OLD MONTREAL

by Richard Cory

Old Montreal is more than just a sentimental expression used to describe a vague district around the harbour; specifically it refers to the area on the waterfront that extends north to Craig Street and is delineated by McGill Avenue and Berri Street on the west and east sides respectively. Almost everything of importance that has happened to our city in the last three hundred years originated here.

The island of Montreal was discovered and settled by the French, whose interests were established in 1535 when the first European, Jacques Cartier, arrived in October of that year. Between 1603 and 1635, Samuel de Champlain visited the Island on a number of occasions. Champlain's explorations and writings permanently fixed French interests in Montreal and lead to the first French settlement, established by Maisonneuve, in 1642 (Gibbon 1947).

By the 1670's, the new settlement was growing up, back from the river, on the low hill now crowned by Place d'Armes. There, Montreal took shape on three long streets: St. Paul, Notre Dame, and St. James. Within thirty years, Montreal was no longer the scene of fur trading but the centre from which trade was organized, and in the interest of security was surrounded by an eighteen-foot-high stone wall complete with sally ports, loopholes, fosse, bastions, and a citadel. The walls have long since disappeared, but their influence can still be found in the pattern of the

streets and in the houses which were designed to make maximum use of the land within the walls (Cooper 1969).

Space being at a premium within the fortifications, houses were built right out to the edge of the property and any land left over was reserved as a garden at the back of the building. In most cases, the ground floor was designed for commerce, while the upper floors were residential. The few exceptions were the government house, the prison, the convents, and the homes of the most prosperous merchants (Cooper 1969).

In Old Montreal, many of the houses crowded within the walls were of wood, but after a number of fires the French government forbade the use of wooden shingles which were to be replaced with tin. Each house was required to have two ladders on it's roof, and a number of buckets which were reserved for fire-fighting. In addition, all the windows were equipped with sheet-iron blinds and the large iron pins designed to hold these shutters in place can still be seen throughout the area (Wilson 1960).

Not much of the seventeenth and eighteenth-century architecture has survived, but Old Montreal does possess a unique concentration of early nineteenth-century architecture. In the early nineteenth-century the people of Old Montreal replaced many of the rough-stone houses of the old regime with more modern buildings made of dressed limestone. The plan and character of the town was maintained in the new houses, and they blended well with the buildings of the old regime (Smith 1970).

Eventually, retail business and residential sections moves north and west, and many of the buildings of the old quarter were converted into warehouses, factories, and wholesale businesses. The city administration and the law courts remained and St. James Street retained it's importance as the financial centre, but the rest of Old Montreal suffered a decline (Coulon 1968).

The port remained relatively unchanged but many of the related businesses moved away, partly because modern transportation eliminated the need to be next door to the wharves, and partly because the narrowness of the streets and the lack of parking space made it difficult for commercial traffic. As a result, property owners in the old quarter began to destroy their buildings to save on taxes or to accommodate the automobile, and a tremendous amount of damage had already been done by the time public disapproval was organized (Coulon 1968).

In 1963 the provincial government established the Historic Monuments Commission of Quebec. This Commission was given the power to declare a group of buildings an Historic Area in which it was forbidden to demolish or alter a building, or to construct anything new, without the permission of the Commission (Allaby 1983).

Today, there are whole rows of buildings of early construction which have been heavily altered. In most cases the pitched roof has been removed, and one or two brick stories have been added, with a flat roof. In other cases the limestone front has been covered with a layer of stucco, coloured tile or even artificial stone. Casement windows, with their small panes, have been replaced by aluminum sashes, and in some cases pillars have been removed at the ground floor to make room for wide shop windows (Coulon 1972).

In spite of both the restoration efforts and inevitable modifications that become necessary with the passage of time, groups like the Historic Commission of Quebec have enabled the old quarter to maintain the historical integrity of Montreal. This aura of history, present in the very material from which the area was constructed, is without a doubt, the single most distinguishing characteristic of Old Montreal. Most every street was traversed and every building occupied by the pioneers who were instrumental in shaping both our city and our country, but most importantly our culture. Each and every building, promenade, and marketplace that remains relatively unchanged provides Montrealers with tangible evidence linking them with their intangible past. These inanimate mineral structures exist to remind Montrealers of our heritage, and the stories and events that are associated with them depict the lifestyle of our predecessors and by extension, define our culture. The following anecdotes involving specific regions of Old Montreal illustrate the associated history from which we learn about ourselves.

