Former history teacher Janice Etter has a message for anyone who wants to shut down the Montgomery’s Inn museum.

“Hands off.”

A dedicated volunteer at the preserved tavern and inn, she loves everything about the lodgings run by Margaret Montgomery from 1830 to 1855.

The chamber pots, straw mattresses where guests slept three to a bed, wash stands, the wooden bar where whisky and beer were sold, smoky kitchen hearths with big black kettles — these are all dear to her heart.

“I live here,” said the head of the volunteer committee, which boasts more than 125 members who help out at the historical museum on a hill at the intersection of |Islington Ave. and Dundas St. The tavern, its wooden floor worn into a deep groove at the entrance by hundreds of weary travellers, was a community hub where men and women mingled to discuss the news of the day.

Today, that news would be that Montgomery’s Inn may face the axe, along with three other small museums, Market Gallery, Gibson House and Zion Schoolhouse.

More than 200 people showed up at the inn Sunday to hear about councilor Joe Mihevc’s plan to preserve the museums through increased earnings. He also announced a public participation campaign involving social networking and people were asked to use their Twitter and Facebook sites to show their support for museums and tell their stories.

Then, they linked arms and surrounded the stone inn as a symbolic way of protecting the building.

The cost-cutting measure could save Toronto $1 million a year but people attending the museums Saturday — some of them spurred to visit the sites after reading the Star’s Saturday article about the potential cuts — made the case for cultural preservation.

“We all should know where we come from,” says Hong-Kong born Greg Pau who lives in Richmond Hill but frequently makes the weekend trek to the St. Lawrence Market for shopping.

The fine art gallery, which regularly changes its paintings and photographs, is located in the city’s first council chamber. The red leather mayor’s chair, originally the seat of mayor Edward F. Clarke, sits majestically beneath windows that look below at the hustle and bustle of shoppers. At one time, councillors could see Lake Ontario from those windows and Jenny Lind gave a concert there.

Ivor Simmons comes here frequently because he enjoys the old pictures of Toronto and says closing it would make him “really sad.” One of his favourite displays was portraits of all of the Toronto mayors starting with the city’s first mayor, William Lyon McKenzie.

Dave Darby was moved to see the gallery for the first time after reading about its possible closure. Interested in looking at photographs and drawings of old streetscapes, Darby says, “You don’t know what you’ve got til they take it away.”

Francisca and Bruce Gazley, of Whitby, couldn’t wait for Gibson House to open at noon and peeked through the windows at the horsehair furniture, jars of preserves, upright piano and original surveyor’s tools used by Scottish immigrant David Gibson.

“There’s such a connection that happens with history,” Francisca says. “You can feel what it was like to live in another time.”

The value of cultural institutions “can’t be measured”, she says, acknowledging millions could be made by developing the charming plot of land.

The beautiful red-brick Georgian revival home’s exterior is blocked from view on Yonge St. north of the 401, by construction sites where two 40-plus-storey buildings are going up. Soon, it will be almost surrounded by buildings which will cast it in shadow.

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The Zion Schoolhouse on Finch Ave. E. is only open for arranged tours and school groups. The brick building, restored to a 1910 schoolhouse for rural students, sits amidst a bustling residential neighbourhood.

Pink and red geraniums line the windowsills of the one-room school where slates, turn-of-the-century books and desks await in long rows for the visiting schoolchildren to come and do their sums the old-fashioned way — no calculators.

A petition has been set up for those interested in preserving museums: http://togethertoronto.ca/campaigns/museums/