Written by Danka Davidovic –

The CHQ’s extensive collection of stereoscopic photos transports you through the unpaved (and sometimes snow-covered!) streets of 19^th century Montreal. Popular in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, stereoscopy was renowned for producing 3D images. This process involved taking two pictures at slightly different angles that mimicked the distance between the eyes, so that, when placed side-by-side and viewed through a stereoscope, the image looked to be 3D (Vaillancourt, 2015).

The CHQ’s stereoscopic collection captures a time of intense economic activity in what is now Old Montreal. Despite the city’s growth beyond Saint Antoine Street by this point, Old Montreal continued to be an important hub in this time. This exhibition allows you to explore the city street-by-street and neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood during this period. See the newest addition to Sainte-Catherine Street around 1840-1850, when the street would begin its gradual growth into a commercial area with the opening of the Morgan and Ogilvy department stores in the last decade of the 19^th century.  

Witness the migration of the city’s institutions from the unsavoury industrial old town, especially around Lachine Canal, to the heights of the city around 1860. The Grey Nuns on Dorchester, the Hôtel-Dieu on des Pins, and the college of Montreal on Sherbrooke, are all examples to which the current city still bears witness.

Admire the splendour of the “Golden Square Mile”, populated by the luxurious residences of the city’s wealthy businessmen starting from 1850. Some, like Harrison Stephens, settled on Dorchester Street, while others came to prefer the area leaning against the mountain. You can still admire some of these houses today!

William Notman, James Inglis, James George Parks and more provide a captivating look at the city in this online exhibition prepared by Yves Guillet. Click here to download the English PDF.

Source:

• Vaillancourt, N. (January 8, 2015). Avant la télévision 3D : la stéréoscopie. BAnQ. https://blogues.banq.qc.ca/instantanes/2015/01/08/avant-la-television-3d-la-stereoscopie/

Written by Danka Davidovic –

Born in 1880, Léopold Hurtubise was only 20 years old when he bought his “Premo” folding box camera. Despite being a medical student at the time, Léopold was serious about his photography and spent the equivalent of $4,365 on what was, at that time, a state-of-the-art camera. Over a century later, the CHQ still has both his camera and roughly 300 glass negatives he produced with it.

Glass negatives consist of a light-sensitive chemical solution applied to a glass plate, which would then be exposed to light through the camera’s lens, creating an image. These images are called negatives because the image produced was the opposite of the positive image that the human eye sees, with regards to the inversion of light and dark (A Brief History of Glass Plate Photography, n.d.). These glass negatives that Léopold produced offer an invaluable depiction of the middle-class experience that went on to define the city’s history and politics for the rest of the 20^th century. These photographs depict a variety of subjects, including notable events in Montreal and the doctor’s family and friends.

But, it wasn’t until 2019 that these glass negatives were actually discovered. The heavy case in which the glass negatives were stored was tucked away in a dusty but well-protected corner of Hurtubise House.

The archivist at the time, Laura Estévez-Vásquez, and CHQ Executive Director Jacques Archambault opened the case to find small cardboard boxes, containing glass negatives carefully packed in folders.

Many even have Léopold’s own handwritten notes on them!  

Thanks to Léopold’s family and the CHQ’s efforts to preserve and protect all of these negatives, we have the opportunity to see the world as he saw it back in the early 1900s. Come to Hurtubise House this summer to see this exciting special exhibition, on display from June to September 2023. By appointment only, please email: coord@hcq-chq.org. For a PDF preview of some of the items on display, click here!

Source:

• A Brief History of Glass Plate Photography. (n.d.). Texas State University Archives. https://exhibits.library.txstate.edu/univarchives/exhibits/show/cen-tex-glass-plates/mystery-deliv/glass-plate-negs

Written by Delia Oltean –

The ship is just about to leave for a long trip… From France to the New World, the journey can take up to several months. On board, in addition to the crew, is an essential commodity, alcohol. Barrels of wine will make the same long journey as the crew, for the purpose of satisfying the thirst of the inhabitants of the Nouvelle-France.

In the cellar of the Hurtubise House, four barrels of wine and port were found, as well as a rack for wine bottles. Although it is probably impossible to know with certainty the use that the family made of it or even the origin of all these articles related to alcohol, it does not prevent the curiosity relative to the place of alcohol in the colony of the Nouvelle-France from being piqued.

The history goes back to Samuel de Champlain… Already at that time, the French had the idea of importing European vines (Lafrance, 1992). Some attempts to make wine had already been made with the wild vines of the Nouvelle-France, only the wine was black and very bitter making it completely undrinkable. The imported vines were also a failure since the wine always remained bitter. The colonists had to realize that importing wine from France was the best solution to the problem of undrinkable alcohol (Allaire, 2009). 