The Old Market (now called Place Royal) is probably the oldest public meeting place in the city. It was laid out in 1676, first as a drill ground, then as a public market, and continued to function as such until the New Market was created on Jacques Cartier Square in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Looking up the Old Market Square on the east side of Ostell's building, you can see a courtyard in the background and the walls of the Sulpician gardens. It is believed that the house of Maisonneuve, which was later used as the first seminary of the Sulpicians, stood in this courtyard. On the right of the market square, rue de la Capitale continues eastward. When the fortifications were built around Montreal in the early part of the eighteenth century, the importance of the market place was realized by the engineers who made it one of the five principal entrances to the city. the gate opened directly onto the harbour which provided Montreal's lifeline to the older and more secure colony at Quebec (Cooper 1969).

The confusion of old masonry and fire-escapes along the eastern part of rue de la Capital has little in it to suggest that this was one of the liveliest streets in the city. During the French regime it housed several taverns which were patronized by some of the rougher types in the fur trade, and after the arrival of the English the tradition was continued by the raftsmen and Irish pioneers. It was here that Fleury de Mesplet set up his printing press and turned out the first copy of La Gazette de Commerce et Litteraire in 1778, a paper which was later to become the Montreal Gazette. Mesplet had been brought from Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin when the Army of the Continental Congress occupied Montreal. Franklin hoped to persuade the Canadians to join the American Cause, with the aid of pamphlets turned out in both languages on Mesplet's press (Knott and Lavigueur, 1965).

Youville Square was named in honour of Marguerite d'Youville who founded the order of Grey Nuns in the eighteenth century. It's creation was delayed until the nineteenth century mainly because of the expense of covering over the Saint Pierre River which now runs under the centre of this area. Youville Square is occupied by a fire station which is a pleasant piece of Victorian Fantasy in the Tuscany-Dutch style. The river was first covered over from McGill Street to the point where the fire station stands, to create what was known as Ste. Anne's Market, where they built the United Canadas. When the Governor General Lord Elqin approved the Rebellion Losses Bill in 1849, a group of disgruntled Tories marched on Ste. Anne's Market, where they not only set fire to the parliament buildings but fought off the firemen who tried to stop the blaze. Parliament was then moved to the Bon-Secours Market building and, eventually, out of Montreal altogether. Ironically, the fire station stands on the same spot as the parliament (Smith 1970).

In the region of Old Montreal, each of the buildings that have withstood the test of time represent a plethora of stories directly related to the expansion of our culture. Any person who wishes to learn about the people of Montreal and perhaps even Canada need only find their way to that little area south of Craig Street and visit the places in which our culture was developed. It is for this reason that Old Montreal has become the principal attraction for visitors of this city, and indeed Montrealers themselves are developing a fondness for an area they once shunned as dangerous and dirty catering to longshoremen and derelicts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allaby, I. (1983). Old Montreal its old self once again. Canadian Geographer, 103, 36-45.

Cooper, J. I. (1969). Montreal: A Brief History, McGill-Queen's University Press. Montreal.

Coulon, J. (1972). Old Montreal renewal - A love affair. Canadian Geographer, 84, 24-31.

Coulon, J. (1968). Le Vieux Montreal. Commerce, 70, 44-50.

Gibbon, J. M. (1947). Our Old Montreal, McClelland and Stewart Ltd., Toronto.

Johnstone, K. (1965). Montreal's Vieux Quartier. Maclean's Magazine, 78, 17-21.

Knott, L. L., Lavigueur, H. (1965). Montreal: The Golden Years, McClelland and Stewart Ltd., Toronto.

Smith, S. A. (1970). Montreal (now and then). Beaver, 300, 34-50.

Wilson, L. M. (1960). This was Montreal in 1814, 1815, 1816 and 1817, Privately printed, Canada.