CHAPTER XXI

1Before 1815 Commander Jacques Viger had introduced the beaver into a fancy coat of arms.

2In 1844 the council which hitherto sat in a house belonging to Madame de Beaujeiu, situated between St. Francois Xavier and St. John streets on Notre Dame Street, and demolished in 1858 on the enlargement of the latter street, was moved to the Hayes Acqueduct House and sat below the reservoir. In 1852 it held its first sessions in the Bonsecours Market.

3Mr. Henry Dalby, Herald Centennary number, 1913.

SUPPLEMENTAL ANNALS AND SIDELIGHTS OF SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE UNION

FOREWORD—MARKED PROGRESS GENERAL—THE EMBRYONIC COSMOPOLIS—THE DEEPENING OF LAKE ST. PETER—FOUNDATION OF PHILANTHROPIES—LIVING CHEAP—THE MONTREAL DISPENSARY—RASCO’S HOTEL AND CHARLES DICKENS—PRIVATE THEATRICALS—MONTREAL AS SEEN BY “BOZ”—DOLLY’S AND THE GOSSIPS—THE MUNICIPAL ACT—ELECTION RIOTS—LITERARY AND UPLIFT MOVEMENTS—THE RAILWAY ERA COMMENCES—THE SHIP FEVER—A RUN ON THE SAVINGS’ BANK—THE REBELLION LOSSES BILL AND THE BURNING OF PARLIAMENT HOUSE—RELIGIOUS FANATICISM—GENERAL D’URBAN’S FUNERAL—A CHARITY BALL—THE GRAND TRUNK INCORPORATORS—EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS—THE “BLOOMERS” APPEAR—M’GILL UNIVERSITY REVIVAL—THE GREAT FIRE OF 1852—THE GAVAZZI RIOTS—PROGRESS IN 1853—THE CRIMEAN WAR OF 1854—THE PATRIOTIC FUND—THE ASIATIC CHOLERA—THE ATLANTIC SERVICE FROM MONTREAL—ADMIRAL BELVEZE’S VISIT—PARIS EXHIBITION PREPARATIONS—“S.S. MONTREAL” DISASTER—THE INDIAN MUTINY—THE FIRST OVERSEAS CONTINGENT—THE ATLANTIC CABLE CELEBRATED—A MAYOR OF THE PERIOD—THE RECEPTION OF ALBERT EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES—FORMAL OPENING OF THE VICTORIA BRIDGE—THE GREAT BALL—“EDWARD THE PEACEMAKER”—THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR—MONTREAL FOR THE SOUTH—FEAR OF WAR—CITIZEN RECRUITING—THE MILITARY—OFFICERS OF THE PERIOD—PEACE—THE SOUTHERNERS—THE WAR SCARE THE BIRTH OF MODERN MILITIA SYSTEM—THE MILITARY FETED—CIVIC PROGRESS—FENIAN THREATS—D’ARCY McGEE—SHAKESPEARE CENTENARY—GERMAN IMMIGRANTS’ DISASTER—ST. ALBAN’S RAIDERS—RECIPROCITY WITH THE UNITED STATES TO END—ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE CITY COUNCIL—THE FIRST FENIAN RAID—MONTREAL ACTION—MILITARY ENTHUSIASM—THE DRILL HALL—A RETROSPECT AND AN APPRECIATION OF THE LATTER DAYS OF THE UNION.

“Annals and sidelights” best suits the title of this chapter, and as such are necessarily disjointed, the events recorded reflect a corresponding note. Therefore, origins and seeds are only indicated, of many movements which have since grown to great proportions. These latter, such as primary, secondary, technical, and university education, the public services of fire, water, lighting, health, law and order; the commencements of commercial and financial bodies; the growth of the municipal life, as such; the development and modernization of the harbour and of our public places; the progress of general city improvement; the developmentof our transportation system by canal, river and roads by rail and by carriage; the charitable, the religious, the national, the literary, the intellectual and the artistic institutions of the city, etc., are left for special historical treatment in the second part of this volume.

In this place the general social aspect of the life of the city is chronologically treated, with partial reference at times to the above as they make their first bow to the public under the Union. A similar foreword might preface a subsequent chapter of annals of social life under the Confederation.

The picture presented by Montreal at the beginning of the Union was one of hopeful promise. The bill, when understood, was acceptable to most, and it soon became seen, that with responsible government,—though a daring experiment,—in working order, peace and prosperity would be assured. The re-birth of municipal life insured by the new charter was also gratifying. The mayor and corporation and the institution of the recorder’s court gave a dignity soothing to civic “amour propre.” City development in municipal functions, in the public services and physical embellishments, began to be marked. Trade began to raise its head, for Montreal was becoming recognized as the commercial metropolis of Canada. The meeting of April 6, 1841, to organize the new board of trade, was a significant fact of the period of progress now anticipated. The improvement in the harbour facilities, of the water transportation system, and the advent of the railway era soon to be celebrated, also marked the beginning of a new period of progress.

