Ogilvie Mansion - 1893

 

W.W. Ogilvie was born on February 15th, 1835 in Cote-Saint-Michel, to Alexander Ogilvie (Sr.) and Helen Watson. He was the tenth of their eleven children. During the early 1800’s, his family established one of the biggest flour-milling operations in North America, the Ogilvie Mills. In May 1860, he joined his brothers Alexander (Jr.) and John, and eventually became president of the Ogilvie Mills in Montreal. On June 15th, 1871, he married Helen Johnston and started a family of his own.

 

In April 1892, William purchased the 180-acre Sommerville farm (also known as the “Rapids” farm), which included a half-mile of St.Lawrence shoreline, in an area now known as Lasalle. He hired well-known Montreal architect A.C. Hutchinson, to plan and build an English-American Queen Anne style mansion on the land facing the rapids, and to distinguish it by using wood instead of stone materials for its structure. Stables and Barns were added to shelter his racing horses and his cherished Ayershire cows. The country estate was completed in 1893 and became the family’s summer residence. The house was adorned with beautiful paintings and works of art.

For the next few years the Ogilvie place would be in its heydays as a popular summer spot for Montreal’s dignitaries and affluent celebrities, many coming to take part in the “Montreal Hunt”. We can only imagine the Victorian elegance and refined beauty of the “summer socials” that the Ogilvie house once held, not knowing that their parties would end only seven summers away.
William Watson Ogilvie died on Jan 12th, 1900, leaving all of his lands and possessions to his family. Upon his death, the Ogilvie estate also went silent for a time. Until in 1910, when it was sold by the Ogilvie family to the Ross Realty Company. There are no apparent records as to the use or condition of the house from 1910 up to 1937, when it was sold to the Sunlife Assurance Company, possibly to use as a summer estate for its company officers.

In 1944, the estate was sold to Lasalle’s famous Alepin family, who soon after rented the land and the house to the Lasalle Golf Club. During the following years many changes were made to the old mansion to accommodate the club, yet its original design and architecture were maintained. A photo from 1950, shows the mansion’s interior entrance hall with its wooden panels and doors in tact, yet now seen on the floor is the circular “Lasalle Golf Club” emblem, with word GOLF in the center divided by two putters. The golf club operated up until 1970, when it was finally closed and was assigned a “guardian” to watch the place. He looked after the house and area for almost ten years, and it was only in July of 1980, that the old Ogilvie Mansion was officially abandoned. This beautiful old home, that once entertained the famous, that once echoed music from its windows into the night, was now sentenced to a death plundered by vandals and by natural deterioration through our own neglect…and plunder they did.

 

At the time, the city of Lasalle had expropriated the land and was proposing the demolition of the mansion to make way for a new road and park. Outraged citizens collected 2,248 signatures and presented them to their city council to save the mansion and preserve it. Yet their voices remained unheard. On December 6th, 1980, the Cultural Affairs Minister advised the municipality that they were proceeding to classify the Ogilvie mansion as a cultural site. Adding that this was to protect the importance of its original owner and of its architectural style within Quebec’s heritage. For this purpose, on January 13th, 1981, the ministry sent out a public notice finally classifying the Ogilvie house and its surrounding areas as a National Heritage site.

Just two weeks after the minister’s announcement, on Feb 1st, 1981 at 10:50pm, a “mysterious” fire broke out at the mansion. Firemen could not put out the roaring flames of the old timbers. Sadly the morning papers of Feb 2nd, showed only the charred ruins of that once beautiful place. After further investigation, arson was proven beyond a doubt.

Sources: Local Archives, Lasalle Historical Society Journal (volume3, oct81), History of Lasalle, WikiPedia, Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

 

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Remembering the Town of Montreal South

The City of Montreal is flanked on both sides by the towns of Montreal East and Montreal West, each with their own different character. Even after the municipal mergers of 2002 , the former city of Montreal North remains a separate borough on the island map. While most points are covered, it is the south that is missing from the Montreal compass. In fact, there once was a town known as Montreal South. Now almost forgotten, it was located at the base of the Jacques Cartier bridge , nestled between Saint Lambert and Old Longueuil.


Montreal South Town Hall


The history of Montreal South starts in 1888, when a large track of land located between Government Farm (Old Longueuil) and Woodrow Farms (St. Lambert), just opposite Montreal, was opened and divided into building lots by developer George Parent who later bought land and divide lots in Greenfield Park and St. Hubert. The lots were sold to twelve English-speaking families (mostly northern English and Scots) who worked on the building of the Victoria Bridge.

