"For a considerable time past, several plans of amelioration of the City of Quebec," says the Abbé Ferland, "were proposed to the Ministry by M. de Meules. The absolute necessity of obtaining a desirable locality for the residence of the Intendant, and for holding the sessions of the Council; the Château St. Louis being hardly sufficient to afford suitable quarters for the Governor and the persons who formed his household. M. de Meules proposed purchasing a large stone building which M. Talon had caused to be erected for the purpose of a brewery, and which, for several years, had remained unoccupied. Placed in a very commodious position on the bank of the river St. Charles, and not many steps from the Upper Town, this edifice, with suitable repairs and additions, might furnish not alone a desirable residence for the Intendant, but also halls and offices for the Supreme Council and the Courts of Justice, as likewise vaults for the archives and a prison for the criminals. Adjacent to the old brewery, M. Talon owned an extent of land of about seventeen superficial acres, of which no use was made in M. de Meules' plan; a certain portion of this land could be reserved for the gardens and dependencies of the Intendant's Palace, whilst the remainder might be portioned off into building lots (emplacements), and thus convert it into a second lower town, and which might some day be extended to the foot of the Cape. He believed that if this plan were adopted, the new buildings of Quebec would extend in that direction, and not on the heights almost exclusively occupied by the Religious Communities. [129]
We perceive, according to Mr. Panet's Journal, that Saint Roch existed in 1759; that the women and children, residents of that quarter, were not wholly indifferent to the fate of their distressed country. "The same day (31st July, 1759)," says Panet, "we heard a great uproar in the St. Roch quarter—the women and children were shouting, 'Long Live the King!'" [130] "I ascended the height (on the Coteau Ste. Geneviève) and there beheld the first frigate all in a blaze, very shortly afterwards a black smoke issuing from the second, which blew up and afterwards took fire." On the 4th August several bomb-shells of 80 lbs. fell on St. Roch. We read, that on the 31st August, two soldiers were hanged at three o'clock in the afternoon, for having stolen a cask of brandy from the house of one Charland, in the St. Roch quarter. In those times the General (or the Recorder) did not do things by halves. Who was, this Charland of 1759? Could he be the same who, sixteen years afterwards, fought so stoutly with Lieut. Dambourgès at the Sault-au-Matelot engagement? Since the inauguration of the English domination, St. Roch became peopled in a most rapid manner, we now see there a net-work of streets, embracing in extent several leagues.
The first steep hill past the Y. M. C. Association Hall—formerly Gallows Hill, (where the luckless David McLane was disembowelled, in 1797, for levying war against the King of Great Britain), and leading from St. John street without to that not over-straight thoroughfare, named after the second Bishop of Quebec—St. Vallier street—borrows its name from Barthélémy Coton, who in days of yore closed his career in Quebec at the advanced age of 92 years. Can anyone tell us the pedigree of Barthélémy Coton? To the French portion of the inhabitants it is known as Côte à Coton, whilst the English portion still continue to surround it, unopportunely we think, with the unhallowed traditions of a lugubrious past and call it Gallows Hill. Côte à Coton debouches into St. Vallier street, which on your way takes you to Scott's Bridge, over the Little River St Charles. Across St. Vallier street it opens on a rather magnificent street as to extent—Baronne street,—commemorating the souvenir of an illustrious family in colonial History, represented by Madame la Baronne de Longueuil, the widow of the third Baron, who had, in 1770, married the Honorable. Wm. Grant, the Receiver-General of the Province of Quebec, who lived at St. Rochs, and died there in 1805.
On M. P. Cousin's plan of Quebec, published in 1875, parallel to St. Vallier street to the south, and St. Fleurie street to the north, halfway between, is laid down Baronne street. The most ancient highway of the quarter (St. Roch) is probably St. Vallier street. "Desfossés" street most likely derives its name from the ditches (fossés) which served to drain the green pastures of La Vacherie. The old Bridge street dates from the end of the last century (1789). "Dorchester" street recalls the esteemed and popular administrator, Lord Dorchester, who, under the name of Guy Carleton, led on to victory the militia of Quebec in 1775.
"Craig" street received its name from Sir John Craig, a gouty, testy, but trusty old soldier, who administered the Government in 1807-9-10; it was enlarged and widened ten feet, after the great fire of 1845. The site of St. Paul's Market was acquired from the Royal Ordnance, on 31st July, 1831.
A former Quebecer writes:—
OTTAWA, 17th May, 1876.
"At the beginning of this century only eighty square-rigged vessels entered the Port of Quebec. There were then in Quebec only nine importers, and half a dozen master mechanics, one shipyard (John Black's, where one ship was launched each year), one printing office and one weekly paper.
"The tide then washed the rear walls of the houses on the north part of Sault-au-Matelot street. The only deep water wharves were Dunières, afterwards Brébaut's, Johnson & Purss', and the King's Wharf. There were no dwelling houses beyond Dunières' Wharf, but a few huts were built at the base of the cape. A black man was the solitary inhabitant on the beach, and all the way to Sillery the woods extended to the water's edge. A lease of this beach might then have been obtained for £50 a year.
"In St. Roch's Suburbs there was no house beyond the Manor House near the Intendant's Palace, save a few straggling ones in St. Vallier and St. Roch's streets. The site of the present Parish of St. Roch was mostly occupied by Grant's Mills, by meadows and farms.