If for some, the consumption of wine was frequent at the time (Allaire, 2009), others are of the opposite opinion (Ferland, 2004). This duality is explained in the statistics found in the inventories of the merchants of the time. It even seems that “some years, the quantities of imported alcohol were so important that this type of merchandise constituted the most revenue in taxes at the port of Quebec” (Ferland, 2004). However, the importation of wine is comparable to an art, so much so that one must calculate not to let the wine alter and become bitter during transportation. Despite the debate, it seems that another alcohol such as beer was also very popular with the population (Allaire, 2009). 

With numerous privateer attacks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Seven Years’ War, alcohol took longer to reach the population. Sometimes the boats never came! Prices were rising and the way to solve this problem was to turn to another source of alcohol that could be produced directly in Nouvelle-France. Apple trees grow easily on the land and besides, the Hurtubise family had already started growing apples and owned a wine press (Stewart, Robichaud, 2001, p. 54), so why not make cider (Ferland, 2004)?

Slowly, the production of cider and beer will take over in Nouvelle-France, although the importation of certain styles of wine such as port will be easier under the English regime (Lafrance, 1992).

Sources:

• Allaire, B. (2009). Le vin en Nouvelle-France. Vin Québec. https://vinquebec.com/node/6289
• Ferland, C. (2004). L’ivresse de découvrir. Au fil des événements. https://archives.nouvelles.ulaval.ca/Au.fil.des.evenements/2004/01.15/ferland.html
• Lafrance, M. (1992). De la qualité des vins en Nouvelle-France. Cap-aux-Diamants. https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/cd/1992-n28-cd1039702/7981ac.pdf 
• Stewart, A. Robichaud, L. (2001). Étude patrimoniale de la maison des Hurtubise. Institut d’histoire de l’Amérique française et Ministère de la Culture et des Communications. 

Written by Delia Oltean –

It is by an old narrow staircase serving as a passage to the basement that the visitor is forced to bend his head, in order to avoid a very low ceiling composed of various obstacles, making the visit to the basement a real expedition. It must be said that it is not in vain that the passage is difficult to access once well advanced in the basement, it is possible to notice three huge tree trunks placed horizontally along the ceiling. It is most fascinating to note that these three cedar trees still have their bark from when they were cut down around 1534 or 1535!

In their own way, these large tree trunks have taken root in the Hurtubise House due to their function as beams supporting the entire upper floors. It is because the beams are heavy that they are supported by what is called a “stone load-bearing partition”. This type of wall is “located inside of a building, [and] helps the load-bearing facade walls support the weight of the frame and floors, which it reduces the extend, and often allows to stabilize the building by participating in bracing.” (Office québécois de la langue française, 2019).

On the first floor, it is not massive tree trunks that provide stability and support for the rest of the house, since looking up to the ceiling, you can see other beams, more elaborate, less massive, and especially more aesthetic. These are made of large trunks of wood cut until obtaining a beam in the shape of a prism with a rectangular base – this technique is called “squaring”. The wood is thus squared and has, in addition, a fine finish (smooth) produced by sanding.

On the second floor of the Hurtubise House, the squared beams are similar to those on the first floor, with the only difference being that they do not have a fine finish (thus leaving visible the traces of the tools used to make them). Large beams are placed at intervals of 6 to 8 feet apart, while smaller beams are found between them.

Also on the second floor, along the front and back walls, we can also find diagonally placed pieces of wood connecting the beams of the attic floor to the stone walls of the house – these are called struts. These pieces of wood serve to transfer the weight of the attic structure to the stone walls.

In the attic, there is a magnificent wooden structure – punch, beams, and braces – which support the roof, the rafters, the bridging, and the cedar shingles. Some of the rafters are so-called mobile rafters, with no real attachment to the load-bearing structure, while others are connected to the trusses, giving to this structure a triangular shape that forms the master truss at the base of modern roof trusses.

Sources:

• Office québécois de la langue française. (2019). Mur de refend. Office québécois de la langue française. http://gdt.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/ficheOqlf.aspx?Id_Fiche=8891171

Written by Delia Oltean –

Looking at the frontage of the Hurtubise House is to look at a lot of small details that combine to create the house’s particular architecture. Letting your eyes wander over the double-sided roof, the fieldstone or the stonework around the windows reveals a lot about the evolution of the house, but also about the history of these architectural elements.

An “anchor” is a piece of metal that prevents two parts of a structure from moving apart over time. Since the movement of the ground can cause a building to move apart, the purpose of the anchor is to reduce this effect by attaching itself to the floor beams and to the walls (Culture et communication Québec, 2001). In addition to holding various parts together, anchors are visible from the outside since part of the element protrudes from the exterior wall (Paré, 1993). Far from being only observable in one and the same version, they can take different forms. Thus, anchors in the shape of the letter S are simply called “esses” (Culture et communications Québec, 2015). 