Wanting to escape the grime of Montreal, they longed for a place in the country. There were no roads and these early settlers had to have their supplies drawn across the fields and through bush or over the snow in the winter. The first graded earth road with ditches was called Victoria Avenue (now Goupil) after Queen Victoria. In 1889, after several houses were built and families moved in, a station house was built at the junction of St. Helen and the Grand Trunk Railway tracks connecting Montreal South to Montreal via the Victoria Bridge.

Having a direct link would allow Montreal South's population to grow quickly. By 1890, a small building was used for both a school and for Methodist and Baptist church services. When it became too crowded, church services were moved to the railway station.
On April 30, 1892, with a grant of $200, Montreal South Union Church opened on St. Helen. The church was called Union because Methodists, Baptists and Anglicans would meet, each taking a different time to hold their services. Also, the church hall would later be rented for use as a two-room English schoolhouse for the younger grades (older students went to school in Longueuil.) The Presbyterians being a larger community, they would open their own church, Gardenville-St.Mark's, in 1898.

By 1905, the population of Montreal South had grown to 590 and the community was incorporated as a town. By 1906, the newly-formed Montreal & Southern Country Railway began a daily interurban trolley train across the Victoria Bridge. For eight cents, workers were provided quick transport to and from the industrial factories along the Lachine Canal. The M&SCR located its first station in St. Lambert, and soon added a branch line to Montreal South. Being less then 10 minutes (5.2 miles) from Montreal's McGill Street -d'Youville station, and located within a short walk of the shops of St. Lambert would increase land values. Therefore, most of the new residents who moved to Montreal South were the higher paid middle managers and plant foremen. This gave Montreal South a higher social status than its St.Hubert Trolley line cousins. And unlike Montreal South's country cousins, electricity came as early as 1906 to the community.


Montreal & Southern Counties Railway

With its country lifestyle, Montreal South would provide the best of both worlds. By 1943, a new English school, the William White School, opened on the corner of Lafayette Street with a capacity of 250 students. Most of the English community life focused around the community's three churches - Montreal South United, Gardenville Presbyterian, and St. Oswald's Anglican. These churches would host dinners, bazaars and fairs. They would join together for snowshoe tramping in the open fields and winter sleigh rides, trips across the frozen river along the ice road. During the summer, outdoor picnics and hiking trips along the river were common.

The population of Montreal South remained largely English-speaking until the end of the 1940s. The end of the war and opening of the Jacques Cartier Bridge brought much expansion to the area around the base of the bridge, and the South Shore was now growing.

By 1951, the population more then tripled from 1,441 to 4,214. The English community was now in a minority position. While life in Montreal South was very peaceful and uneventful for most of its first fifty years, a growing problem for residents in the 1940s was their neighbours immediately to the east. Ville Jacques Cartier had grown almost overnight and with few rules and a mishmash of poor housing, it truly became the place known as the wrong side of the tracks. Crime would often spill over and for long-time residents who were once seeking a gentle country life, it was now time to move on.
By the 1950s, the run of the M&SCR was coming to an end. The transit system was replaced by a come-by chance bus network. The old factory district at the base of McGill Street was undergoing much change as plants closed or moved westward. Employees now preferred to stay on the island of Montreal. Newer, more attractive South Shore suburbs were also opening closer to the newly completed Champlain Bridge. The population had reached 5,756 and there was now a need to provide better municipal services.

On January 28, 1961, Montreal South merged into Longueuil. (Jacques Cartier would merge in 1969.) This new municipal merger would bring about some important physical changes to the community. New housing would replace the smaller homes that once lined the streets. With the opening of shopping centres, there was less business for the stores along St. Helen, and most would soon close.
Nevertheless, English community life in Montreal South in the early 1960s remained fairly active. As it always had been, it was mostly centred on church life. Ladies would prepare afternoon teas and luncheons. To celebrate the town's 75th anniversary in 1964, a huge dinner and concert for over 300 people was held. This would also prove to be the last hurrah for the English-speaking community of Montreal South. With new English-speaking residents now choosing to locate in Greenfield Park or Brossard, the already small community would continue to shrink.


Montreal South United Church, 1934.
(Photo - courtesy of the author)

After marking its 81st anniversary in 1970, Montreal South United Church would close its doors. A year later, St. Oswald Anglican Church hosted a final service, with a handful of remaining worshippers, to officially dissolve the church - and this despite the fact that the building was only 15 years old (both churches were later torn down).

