By Nancy Miller Chenier
It was a little hard to get an interview with Sir John before celebrating his 200-year birthday on January 11th 2015, but it was not too difficult to collect some stories about his Lowertown experiences. Canada’s first Prime Minister, the man who helped forge the Canadian Confederation in 1867, worked, lived, played, and died in this community.
Sir John A. Macdonald spent his last years driving from Parliament along Sussex Street to his home at Earnscliffe, in the northeast corner of Lowertown. He often stopped at the nearby station to hop on the Ottawa and Prescott train for a connection to his Kingston constituency. He purchased rhubarb powder for his stomach ailments from a Rideau Street druggist. He served as a patron of two sports clubs located in Lowertown: the rowing club on the Ottawa River boundary and the toboggan club situated at the Rideau River boundary. One of our bridges, Macdonald-Cartier, and one of our parks, Macdonald Gardens, carry his name. And there is much more…
In 1883, during his last term as Prime Minister, Sir John purchased Earnscliffe, the lovely stone Gothic Revival house that is now the home of the British Ambassador. Here, on the cliff overlooking the Ottawa River, he lived and worked until his death in June 1891. According to Lady Agnes Macdonald, his second wife, politics invaded home as well as Parliament Hill. At one point in her diary, she wrote that “…I think the very flies hold Parliaments on the kitchen table.” But it was also at Earnscliffe that Sir John was able to show love and tenderness to Mary, their disabled daughter, affectionately nicknamed “Baboo.”
After marrying Agnes, Sir John became a regular attendee at the local Anglican church and had a role in the establishment of a small Anglican Mission Hall on Anglesea Square, now Jules Morin Park. In 1887, the fund raiser for the Anglesea Square Mission Fund sent a terse letter to Prime Minister Macdonald, stating that the fund was anxious to receive his promised $10 contribution. The following month, a reply from Sir John’s private secretary explained the delay, pointing out that as Sir John had just fought a federal election, he had other things on his mind. Notwithstanding Prime Minister’s late payment, in 1894 the Anglicans managed to build their brick Mission Hall at the corner of Chapel and Clarence.
Sir John’s public persona was often on display in Lowertown. As a patron of the newly formed Osh Kosh Toboggan Club in 1888, he paraded in a torchlight procession along Rideau Street. With other enthusiasts, he tobogganed down the steep sandy hill by the Protestant Hospital (now Wallis House) and across the Rideau River. When asked to speak, he reportedly joked that his opponents would consider it appropriate for him to “go downhill” on the toboggan slide “because they had always looked on him as a slippery customer.”
The politics of Canada were always his primary activity and one of his most difficult affairs was the case of Louis Riel. In October 1885, Macdonald appointed François-Xavier Valade, a well-known general practitioner who resided at 142 St. Patrick Street, as one of three doctors instructed to report to the government on whether Riel was a reasonable and accountable being who could properly be executed for treason. Despite Valade’s conclusion that Riel was unable to distinguish between right and wrong on political and religious subjects, he was sentenced to be hung in November 1885.
In this year of his 200th birthday and leading up to the 150th celebration of Canada’s Confederation, Lowertown residents can join in commemorating one of our prominent early citizens – Sir John A. Macdonald.