The city, too, was coming to be recognized as an embryonic cosmopolis. It was already beginning to have a mixed population. Sir Richard Bonnycastle, who visited Montreal in the year before the Union, has described this in “The Canadas in 1841” (VolumeI, pp. 76-77). “In this city, one is amused by seeing the never changing lineaments of the longqueue, thebonnet rougeand the incessant garrulity of Jean Baptiste, mingling with the sober demeanour, the equally unchanging feature and the national plaid of the Highlander, while the untutored sons of labour, from the green isle of the ocean, are here as thoughtless, as ragged and as numerous as at Quebec. Amongst all these the shrewd and calculating citizen from the neighbouring republic drives his hard bargain with all his wonted zeal and industry, amid the fumes of Jamaica and gin sling. These remarks apply to the streets only. In the counting houses, although the races remain the same, the advantages of situation and of education make the same differences as in other countries. I cannot, however, help thinking that the descendant of the Gaul has not gained by being transplanted; and the vastly absurd notions which a few turbulent spirits have of late engendered and endeavoured to instil into the unsophisticated and naturally good mind of the Canadian, tilling the soil, have tended to restrict the exercise of that inborn urbanity and suavity which are the Frenchman’s proudest boast after those of ‘l’amour et la gloire.’”

At the beginning of this period great ideas are reflected in the newspapers, such as the Herald and the Times.

The deepening of Lake St. Peter was a burning theme at the time; and there is abundant editorial comment in the connection.

“The governor-general has sanctioned the immediate deepening of Lake St. Peter,” says the editor;“but it appears that there was great difficulty in getting the proper dredging machines manufactured.”“We have other resources at our command,” exclaimed the editor; “and the manufacturers of New York or Great Britain would gladly accept orders to any extent. The aid of steam, all powerful steam, must be invoked. We have no hesitation in saying that the expenditure of £100,000, if that sum would suffice to deepen Lake St. Peter, would be submitted to with perfect prudence.“Few will be dogmatical enough to deny that when the navigation is free, ships descending the river may avoid the use of steam tugs; and if we calculate the saving thus effected upon 200 vessels annually at £30 each, the amount thus realized would suffice to pay the interest on a loan at 6 per cent.“A brisk, fair, and continuous breeze would ensure the speedy, safe and cheap progress of ships up the St. Lawrence, and augment the extent of our commercial marine.”

“We have other resources at our command,” exclaimed the editor; “and the manufacturers of New York or Great Britain would gladly accept orders to any extent. The aid of steam, all powerful steam, must be invoked. We have no hesitation in saying that the expenditure of £100,000, if that sum would suffice to deepen Lake St. Peter, would be submitted to with perfect prudence.

“Few will be dogmatical enough to deny that when the navigation is free, ships descending the river may avoid the use of steam tugs; and if we calculate the saving thus effected upon 200 vessels annually at £30 each, the amount thus realized would suffice to pay the interest on a loan at 6 per cent.

“A brisk, fair, and continuous breeze would ensure the speedy, safe and cheap progress of ships up the St. Lawrence, and augment the extent of our commercial marine.”

Referring, in another part of the paper, to the actual commencement of the work of deepening Lake St. Peter, which only gave eleven feet of water, the Times says:

“Improvements thus disseminating the germs of future wealth and prosperity command the applause of every colonist. The spirit of patriotism must be dormant, indeed, in the breasts of those who would thwart the efforts of a governor, who has thus identified himself with the system of internal navigation.“The repose of the colony has been too long disturbed by those theoretical revolutions which sprang from the fluctuating councils of the late Viceroy. A healthier tone of feeling has been produced; and the practical labours of Sir Charles Bagot bid fair to soothe the asperities of political warfare. Under his auspices the deepening of Lake St. Peter has been commenced and ere his departure, we trust the undertaking will be brought to maturity.”

“The repose of the colony has been too long disturbed by those theoretical revolutions which sprang from the fluctuating councils of the late Viceroy. A healthier tone of feeling has been produced; and the practical labours of Sir Charles Bagot bid fair to soothe the asperities of political warfare. Under his auspices the deepening of Lake St. Peter has been commenced and ere his departure, we trust the undertaking will be brought to maturity.”

Since then something in the neighborhood of $20,000,000 have been spent between the work of deepening and lighting and buoying the channel, and the extension and improvement of the port of Montreal.

The editors of these days had to burn the midnight oil or tallow candle, for then gas was not general. As for matches, the old tinder chips dipped in sulphur ind ignited by use of the flint still prevailed. The rich used wax candles or lamps, but the poor made their own “dips,” or for the nonce, even small improvised lamps out of spoons filled with oil. Tallow candle moulds were the prized possession of many poor houses before the manufactured candles became cheap on the market. When coal oil came, it was looked on as a miracle.

The town was inadequately provided with water works, as it was not till 1845 that the municipality took over the old-fashioned plant in Montreal, and the old puncheons, driven by horses still went from door to door distributing the water taken from the river.

Place d’Armes was still a poor straggling square, though it was faced by the handsome new Notre Dame Church, opened in 1829. At this time there still stood the bell tower of the old Parish Church, standing solitary like a lighthouse till 1843. Crossing the square the genteel folk, the wives of doctors, lawyers, and merchants, would come from their residences on St. James and Craig streets to the Bonsecours Market, not ashamed to carry their baskets. There the “habitants” from the country could be seen dressed in blue or gray homespun cloth suits, with their picturesque, heavy knitted sashes and wearing the tuque and moccasins in winter.