The old M&SC train route that would go into Montreal South lay abandoned for many years serving as part dog walk and night spot for romantic teenagers. Recently, the old railway tracks were removed and replaced by a bicycle path leading into Longueuil. By 1998, with less than fifty students, the once bustling William White School was closed. Montreal South had become a faded memory.
The City of Longueuil has since placed historical plaques in its new town hall to serve as a reminder of the former towns now merged under its name. For Montreal South's 56 years of official history, there is barely a line that speaks about the town's once-deep English-speaking roots.

**Kevin Erskine-Henry is the chair of the South Shore Community Partners Network. Part of the SSCPN's mandate is to promote Local Community History.

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Hochelaga School Fire

Sarah Maxwell received her Elementary diploma from the McGill Normal School in 1892 and her Model diploma the following year. That was enough to get a good position in one of Montreal's larger Protestant schools, but not normally sufficient to be eligible to become a school principal, at least for a woman. Nevertheless, by the time she was 25, Miss Maxwell found herself the head teacher of the multi-grade, three-storey school in Hochelaga. Built in 1890, it was relatively new, having replaced a one-room school that the Montreal Protestant board had inherited when the city annexed the village of Hochelaga. Much thinking had gone into the design of schools in recent years, but Hochelaga's contained one inconsistent feature: the Kindergarten was on the top floor, making it hard for those with little legs to get to class.






On 26 February 1907, a fire broke out in the school and quickly spread, forcing an evacuation. Having seen the classes on the lower floors safely out, Sarah Maxwell suddenly realized that the kindergarten class was trapped in the attic. "Miss Maxwell could have escaped," an eyewitness recounted, "but she went to the top floor to rescue the little ones. She did rescue about thirty of them, and died while attempting to save more." She "handed the children to workmen who had put ladders up to the windows. The firemen only rescued two children." The remaining sixteen "suffocated" in the smoke alongside their principal.



Public appreciation of this act of courage was matched only by the horror of the tragedy itself, which newspapers described in grim detail. Pictures of the dead children were printed, accompanied by headlines such as "Heart-Breaking Scenes at the Montreal Morgue" and "Scenes of Sorrow at the Bereaved Homes." Newspapers also pointed accusing fingers at the firemen, who arrived too late to control the fire and to stop Miss Maxwell from plunging back into the smoke, and at the school authorities for their carelessness in placing the youngest children in the least accessible rooms.





The city mourned Sarah Maxwell in a style that was elaborate, but entirely appropriate. Her funeral was held two days later - not in St Mary's Church in Hochelaga, where a service for many of the victims took place at the same time, but in Christ Church downtown. The cathedral was "packed" with mourners, who then followed the cortege up to Mount Royal Cemetery where she was buried in a lot donated by the trustees. A call went out for a fitting monument to the heroine, and was answered by the Montreal Star which set up a fund to create a "children's testimonial." Children across the city sent donations of ten cents or more: "I send you 25 cents for 'Sarah Maxwell Memorial," one little girl wrote. "Mamma cried when she read about her in the Star." The fund eventually paid for a touching monument on the site which overlooks the section of the cemetery with children's graves. It is dedicated "in loving memory" to the lady herself and to "the little ones who perished with her."





When the Hochelaga school was rebuilt the following year it was renamed "Sarah Maxwell Memorial," and when that school was closed after the Second World War a new building in the northern part of the city took the name. Now, even that school is long gone, but the Professional Library of the English Montreal School Board has been officially named the Sarah Maxwell Library. It features a portrait of Miss Maxwell near the door, along with a framed copy of a letter describing the incident (quoted above) written by a boy, Orrin Rexford, to friend who had moved away. "It will be a long time before we forget her heroism," he concluded.


courtesy: qahn (March 18, 2013)

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Fire of 1819

 

In the predawn hours of October 27, 1819, two young apprentices, sleeping in a shop garret on Notre Dame Street, were roused from their sleep by disturbing sounds. A glance at the peculiar glow outside their window quickly confirmed that a major fire was raging in their vicinity. They raised the alarm and the tocsin was urgently sounded, calling citizens to help contain and subdue the flames. The Gibbs & Kollmyer tailoring shop where the apprentices resided was spared, but not so the three adjoining buildings and another across the street. Despite all efforts, the home of the Howard sisters, the business and home of confectioner Jean-Baptiste Girard, as well as that of Paul Kauntz, also a confectioner, burned to the ground.