If you look closely, you can see that between the roof of the Hurtubise House and the stone walls, there are some anchors to hold these two structural elements together. Also, around the openings, you can notice other anchors called esses that are embedded in the stone walls. Around the front windows of the house for example, the esses were probably only used to hold the shutters that were installed at the time. It must be said that the shape of the metal letter S is often carefully forged creating an arabesque effect, which makes this small element very pretty on a frontage! Thus, they can also fulfill aesthetic purposes.

Since esses can also hold louvres, it would be interesting to demystify what the difference is between a shutter, a blind, louvre or a brace—terms that often seem to get mixed up…

Perhaps we should start by establishing that shutters can never be seen outside: they are designed to be placed inside, close to the windows themselves. Braces, on the other hand, can be found outside, although they are solid panels that are placed in front of the windows to block the wind, for example. An expanded version of braces, louvres became popular a little later in history (City of Lévis). From the solid wood panel, long strips are removed to allow ventilation and a view to the outside. When the slats are mobile, the louvre is called a blind (Culture et communications, 2015). The Maison Hurtubise had louvres around the windows for a long time; now removed, they are displayed inside the house. A few pictures still remain to testify of this bygone era and to give us an idea of what it might have looked like. 

You just have to open your eyes to find the esses or the hooks used to hang the louvres in those days. Will you find them?

Sources:

• Culture et communications Québec. (2015). Glossaire du vocabulaire de l’architecture québécoise. Culture et communications Québec. https://www.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/documents/patrimoine/Glossaire_vocabulaire-architecture-quebecoise.pdf
• Culture et communications Québec. (2001). Guide d’intervention en patrimoine. Culture et communications Québec. http://www.mrccharlevoix.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Guide-intervention-du-patrimoine.pdf 
• Paré, G. (1993). Vocabulaire de la maçonnerie. Les Éditions de l’Équerre. https://www.institutdemaconnerie.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/vocabulaire_de_la_maconnerie.pdf 
• Ville de Lévis. (s.d.). Composantes et modèles architecturaux. Ville de Lévis. https://www.ville.levis.qc.ca/developpement-planification/architecture-patrimoniale/composantes-et-modeles/?idfiche=34  

Written by Delia Oltean –

In the barn near the Maison Hurtubise, the discovery of a magnificent outdoor wrought iron bench raised many questions as to its origin and history.

A two-seater bench, of which most of the furniture—i.e., the backrest, the armrests, and the legs—is composed of wrought iron crafted to create a set of arabesques and floral patterns. The seat, on the other hand, is made of wood. It is possible to assume that the bench must have been used outside the house as garden furniture.

There is very little information about the mystery around this piece of furniture. However, it is possible to know that the manufacturer of the bench is called The Coalbrookdale Company. Coalbrook, in addition to being the name of the manufacturer, is a village in England known for being the first place of mining and metallurgical development in the first phase of the Industrial Revolution in England (Montagne, 2007). Currently, the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron has a bench in its archives identical to the one at Hurtubise House.

According to the information of this second bench in England, we can date the furniture around the year 1859. Apparently, at that time, a series of garden furniture (benches and chairs) were made of wrought iron, using different floral patterns. The one at the Hurtubise House is likely called the Oak and Ivy Chair (Stephen, 2015). 

The reasons why the Hurtubise family could have owned this piece of furniture from the other side of the ocean are still unknown…

Sources:

• Stephen, G. A. (30 mars 2015). Oak and Ivy Chair. Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron. https://geotopoi.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/coalbrookdale-museum-of-iron-great-exhibition/coalbrookdale-museum-of-iron-20150330-18-oak-and-ivy-chair/
• Montagne, R. (2 Mai 2007). Coalbrookdale and the History of Coal Power. NPR. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9955564 

Written by Delia Oltean –

“Servants, fetch some snow from the mountain. Bring honey and fruit juice!” 

A legend says that the Roman Emperor Nero, who lived from 37 to 68 AD, sent his servants to fetch ice from the mountain tops to be sprinkled with a sweetening element, thus creating an early version of the ice cream known to all today. 

However, the first known appearance of this tempting dessert does not date back to the time of Emperor Nero. In China, nearly 2000 years ago, sorbet was created by mixing fruit juice or wine with snow and saltpetre (also called potassium nitrate to lower the freezing point of water).

Initially made of ice, ice cream had to wait until the greed of Catherine de Medici and the inventiveness of her chefs to find cream as a substantial ingredient. It seems then that ice cream takes more and more popularity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries among the wealthier classes (Neyrat. 2017).

It was at the turn of the 1700s that the frozen dessert appeared in the United States, provoking a huge craze in its favour, as can be seen in the first milk bars (around 1800), peddlers (around 1820) or ice cream cutting inventions (Barriault. 2002. p. 16). Quite visible in the kitchen of the Maison Hurtubise, an ice cream maker reminds us that this invention was created in 1846 by the American Nancy Johnson. Consisting of a watertight bucket used to hold ice and salt, the ice cream maker has a metal container in the middle to hold the cream or sorbet (L’histoire de la sorbetière : entre tradition et innovation. 2020). A crank turns the container and after about thirty minutes, the desired result appears!

In Quebec, it was not until the 20^th century that this dessert became popular, as the rather small-scale machinery reduced the quantity of ice cream produced, thus inflating the price of the dessert (Barriault. p. 17). With industrialization and new ways of speeding up the ice cream making process in factories, more affordable prices allowed the less affluent population to access it more frequently. It is interesting to note that struggles for mandatory pasteurization of milk led to clear standards for ice cream in the so-called Adulteration Act of 1910. 

In Quebec, the 1950s marked the end of the association of ice cream as a luxury food when the government removed its tax on it.

Sources:

• Neyrat, P. (22 juin 2017). Glaces et sorbets : l’histoire d’une fraîcheur millénaire. Académie du goût. https://www.academiedugout.fr/articles/glaces-et-sorbets-lhistoire-dune-fraicheur-millenaire_3246 
• L’histoire de la sorbetière : entre tradition et innovation. (24 juillet 2020). Hubert Cloix. https://www.hubertcloix.com/lhistoire-de-la-sorbetiere-entre-tradition-et-innovation/ 
• Barriault, F. (2002). Quel délice ! La crème glacée ! Cap-aux-Diamants. Cap-aux-Diamants,(71).16-17.https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/cd/2002-n71-cd1044845/7479ac.pdf

Written by Delia Oltean –

The branches feeding the fire crackle softly around the house and mingle with the sound of water bubbling in a large pot over the fire. It is mealtime and along with the soup, some vegetables need to be washed. Under a window is a large, somewhat hollow stone: the sink.

If you go back in time and follow the popular Latin, you will realize that the word “évier” (sink) originates from the word “aquarium”, which refers, according to Le Petit Robert, to “eau” (water). In fact, kitchen sinks have existed for a long time and have changed shape over time, adapting to the needs and technologies available. Visible in French castles dating back to the Middle Ages, the sink was already used “to discharge outside the water used to wash dishes” (Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle/Évier, 2014, par. 1). This kitchen element consisted of a hollowed-out stone, usually placed in front of a window. A hole was drilled in the wall from which the water used for washing dishes and fruit and vegetables flowed out. 

Since running water was not yet available at the time of the construction of the Hurtubise House in 1739, the water used for cooking was drawn by hand and contained in a pitcher or bucket (Varin, 1991, p. 50) before being used. Once soiled, the water was drained through the hole in the wall before being recovered and used for other purposes such as the maintenance of the vegetable garden. In order not to leave a permanent hole in the wall of the house, a wooden peg covered the hole when it was not in use (Séguin, 1972, p. 207). It is not uncommon to find that the “évier” (sink) was also called a “lévier” or even “lavier” (Dunn, 1880). 

It was not until the 19th century that some wealthier families were able to build sinks with pumps connected to them, which greatly facilitated access to water. Initially made of stone, the late 1800s saw the diversification of sink construction materials, with pressed steel and even enamelled metal replacing stone (Varin, 2007, p. 53). Taps also added to the comfort of the kitchen, allowing the use of running water. 

The Hurtubise House has retained its stone sink for a very long period due to the delay in the installation of running water by the family. Despite the modern plumbing used today, it is possible to see this interesting feature in its original state.

Sources:

• Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle/Évier. (7 février 2014). Dans Wikipedia. https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_raisonn%C3%A9_de_l%E2%80%99architecture_fran%C3%A7aise_du_XIe_au_XVIe_si%C3%A8cle/%C3%89vier
• Dunn, O. (1880). Glossaire Franco-Canadien et vocabulaire de locutions vicieuses usitées au Canada. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13230/13230-h/13230-h.htm 
• Évier, Le Petit Robert, https://petitrobert12.lerobert.com/robert.asp 
• Séguin, R-L.(1972). L’habitation traditionnelle au Québec. Les Cahiers des dix. https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/cdd/1972-n37-cdd01426/1025297ar.pdf 
• Varin, F. (2007). Leçons de plomberie. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/continuite/2007-n112-continuite1055840/17492ac.pdf 
• Varin, F. (1991). Les cuisines anciennes. https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/continuite/1991-n51-continuite1052517/17732ac.pdf