For as yet, the city was in truth of small size. A four-paged, demi-zinc copy of the Times and Commercial Advertiser, the first daily to be printed in Montreal,of the issue of March 3, 1842, gives a glimpse of this. An advertisement announces that a three-storey stone house at the head of Coté Street, “enjoys a commanding situation in a most quiet and healthy part of Montreal and which nevertheless is within five minutes walk of the business part of the city.” Splendid dwelling houses are for rent on Great St. James Street suitable for genteel families.

Yet life was intense and earnest and the bases of many of the present educational, philanthropic and artistic associations were being laid. This same number of the Times mentions that the

“The Montreal Provident and Savings Bank, which has just been projected, under the patronage of the governor-general, and which is to receive deposits of from one shilling and upwards, is a patriotic institution, as the directors and all concerned have only the advantage of the entire community at heart, receiving nothing for their services, and desiring, chiefly, to extend, by this means, the basis of social order and morality, and religion. For these reasons the directors respectfully entreat the ministers of religion, masters employing numerous bodies of workmen, and all having influence, to exert the same; and by the sanction of their names, and the moral weight of their advice, to induce the numerous classes, for whose use it is chiefly intended, to avail themselves of the benefits which the institution holds out for their acceptance.”

Living was cheap and quite a good deal could be bought with but a little money. Money, however, was scarce and wages were small. Twenty-five cents would buy a pair of chickens, 15 cents a pound of butter, 10 cents a dozen eggs and 5 cents a pound of beef. A man would work for 50 cents a day and walk many miles to his job. A mechanic who got $1, earned good wages. Clothing was expensive, and consequently simplicity ruled. Yet furs were cheap in comparison with the present date. Ladies would wear very large muffs, capable of holding in their mysterious interiors a week’s supply of groceries. Long boas were worn twice wound around the neck, and reaching to the toes. The dresses of the middle class of women and girls were for the most part print, with thick homespun for winter wear. Boys would go to the few schools in the town in “moleskins” as woolen was expensive. They would often come home on a rainy afternoon with their moleskin trousers shrunk up to their knees.

The houses of the ordinary working class were built for the most part of wood and consisted of one storey and a garret. Rents ran from about two dollars to four dollars a month.

In 1843 a dispensary which is still flourishing today was started and came as a great supplementary aid to the hospitals of the city. This was the Montreal Dispensary with which so many of our best citizens have been connected.

The memory of Rasco’s suggests that of the famous “Dolly,” J.H. Isaacson, who came out from England as a waiter here in 1838, but afterwards started for himself in a restaurant on St. François Xavier Street overlooking the Garden of the Seminary. He later moved to St. James Street, close to St. Lawrence Hall, a famous hostelry of this period, built in 1851, on the site where the Royal Bank now stands. His chop house became famous as “Dolly’s” from the original “Dolly’s” in London. Dolly, a little typical old John Bull of a Boniface, withshining face beaming benevolence, with a ready fund of repartee and trenchant criticism, and resplendent in velvet coat, knee breeches and irreproachable calves, white silk stockings and silver buckles on his shoes, was in great favour with the military.

The social life of the period found one of its highest points of reflex in Rasco’s Hotel, on Bonsecours Street, which still stands, though with diminished glory. But when it was opened on May 1, 1836, it was, during the Union, the resort of the fine people of the time. It had the politicians gathered together during the rebellion of 1837 and it was for long the home for banquets. It expressed the social life of the time. The garrison officers knew it well. Distinguished strangers put up there as did Charles Dickens, who arrived from Niagara Falls in the spring of 1842. As private theatricals were then the rage, and were greatly promoted by the officers to while away the time, the histrionic ability of the great novelist was called into requisition at the first Theatre Royal, standing nearly opposite until it was pulled down to make room for the Bonsecours Market.

In one of the author’s letters from Montreal quoted in Forster’s “Life of Charles Dickens,” he says: “The theatricals, I think I told you I had been invited to play with the officers of the Coldstream Guards here, are ‘A Roland for an Oliver,’ ‘Two O’Clock in the Morning,’ and either ‘The Young Widow,’ or ‘Deaf as a Post,’ Ladies (unprofessional) are going to play for the first time.”

His last letter, dated from Rasco’s Hotel, Montreal, Canada, 26th of May, 1842, described the private theatricals and inclosed a bill of the play:

“The play came off last night, the audience, between five and six hundred strong, were invited as to a party, a regular table with refreshments being spread in the lobby and saloon. We had the band of the 23d (one of the finest in the service) in the orchestra; the theatre was lighted with gas, the scenery was excellent and the properties were all brought from the private houses. Sir Charles Bagot, Sir Richard Jackson and their staffs were present, and as the military portion of the audience were all in uniform it was really a splendid scene.

“I really believe I was really funny; at least, I know that I laughed heartily myself and made the part a character such as you and I know very well—a mixture of F. Harley Yates, Keeley and ‘Jerry Sneak.’ It went with a vim all the way through; and as I am closing, they have told me that I was so well made up that Sir Charles Bagot, who sat in the stage box, had no idea who played ‘Mr. Snobbington’ until the piece was over.* * *

“All the ladies were capital and we had no wait or hitch for an instant. You may suppose this when I tell you that we began at eight and had the curtain down at eleven.* * *It is their custom here to prevent heart-burnings, in a very heart-burning town, whenever they have played in private, to repeat the performance in public, so on Saturday (substituting, of course, real actresses for the ladies) we repeat the two first pieces to a paying audience, for the manager’s benefit.* * *I send you a bill to which I have appended a key.”