Flying embers set fire to the Bossange & Papineau bookstore across the street. The blaze was so intense that residents had to climb out of their windows, wearing nothing but their nightclothes, to reach the safety of a snow-covered street. Blame for the fire was eventually laid on a maidservant who had gone up to the garret with a candle the previous evening.

The story of the fire had a considerable impact, being picked up by about a dozen American newspapers, but also fueling pointed discussions in Montreal. Although members of the Fire Club, the Police and several Sulpician brothers from the nearby seminary had rushed to the scene, it was repeatedly remarked that a relatively small number of people came out to help. A few made heroic efforts to save nearby businesses, but others seemed content to simply watch, apparently indifferent to the suffering of the victims. Thieves also took advantage of the situation and made off with many of Mr. Bossange’s books and others helped themselves to Mr. Girard’s goods.

One newspaper offered this description: “Some votaries of Bacchus appeared not by any means dissatisfied with the taste of Mr. Girard’s wine. To those in the habit of exercising their risible muscles, it was no small treat to behold, at 6 o’clock on Wednesday morning, a drunken soldier and Indian on the opposite sides of a cask of the above liquid, the head of which had been broken in, drinking sociably to each other out of rusty tin cans, and eloquently descanting on the scene before them in language as unintelligible to each as Hebrew and Arabic.”

Criticism was levelled particularly at the firemen who, though quite willing to do their duty, seemed disorganized and lacking in training. The extent of the damage was also blamed on the short supply of water and the lack of sufficient fire plugs – fortunately, the Sulpicians had been able to pump water from their own garden. The garrison was also criticized for apparently not coming to the aid of the firemen even though soldiers not on duty that night had been immediately dispatched to the scene by their officers. However, when they arrived, there were no fire magistrates to be found and the officers did not think it appropriate to simply let the soldiers act without specific orders. (Apparently there was some concern about the depredations some of them might commit without adequate supervision!)

On a personal level, the event dealt a cruel blow to the Girard family. Mr. Girard was a former Napoleonic soldier, who, at the end of his military career, emigrated to Boston and later Portsmouth, New Hampshire, before settling in Montreal in 1816.

While in Portsmouth, the umbrella manufactory and confectionary/ice cream business he had set up escaped unscathed the devastating fire of December 1813 which destroyed about 250 buildings. On that occasion, Girard had been among the first citizens on the scene who had spared no effort in trying to stop the spread of the flames. At the time of the Montreal fire, Girard had been out of town, travelling to Pointe Claire to deliver writs as part of the duties of his other profession as bailiff of the Court of King’s Bench. The sight that greeted him on his return must have been jarring. The card of thanks he placed in the Canadian Courant newspaper expressed his “most ardent thanks to all those individuals who so generously exerted themselves for the preservation of his family and property during his absence.” The family lost everything. Girard continued working as bailiff for some months, but when he was given a donation of a home and property by his father-in-law in Epsom, New Hampshire, the family left Montreal.

The buildings occupied by Girard and the Howard sisters today correspond to #221-229 Notre Dame Street West. The current building is in the Art Deco style and was constructed in 1930. The Kauntz property was located at #215. The building which stands there today dates from 1866. Across the street, the location of the Bossange & Papineau bookstore is now part of the Exchange Bank building, dating from 1874.

Sources:
Canadian Courant (27 Oct. 1819)
Canadian Courant (30 Oct. 1819)
Courier du bas Canada (30 Oct. 1819)
Montreal Herald (30 Oct. 1819)
New York Evening Post (5 Nov. 1819)

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Rialto Theatre

The building was built in 1923 according to the plans of architect Raoul Gariépy. Gariépy also designed the Verdun Theater in 1912-1915, the Théâtre de la Lune Rousse in 1913 and the Maisonneuve Theater in 1921.
The Rialto Theatre was designed in the Beaux-Arts style and was inspired by the Paris Opéra. The theatre’s richly decorated neo-Baroque interior was designed by the famous theatre designer Emmanuel Briffa. Briffa created the decoration of most of the movie theaters that were built in Montreal before 1940, such as the Empress Theater (1927), the Outremont Theater (1928), the cinema Le Château (1831), and the York.




Initially, the building included a projection room, a dance hall, shops on the ground floor, and a garden on the roof. There was also a space for bowling and billard in the basement. The projection room served not only for movies, but also for theatrical plays and music shows, as it was also the case in the other theaters in Montreal at that time.

