The city was once dotted with gates. I suppose you had to pay a man to get through them. There's an old guy about 90 something years old living on Greene south of Dorchester who claims that he recalls when there was a gate on Craig (St. Antoine) and Greene.
We also found that there was a gate at the top of Quarry Street, des Carrieres.
I think it's time we resurrect them just to bug Westmount.
I think Westmount would love that idea. the only people that should be passing through from St Henri to Westmount are the maids and coal wagons anyways:P
ReplyDeleteSo how about that shooting last night on Decarie and Snowdon, a little over a week after you posted about a previous murder there.
If anyone knows more about gates around the city please post info...Id never heard of this and am quite curious
ReplyDeleteThanks
Those were toll gates to pay for the roads’ upkeep.
ReplyDeleteAnd Westmount maids don’t come from St-Henri anymore, but from Côte-des-Neiges.
what about the fence between T M R and Mile End on L'acadie.(is it a gate or a fence ?)
ReplyDeleteIf you go to mccord-museum.qc.ca and search toll gate you'll find a Notman photo from 1859 of Montreal "from below the Cote Dse Neiges toll gate."
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am not old enough to remember the tollgates I do remember when what we can now whistle up on Google in a flash involved a reference librarian and library stacks. The free Gazette archives (accessed by Google's advanced news archive search)are a treasure trove.
ReplyDeleteMontreal tollroads were financed and run by the Montreal Turnpike Trust rather than the municipalities. The toll gates I referred to were at Westmount Boulevard and Cote des Neiges. They came down in 1908.
Gazette stories of March 1904 tell the tale. The Dominion Government had become a bondholder at Confederation. Concern was expressed in the House of Commons about the Trust's management, reporting and excessive payments to gatekeepers. That was the beginning of the end for the Trust,
tollgates and turnpikes.
I find Coolopolis provocative and interesting, particularly since I moved to the States in 1960 and have not been back that often in recent years.
Intéressant de voir comment Vancouver est pas mal plus criminalisé que les autres grandes villes. Et ils finissent toujours en tête des endroits paradisiaques.
ReplyDeleteCraig and Greene? Hmmm methinks thou jestest. Craig went as far west as near where Place Victoria stands (the building). On meeting the eastern end of St. Antoine there, Craig veered south to meet St. James. St. Antoine did the same thing going south east, turning itself into Little St. Antoine Street in the process. Craig was wiped off the maps in a fit of ethnic cleansing but St. Antoine/Anthony has old historical links to the west end. There was St. Anthony’s church on St. Antoine between Seigneurs and Chatham, now where the Ville-Marie spews onto St. Antoine. Westmount was once the Town of St. Antoine, and Cote St. Antoine Road was the high-ground thoroughfare from the old city to Lachine and beyond, going back to Iroquois days probably.
ReplyDeleteThe detailed 1879 map shows a toll house on the south-east corner of Sherbrooke and Greene, where the old American Drugstore was. Today it appears Sherbrooke has a kink between Greene and Clarke avenue, but this was originally the continuation of the ancient Cote St. Antoine road. Sherbrooke west of Clarke avenue is relatively recent, since the flat land it traversed was farmland, and most likely cut up frequently by streams off Westmount mountain, not to mention marshy areas. Orchards dotted the slopes of Westmount mountain. Cote St. Antoine road was a natural ancient route, following the relatively dry edge of Westmount mountain.
Due respect to the 90 year old gent but I can’t see any reference to a toll house on St. Antoine near Greene, on the 1879, 1880, 1890 or 1913 maps. That was the original section of Greene avenue, the part between Dorchester and Sherbrooke considered the extension of Dorchester in 1879. St. Catherine street petered out after today’s Greene, and its convergence with Dorchester at today’s Clarke avenue (went to Hallowell until the brutal demolitions of c. 1962) was called Little Cote St. Antoine Road. That didn’t go further than the Glen, which until extensive engineering probably in the 1880s would have been a rushing stream at all times of the year.
There was one at Sherbrooke and Greene in the 1860s and possibly beyond.
ReplyDeleteI have a 1905 map which shows 5 toll houses or stations located at or near the intersections of streets which have since been renamed or at that time not yet in existence, namely:
ReplyDelete1) Cote des Neiges near where Ridgewood is today.
2) Cote des Neiges corner of The Boulevard
3) Cote St. Antoine near what is now Marlowe
4) Decarie near what is now De Maisonneuve
5) Sherbrooke corner of Decarie
6) St. Jacques corner of what is now St. Remi
A complete list of Montreal's toll houses should exist in some archive. There must have been many others elsewhere on the island, but my map does not indicate any such toll houses at Sherbrooke and Greene nor at St. Antoine near Greene. Perhaps these were unprofitable, had been moved elsewhere, or simply closed.
I wonder if the tolls were levied only upon horse wagons and not on individuals riding a horse?
Somehow I cannot imagine wealthy Mr. Dandurand (the first Montrealer to own an automobile) being required to pay a toll as I can picture the toll house keeper scratching his head at the first sight of Mr. Dandurand's horseless carriage and waving him along gratis before later receiving any new instructions from his boss regarding what constituted a "tollable vehicle"! Possibly Mr. Dandurand even became indignant at being asked to pay or had no problem tossing the toll keeper the coins required.
It would be fascinating to learn about the complaints and the controversy over such toll houses back then and how many managed to avoid them by taking short cuts.
One may safely assume that the toll houses were eventually abolished as automobiles slowly replaced horses and a gasoline tax was instituted to generate revenue.
Further archival research is in order.
I've been looking at this subject recently, as I'm writing a short section on it for my book, which is about halfway written.
ReplyDeleteToll gates shifted around as municipalities purchased land and boundaries changed. Here's one example in front of what's now Champs Bar on the Main. It was a little further down the road at another time as the article explains.
http://histoireplateau.canalblog.com/archives/2006/09/09/2643302.html
I now don't believe there was a toll at St. Antoine and Greene but there was definitely one at Sherbrooke and Greene in the 1860s. At that time there were hardly any structures on St. Catherine W. which ended at Guy where a high wall existed as entrance to the Priests Farm according to an excellent old article I just saw. I'll post the link when I find it.
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=8817,99661650&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
ReplyDeletethis also explains how toll gates moved around.