The programme was as follows:

PRIVATE THEATRICALS.

Committee

A ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER.

PAST TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

To conclude with the farce, in one act, entitled

DEAF AS A POST.

RASCO’S HOTEL OPENED IN 1836, ST. PAUL STREETRASCO’S HOTEL OPENED IN 1836, ST. PAUL STREETThe leading hotel in the ’30s, standing on site of former palace of Gov. Gen. Vaudreuil. This building, with original name on it, can be seen today although changed on lower floors.

RASCO’S HOTEL OPENED IN 1836, ST. PAUL STREET

The leading hotel in the ’30s, standing on site of former palace of Gov. Gen. Vaudreuil. This building, with original name on it, can be seen today although changed on lower floors.

THEATRE ROYAL, AT EASTERN EXTREMITY OF ST. PAUL STREETTHEATRE ROYAL, AT EASTERN EXTREMITY OF ST. PAUL STREETBuilt by subscription in 1825, afterwards owned by Mr. John Molson.

THEATRE ROYAL, AT EASTERN EXTREMITY OF ST. PAUL STREET

Built by subscription in 1825, afterwards owned by Mr. John Molson.

PROGRAMME OF DICKENS’ PLAYS GIVEN AT THEATRE ROYAL DURING THE AUTHOR’S VISIT.PROGRAMME OF DICKENS’ PLAYS GIVEN AT THEATRE ROYAL DURING THE AUTHOR’S VISIT.

PROGRAMME OF DICKENS’ PLAYS GIVEN AT THEATRE ROYAL DURING THE AUTHOR’S VISIT.

CHARLES DICKENSCHARLES DICKENS

CHARLES DICKENS

Dickens visited the Bonsecours Church hard by, and met the leading citizens in the News Room on St. Sulpice Street, and cantered with the officers over the mountain or rode out to Lachine and the Back River. “All the rides in the vicinity,” he says in his American Notes, “were made doubly interesting by the bursting out of spring which is here so rapid that it is but a day’s leap from barren winter to the blooming youth of summer.” In the same recollections he refers to the quiet manners of the Canadian people, their self-respect, their hospitality in Montreal and the unassuming manners of their life. He notes the modernizing spirit even of that day. “There is a very large cathedral here, recently erected with two small spires, of which one is as yet unfinished. In the open space in front of this edifice stands a solitary, grim-looking square brick tower which has a quaint and remarkable appearance and which the wiseacres of this place have consequently determined to pull down immediately.” This the vandals did in 1843.

Walking along the quays he admired “the granite quays” which are remarkable for their beauty, solidity and extent. Referring to his walk here and his interest in the immigrants, he says: “In the spring time of the year vast numbers of emigrants who have newly arrived from England or from Ireland pass between Quebec and Montreal on their way to the back woods and new settlements of Canada. If it be an entertaining lounge, as I have found it, to take a morning stroll upon the quays of Montreal and see the groups in hundreds on the public wharfs about their chests and boxes, it is matter of deep interest to be their fellow passenger on one of these steamboats and, mingling with the concourse, see and hear them unobserved.”

Then follows a characteristic digression of the Master’s sympathetic pleading for the poor.

At the above meeting places the events of the day would have been discussed by the gossips, such as the marriage of Queen Victoria on February 10, 1840, the shooting at of the young Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on June 10, 1841, Her Majesty’s coronation of June 28th, the birth of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, on November 9th, and the progress of preparations for the union proclaimed on February 10th in Montreal by Lord Sydenham. Municipal politics would have become an absorbing topic of conversation on January 1, 1842, when the municipal act went into force. On March 11th when the Montreal Board of Trade was incorporated, and on July 9th when the Shamrock was lost in the St. Lawrence, with its many immigrants there was plenty to discuss. Montreal, in 1843, talked of the birth of Princess Alice on April 25th, the visit to Montreal of the new governor general, Lord Metcalfe, on June 12th, while the “Nolle Sequi” against Wolfred Nelson, Dr. E.B. O’Callaghan and T.S. Brown renewed the painful memories of the revolt of 1837. This year the scientists and educationalists rejoiced at the Museum of Geological Survey then opened in the city. And again when, in 1844, the Mercantile Library Association purchased the Montreal Library and the Institut Canadien was formed.

Great interest prevailed in political circles when the seat of government was removed to Montreal on March 5th of this year, and the House met on July 1st.

On November 12th, such an election was held that many of the oldest inhabitants remember it still. It was the days of open voting and sometimes lasted for weeks. Axe handles were used, heads were broken, the “claret” flowed, andthe opposing parties used to keep men drunk in the taverns so that the other side could not get their men to the polls. Such scenes were long repeated, notably in the “Barney” Devlin and D’Arcy McGee election contests. The fight on this occasion was between Drummond and Molson. Drummond was Irish and it was recalled that he had been the defending lawyer for the rebels in 1837. The French-Canadians, therefore, rallied to his support and Molson was beaten. Parliament met on November 28th.