The Rialto was managed by United Amusement Corporation Limited. This company was founded in 1908 by George Nicholas Ganetakos, an immigrant of Greek origin. His company grew rapidly, and managed several theaters, such as the Regent, the Papineau, the Rivoli, the Séville, the York, and of course the Rialto. At the end of the 1930s, United Amusement was acquired by Famous Players Canadian Corporation, a company from Toronto.

The Rialto Theatre was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1993. The façade and the interior of the Rialto are still very well preserved today.

http://theatrerialto.ca/

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Wilder Graves Penfield

His studies in 1924 with the Madrid neurohistologist Pio del Rio-Hortega provided him with metallic staining techniques that yielded new information on the glia, the supporting cells of the nervous system.

Wilder Graves Penfield, neurosurgeon, scientist (b at Spokane, Wash 26 Jan 1891; d at Montréal 5 Apr 1976). 

He was founder and first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute and established the "Montreal procedure" for the surgical treatment of epilepsy. Having obtained a BLitt from Princeton in 1913, Penfield attended Merton College, Oxford. There he was influenced by 2 great medical teachers, Sir William Osler, who became his lifelong hero, and the eminent neurophysiologist Charles Sherrington, who introduced him to experimental investigation of the nervous system.
After graduating with an MD from Johns Hopkins in 1918, he served as surgeon to the Presbyterian Hospital (affiliated with Columbia) and to the New York Neurological Institute 1921- 22

His studies in 1924 with the Madrid neurohistologist Pio del Rio-Hortega provided him with metallic staining techniques that yielded new information on the glia, the supporting cells of the nervous system. In 1928 he learned from the German surgeon Otfrid Foerster the method of excising brain scars to relieve focal epilepsy. That year he moved with his neurosurgical partner, William Vernon Cone, to work at Montréal's Royal Victoria Hospital, where they became associated with neurologist Colin K. Russel. In 1934, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the government of Québec, the city of Montréal and private donors, Penfield founded the Montreal Neurological Institute, which rapidly became an international centre for teaching, research and treatment related to diseases of the nervous system. He was its director until 1960.

In the last 15 years of his life Penfield enjoyed a second career as a writer of historical novels and medical biography. He devoted himself to public service, particularly in support of university education, and became first president of the Vanier Institute of the Family. He was widely known for promoting early second-language training. His writings from this period include The Mystery of the Mind (1975), summarizing his views on the mind/brain problem, and No Man Alone(1977), an autobiography of the years 1891-1934.

Penfield's most lasting legacy was the foundation and the establishment by endowment of the Montreal Neurological Institute. This neurological hospital integrated with a brain-research complex continues to provide a centre where both basic scientists and physicians study the brain; it has served as a model for similar units throughout the world. To Penfield the brain and the nervous system represented the most important unexplored field in the whole of science. "The problem of neurology," he wrote, "is to understand man himself." Among his honours, he received the Royal Bank Award.


©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

 

The first official, annual Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated on 6 November 1879, though Indigenous peoples in Canada have a history of celebrating the fall harvest that predates the arrival of European settlers. Sir Martin Frobisher and his crew are credited as the first Europeans to celebrate a Thanksgiving ceremony in North America, in 1578. They were followed by the inhabitants of New France under Samuel de Champlainin 1606.

The celebration featuring the uniquely North American turkey, squash and pumpkin was introduced to Nova Scotia in the 1750s and became more common across Canada by the 1870s. In 1957, Thanksgiving was proclaimed an annual event to occur on the second Monday of October. It is an official statutory holiday in all provinces and territories except PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The first national Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated in the Province of Canada in 1859. Organized at the behest of leaders of the Protestant clergy — who appropriated the holiday of American Thanksgiving, first observed in 1777 and established as a national day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” in 1789 — the holiday was intended for the “public and solemn” recognition of God’s mercies. As historian Peter Stevens has noted, some citizens “objected to this government request, saying it blurred the distinction between church and state that was so important to many Canadians.”

Thanksgiving is an official statutory holiday in all provinces and territories except PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. It is called L’Action de Grâce in Québec and is celebrated to a much lesser extent there than in the rest of the country, given the holiday’s Protestant origins and Anglo-nationalist associations. The main differences among the other provinces tend to concern the dishes that are served with the meal. For example, Jiggs’ dinner is often preferred over turkey in Newfoundland. Pumpkin pie is a common dessert nationally, but there are also regional favourites, such as Nanaimo bars in BC, butter tarts in Ontario and cranberry pie in New Brunswick.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved