc.

When Anthony Flower arrived on the Washademoak Lake, Queens County, New Brunswick in the spring of 1818, he built himself a small frame home consisting of a field stone cellar and two rooms, one up and one down. With his marriage and the arrival of children some pieces were added to his house: an extension to include a pantry, entry way and small bedroom, as well as (we believe) stairs to the upper room. Then over his long life space was added as required until the house and cellar were doubled in size. Years after his demise, in the early twentieth century his descendants added the dormers.

It is significant that no one ever lived in the Flower House except the artist, his family and their wives and children. The ultimate full-time tenant was a grandson, and from the late 1940s a great-grandson, James H. Flower, used it as a summer residence. After Jim’s passing in October 2001, just after his hundredth birthday, the house was offered to the Queens County Historical Society and Museum Inc. with the condition that it be moved.

In August and September 2002 after much debate, decisions were made about the future of The Flower House. The Queens County Museum purchased many important artefacts from the house for safekeeping. A suitable lot of land was purchased near the centre of the Village of Cambridge-Narrows, and after a year’s preparation, on September 17, 2003 the House and the small separate summer kitchen were moved four kilometres to the new site. There it was placed on a new foundation faced with field stones collected from the original cellar. Now it stands with the same orientation to the Lake, and is slowly undergoing thoughtful restoration and refurbishment.

In its next incarnation it will be a House Museum open to the public as a memorial to the life of this important and prolific regional artist and will seek to interpret Anthony Flower’s life as an artist, farmer and patriarch in rural nineteenth century New Brunswick.