On March 27, 1845, Parliament was prorogued and on July 1st the new governor, Lord Cathcart, arrived. This year various educational movements were furthered. Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, was opened and the Mechanics’ Institute, so long in existence as an educational force, was incorporated. In December, John Dougall issued his specimen Witness and the first weekly Witness was published on January 5, 1846. Meanwhile the commission appointed in 1845 to investigate the rebellion losses indemnities was sitting and on April 18, 1846, it presented its report that the sum of £100,000 would be sufficient to pay all real losses. Already bitter feeling was being aroused among the English on this point. But the railway era, then commencing, diverted some attention from their grievances. In June, James Ferrier and others sought a charter for a railway from Kingston to Prescott and John A. Macdonald, then beginning his parliamentary career, and others, sought one from Montreal to Kingston, John Molson and others demanding one from St. Johns to the international boundary. On August 10th, on the Champ de Mars, a gathering of 2,000 Montrealers resolved to have a railway to the sea. Men were seeing visions and the Hon. John Young wrote this year to the Economist, advocating a bridge across the St. Lawrence. His dream was to come true.

The year 1847 saw the line from Montreal to Lachine opened. Otherwise the year was one of disaster—that of the ship fever. In this year 100,000 emigrants, mostly from Ireland, escaping the scourge of typhus fever and famine, came to Canada, but being exposed to ship fever nearly 10,000 became its victims; hundreds and hundreds died. The quarantine station of Grosse Isle was the most pestilential spot in the country. Every ship that could be chartered, good, bad and indifferent, was engaged in transporting emigrants. They were all slow-going vessels. Through want of sufficient room, neglect of ventilation, need of eatable food and cleanliness, the worst form of typhus soon appeared. “On the 8th day of May,” says Maguire’s “Irish in America,” “on the arrival of the ‘Urania’ from Cork, with several hundred immigrants on board, a large proportion of them sick and dying of the ship fever, it was put into quarantine at Grosse Isle, thirty miles below Quebec. This was the first of the plague-smitten ships from Ireland which that year sailed up the St. Lawrence. But before the first week of June as many as eighty-four ships of various tonnage were driven in by easterly gales. Of all the vessels there was not one free from the taint of malignant typhus, the offspring of famine and of the foul ship-hold.”

Montreal suffered terribly, also. There the Government caused to be erected three sheds of provisory hospitals from 100 to 150 feet in length and from 40 to 50 feet in width on the river banks at Point St. Charles. Soon eleven sheds had to be erected to receive the sick. In June, the city was in consternation and many fled to the country. But there were many who did noble service. The governor general, Lord Elgin, who had made his first coming to Montreal on January 29th,visited the sheds; the mayor, John E. Mills, also made frequent visits and in November his assiduous devotion brought him low in death, a martyr to civic duty. The clergy, the doctors and the women of the city, Catholic and Protestants, were heroic in their services. The priests hurried down to the sick who were mostly Catholics, but only a few, two Sulpicians and a Jesuit, du Ranquet, could speak English adequately. In this extremity the rector of the Jesuits, who had returned to the city since 1842, sent to Fordham University, and two priests, Fathers du Merle and Michael Driscoll, were sent to assist Father du Ranquet, who was the first of the Montreal priests on the ground. This devoted man found the sick or dead lying in rows stretched on the bare ground, and there he ministered till 3 o’clock in the morning.

Conditions were soon improved by the municipal authorities. Wooden bunks were built to hold two patients; there were no mattresses but only straw strewn under them. Oftentimes the living lay side by side with the dead. To add to the horror, the letters of this period tell us that “after a few weeks’ service these wooden structures contained colonies of bugs in every cranny; the wool, the cotton, the wood were black with them. Double the number of nurses and servants would not have sufficed to keep this monstrous hospital clean.”

Things were better when the tents to be given to those who, unable to find shelter in the sheds, were placed on the banks of the St. Lawrence with a blanket over them, under the trees. Fortunately it was summertime.

Bishop Bourget called upon the nuns to act as nurses. The Providence Sisters were the first approached, on June 24th. Each one answered simply, “I am ready.” Next morning twelve of these brave women were driven in carriages to the sheds. There they found hundreds of the sick crouched upon straw, wrestling in the agony of death; little children weeping in the arms of their dead mothers; women, themselves stricken, seeking for a beloved husband, amid a doleful chaos of suffering and evil odours. Other nuns were called out; even the enclosed Sisters of the Hôtel Dieu were allowed to leave their cloisters for the sad work of tending the dying and burying the dead in their hastily constructed, rude coffins of planks. Fifty or sixty died each day and their bodies, awaiting burial, were placed in an immense charnel house erected on the river banks. In this were some that were buried alive. Many of the orphans were adopted in the city or cared for by the nuns. For this the Irish population of Montreal love the city with a personal love.

Not only did the mayor die, but numerous others, physicians, clergy and nurses, and the police officers of the city.

The events of 1848 include the flooding, on January 15th, of Wellington and Commissioners streets, and the run on the Savings Bank of the city on July 15th, which was shortly followed by a re-deposit. Educationalists will note the opening of the Jesuits’ College on September 20th in the improvised school at the corner of Alexander and Dorchester streets.

The year 1849 was one of political turmoil already recorded, centering around the rebellion losses bill and resulting in the burning of the Parliament house and the removal of the seat of government from the city, a loss to its social life.

An aspect of the burning of the Parliament house was that, with the political rancour there was mixed, in certain misguided quarters, a fanatical religious frenzy. It was planned to burn the “Grey Nuns,” near at hand, as well as theJesuits’ residence and St. Patrick’s Church. The menaces came to nothing, owing to the guards of Irish watchers. Yet at the time, according to a letter written from Montreal in August, 1849, by the Jesuit Father Havequez to a friend in France, the Grey Nuns hard by were likely to become a prey to the fire “had not the brave Irish run to the rescue and succeeded, after extraordinary efforts, in mastering the flames.”

The imposing public ceremony this year was the funeral, in the military cemetery on Papineau Road, of Sir Benjamin D’Urban, from whom Durban, in South Africa, bears its name, the charger of the deceased soldier being led through the streets in the procession by the groom, carrying the reversed boots of this companion of Wellington. It was long a remembered incident.

The next year, 1850, saw the first meeting of the Mount Royal Cemetery Company for the burial of non-Catholics and the consecration of the Rev. Francis Fulford in Westminster Abbey as the first Bishop of Montreal, both signs of the growth of the English-speaking population.

This year there was a great charity ball and it is interesting to note that among the subscribers to this ball were the Earl and Countess of Errol; Sir George and Lady Simpson (who lived at Lachine in a big stone mansion, standing on the present site of the Lachine Convent); the Chief Justice and Madame Rolland, Sir James and Lady Alexander, Colonel and Mrs. Dyley, Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Moffatt, Honorable Mr. Justice and Madame Mondelet, Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Drummond, Madame Rochblave, Mr. and Mrs. John Molson, the Commissary General and Mrs. Filder, Honorable Mr. and Madame Rolland, Mr. and Madame de Beaujeau, Honorable Mr. Justice and Mrs. Smith, Mr. Sheriff and Mrs. Coffin, Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvy Moffatt, Captain and Mrs. Claremont, Major and Mrs. MacDougall, Lieut.-Col. Sir Howard Dalrymple, Honorable McCall, Major Chester, Major Colley, Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood, Mr. Arthur Mondelet, Mr. Arthur Lamothe and many others.

The band of the Nineteenth Regiment also attended by kind permission of Lieutenant-Colonel Hay.

The Grand Trunk was formed in 1851. The name of the incorporators which follow are also those of familiar families in the city of today: Thomas Allan Stayber, William Collins Meredith, Sir George Simpson, William Macdonald, David Davidson, J.G. McTavish, N. Finlayson, John Rawand, Edward B. Wilgress, John Boston, Theodore Hart, T. McCullough, John Matthewson, John M. Tobin, E.H. Mount, Wilkinson John Torrance, Isaac Gibb, Donald P. Ross, Robert Morris, James Henderson, Aaron H. David, John Ostell, J.H. Birss, William Lunn, Dougall Stewart, C. Wilgress, William Molson, W.S. McFarlane, A. Dow, John Lavanston, Peter McKenzie, D. McKenzie, John McKenzie, Hector McKenzie, William Foster Coffin, Hon. James Ferrier, William Molson, George Crawford, Duncan Finlayson, John Silveright, John Ballenden, Allen Macdonnell, Samuel Gall, Benjamin Hart, John Carter, Andrew Cowan, Walter Benny, John H. Evans, James H. Lamb, W. Watson, Charles H. Castle, J.B. McKenzie, James Crawford, W. Murray, M. McCullough, M.E. David, J.F. Dickson, John Leeming, Jesse Joseph, D.L. Macpherson, James Cormac, Archibald Hall, Hugh Taylor, Colin Campbell, John Simpson, Thomas Taylor, E.M. Hopkins, John Miles, Charles Geddes, John Macdonald, E.T. Renaud, J.D. Watson, and William Cunningham.

Educational movement also began to gain strength in 1851. The College Ste. Marie on Bleury Street the Young Men’s Christian Association and the new Theatre Royal were opened, while this year the first external signs of the modern movement for woman’s emancipation was strikingly illustrated in July in the streets of Montreal by the appearance for the first time of the “bloomer costume,” made famous at the time by the cartoons of Punch.

Times of commercial prosperity seemed now promised.

The next year, 1852, McGill received its new lease of life, obtaining its new charter, and from this date its success was assured.

The great fire of 1852 started on July 8th; it is said to have burnt 11,000 houses, while thousands were rendered homeless. Money, however, was not scarce, for this year in December £5,000 was raised by merchants for a Merchants’ Exchange. Another financial sidelight is that in October of this year the Bank of Montreal issued its first notes like those of the Bank of England, the denominations being water-marked.

The Gavazzi riot, already described, with the investigations into its cause, was the social excitement for the year 1853, as well as the preparations for the Atlantic service between Montreal and England, secured by the first charter of May 23d.

On July 22d Pier No. 1 of the Victoria Bridge was begun, and on August 24th Lake St. Peter was deepened four feet, two inches. On July 20th of the next year, 1854, the first stone of the Victoria Bridge was laid and on August 2d the first cofferdam was ready for masonry. On October 11th the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway was opened from Longueuil to Richmond. These facts illustrate the early movement of the era of progress by land and water, then beginning.

Among other events of this year it was announced that accounts could be kept from September 1st to the end of the year, either in pounds, shillings, or pence, or in dollars and cents, the decimal currency being expected to be generally in use by January 1st following. Money order offices were first opened on December 1st; reciprocity was established between Canada and the United States; the seigneurial tenure was abolished and the secularization of clergy reserves was brought about.

The year 1854 was memorable as that of the Crimean War, when the English and French were allied against the Russians. In 1914 all three are allied against a common foe. The social life was invaded by the spirit of patriotism. An appropriation of £20,000 sterling was made by the Canadian Government “in favour of the widows and orphans of England and France.” It was the gift of the people of both French and English descent and the Emperor of the French, in acknowledging the gift, commented on the union of races it implied. A patriotic fund was organized in Montreal by concerts and other forms of charity as in 1914.

The year 1854 is also sadly memorable by the Asiatic cholera which carried off 1,186 persons.

After the commercial depression of 1854, due to the Crimean War, the spring of 1855 saw brighter prosperity.

The annals of this year record as signs of general progress the first issue, in February, of money orders in Canada, the coming into force of the reciprocity act with the United States, the establishment by the H. & A. Allan Company ofthe Montreal Ocean Steamship Company with four steamers fortnightly, the completion of the general postoffice, the new building of the Mechanics’ Institute, the incorporation of Molson’s bank, and the opening of a new industry through the completion of Redpath’s sugar refinery.

In March the Industrial Exhibition, promoted to select articles to be sent to the coming Paris Exhibition was formally opened by the governor general, Sir Edmund Head, who made his first visit to Montreal on this occasion.

On July 27th the first French ship to sail the St. Lawrence since the conquest reached Montreal under Commander de Belvèze. The object was to obtain information to extend the commercial relations between Canada and France. The occasion, coming so soon after the fall of Sebastopol, was one of great public demonstration, illuminations and torchlight processions, the like of which the city had never yet beheld. The arrival of Admiral Belvèze’s warship, with dinners and receptions, especially among the French citizens, also made 1855 a memorable social year.

In 1856 Montreal was filled with preparations for the great Paris Exhibition and Alfred Perry was voted £500 to represent Montreal. It is remembered that at this exhibition he had a fire fighting invention on show which was lucky enough to be in readiness to stop a conflagration in the exhibition, a fact largely noticed in the continental papers and illustrated journals. A balloon ascension on September 16th in Griffintown, in the “Canada,” is seriously chronicled by the annalists as a striking novelty of the year.

On June 11, 1856, thirty-five lives were lost in the Grand Trunk ferry boat to Longueuil by the explosion of the boiler, through the carelessness of the engineer. The burning of the steamer Montreal off Quebec on June 27, 1857, which was carrying to Montreal about five hundred emigrants who had just arrived from the John McKenzie, caused great excitement in the city and was the occasion of much hospitality. As the immigrants it carried were mostly Scotch, the activities of St. Andrew’s National Society were largely engaged.

On June 18, 1856, the Thirty-ninth Regiment which had fought in the Crimea reached Montreal transported by the John Munn and Quebec. A civic dinner closed the day in the City Concert Hall with covers laid for 1,200 guests.

The 12th and 13th of November saw the city again en fète to celebrate the opening of the Grand Trunk between Toronto and Montreal, which terminated on the 12th in a banquet at Point St. Charles with 4,000 present. The evening of the 13th closed with a promenade through the brilliantly illuminated city with the roar of cannon at intervals and a great ball.

On November 5th a violent hurricane swept over Montreal and on December 10th Christ Church Cathedral was burnt down.

This year the additions and new works of Montreal waterworks were being made ready for use.

The cause of science received a great impetus in the city by the convention which started on Wednesday, August 12, 1857, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was continued for a week, during which the University of McGill, the Natural History Society and other learned organizations entertained their distinguished guests. In September of the same year the Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition was successfully held.

On September 7th 500 of the Thirty-ninth Regiment left Montreal for active service, for this was the year of the Indian mutiny.

Educational circles remember the year of the meeting in Montreal of the American Association for the Advancement of Learning and as the opening of the Jacques Cartier and the McGill Normal schools for teachers. This was practically the earliest converging point of the two boards of school commissioners in the building up of their educational system.

January 1, 1858, marks the supplanting of the L.S.D. system by the decimal coinage; January 5th, the purchase of the Montreal and Bytown (Ottawa) Railway for £5,300 by Mr. (afterward Sir John) J.J.C. Abbott.

On February 26th, Griffintown was flooded and beds stood three feet in water, being one of the annual spring floods.

