History Articles

When married and still living in Montreal, Mother [Mary Ann Swift Wickham] took us children to St. Lambert when ill in summer. She boarded at an inn on the riverbank kept by the Irvings and known as Irving’s Hotel. This was then a roadhouse, where farmers passing to market in the city by ferry, or ice-bridge, stopped to refresh themselves. St. Lambert air was thought to cure “summer complaint” a cause of great infant mortality in those days. The sufferer was rowed upon the river. However, the fresh milk obtainable was more likely the cause of improvement.

Macdonald College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue is remembered as a bequest of Sir William Christopher Macdonald, and it was a gift of extraordinary generosity. Not only did he perceive the need for an agricultural and teaching college, but he also acquired the land, ordered the design of the buildings, paid the costs of construction and endowed the institution. The college was only one of many gifts from possibly the most generous philanthropist in the history of our country. What do we really know about the man and his own history?

A cornerstone of Montreal’s immigrant heritage stands at the corner of Bagg and Clark streets in Montreal’s now-trendy Plateau district.