The martial enthusiasm of the citizens was evoked in the city in the early part of 1858 by the Indian mutiny, when the Imperial Government accepted the offer of a regiment to be raised in Canada for service abroad under the title of the “One Hundredth Prince of Wales Royal Canadian Regiment.” The recruiting sergeant, with his flying ribbons, fife and drum band and his cry of “Come, boys, and join the war,” was a novelty then. Montreal contributed for the first overseas contingent 110 young men, who drilled with the detachment of 500 men on St. Helen’s Island previous to being embarked for England in July following. This was the first contingent raised for the front, but it did not get as far as India, doing duty at Malta and Gibraltar. None the less, as the old ballad says, “Their will was good to do the deed, that is if they’d have let ’em, with a ‘Re fol de roy, etc.’”

On September 1st the laying of the first Atlantic telegraph cable was celebrated in the city by trades, military and torchlight processions, the latter being two miles long on the average of six abreast. A bonfire on the mountain signalized this occasion.

Next year, 1859, the Prince of Wales presented the One Hundredth Regiment with its colours at Shorncliffe.

On December 12th, the Victoria Bridge was at last opened and on the 17th the first passenger train went through. It was called the “Victoria” after the revered Queen of that name and it was hoped to have had Her Majesty formally open it.

Before leaving the construction works the men engaged placed the great boulder over the resting place of the many victims of the ship fever of 1847. The words of a Montreal lady, Mrs. Leprohon, commemorate the event thus:

“Long since forgotten, here they rest,Sons of a distant shoreThe epoch of their short careerThese footprints on life’s sand,But this stone will tell through many a yearThey died on our shores and slumber here.”

This year Mr. Charles S. Rodier was mayor. A picture worth preserving has lately been given of the city hall life of that time. The city was then very small and the questions were comparatively parochial and the revenue was negligible in comparison with today’s, yet the meetings were very important and very dignifiedand probably more eloquence flowed than now. The English were then predominant and Mr. Rodden was the leader of the council. The mayor, Mr. Rodier, was, as a contemporary has recently described him, “a man of much eccentricity, but a man also of education and ability. He was what you might call an aesthete—well groomed, neat, and polished, to the finger nails; always with his frock coat and silk hat; always ready to make a sweeping bow; always on the watch to assist a lady from her carriage—a lady who might be shopping on Notre Dame Street, which was the great retail street of the city in my young days. It didn’t matter that His Worship was not always acquainted with the ladies; he was naturally a gallant and, anyway, there was less formality in those days than now.”

As he was the first mayor to receive royalty this description will serve as an introduction. Mr. Rodier’s home was at the corner of Guy and St. Antoine streets and was afterward purchased by the Dominion Immigration Agency for its offices.

The next great social event was the reception of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII, the Peacemaker, and the preparation of the exhibition which was to be opened by him, both in connection with the formal opening of the great Victoria Bridge, marking the era of railways now prevailing.

In preparation for this event the Board of Arts and Manufactures, in March, 1860, decided upon and took immediate steps for the erection of a Crystal Palace for a permanent exhibition on land purchased by them on Peel Street, above St. Catherine Street. On Tuesday, May 22d, a public meeting was held to form the “reception committee fund.” A programme of festivities and functions was drawn up in June. Triumphal arches and illuminations were prepared, the house of the Hon. John Rose, afterward owned by the Ogilvie family, was decorated for the stay of the young prince therein and on Friday, August 24th, the royal visitor, described as a Prince of Romance, under the escort of the austere Duke of Newcastle, arrived by river from Quebec in a perfect deluge of rain. But he did not land till next day and all went well. The mayor, Mr. Rodier, the council, magistrates, the clergy, the heads of national and other societies with regalia, received him under a superb pavilion. Then followed the great procession, headed by the Caughnawaga Indians in full native costume. The scene was wild, with church bells ringing and the shouting of enthusiasm and loyalty. All the society of Canada had come to the city to be present. The royal party visited the Crystal Palace, where an address was presented by the governor general, Sir E.W. Head, and the Prince declared the Palace open.

In the afternoon took place the ceremony of the laying of the last stone by the Prince of the Victoria Bridge. The royal party entered the car of state and proceeded to the centre of the bridge and the Prince drove in the last—a silver—rivet. The party then proceeded to the other side of the river, where Mr. Blackwell, in the name of the Grand Trunk, presented the Prince with a gold medal, executed by Wyon, commemorative of the occasion, the suite receiving similar ones, but in silver. The royal car then returned to the city. A great lunch took place and the city and the harbour were given over that evening to wonderful illuminations, when the Prince rode through the streets. On Sunday the Prince and royal party attended divine service at the recently rebuilt Christ Church Cathedral on St. Catherine Street and were received at the door by Sir Fenwick Williams and Sir A. Milne. Bishop Fulford officiated and Reverend Mr. Woodread the sermon. In commemoration of this visit His Royal Highness presented to the Cathedral a magnificent Bible with an autograph inscription.

In the evening the Montreal Oratorio Society of 400 voices performed a grand cantata especially written by a Mr. Semper and composed by M. Sabatier, in commemoration of the royal visit. On this occasion Marie Louise Lajeunesse, afterward Madame Albani, sang. She was then unknown, although she had made her debut as a piano player at the Mechanics’ Institute about 1854, when but seven years of age.

The great ball, at which the young Prince danced with the ladies of the charmed circle chosen by the committee of reception, took place later in the completed Crystal Palace, a building of colossal dimensions for the time, being nearly three hundred feet in diameter. It was then thought to be in the fields.

A recent reminiscence of the time describes the scene:

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