The origin of the lighting of Montreal by electricity may be briefly told. In 1878 Mr. J.I. Craig, of Montreal, returning from the Paris exhibition, determined to work out some experiments in electric lighting following on demonstrations seen in Paris. Accordingly he built himself Gramme bipolars, four polar machines and a Gramme alternation to supply current for Gablacoff candles. In 1879 he was allowed to give a demonstration by fixing up lamps on Bonaventure Street (now St. James), between Seigneurs and Guy streets. Another exhibition was given facing the Champ de Mars, having its generators in the building of the “Le Monde” newspaper, and his lamps on that now occupied by the “Chambre de Commerce” on St. Gabriel Street. At the midnight mass on Christmas eve, 1879, at St. Joseph’s Church, Richmond Street, he gave an illustration of its services in interior illumination. In 1882 a company called the “Phoenix” was formed to promote the commercial utility of Mr. Craig’s inventions, which consisted of dynamos, arc lamps and storage batteries. In the same year the harbour commissioners purchased a Brush generator with arc lights and were thus the first to adopt the new light. In 1884 the firm of Thompson & Houston, which became the Royal Electric Company, secured the contract to light some of the streets, commencing with St. James. In 1885 the Phoenix Company going into liquidation, the estate was purchased by Mr. J.I. Craig, who put up several plants in the province of Quebec and between 1887 and 1890 secured the contracts for St. Henri, St. Cunégonde and Coté St. Antoine. The first alternating current in the city was installed in 1890 by the Royal Electric Company. In 1895 the Royal Electric was merged with the Montreal Gas Company and the St. Lawrence Electric Company which was exploiting a hydro-electric plant at Chambly. Later the Lachine Rapids Hydraulic & Land Company, the Provincial Light, Heat & Power Company, the Standard Light, Heat & Power Company, the Citizens Light, Heat & Power Company and the Temple Electric Company were also added. The whole combination is now known as the Montreal Light, Heat & Power Company of today, which has its head offices at the Power Building on Craig Street.
Another body entitled the “Montreal Public Service Company,” a merger, which obtained its charter about 1912, controls the Canadian Light, Heat & Power, the Montreal Electric, the Saraguay and the Dominion Central Electric Company. The offices of this second corporation are in the Eastern Townships Building. Between these two companies Montreal is lighted in 1914.
We may add the following notes of the origin of our electric fire alarm, telephone service and other electric developments in Montreal:
The first telegraph wire connecting Quebec and Montreal was installed in 1847. But the first wire strung in the Dominion was put up in the same year by the Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara and St. Catherine’s Telegraph Company. The Montreal Telegraph Company was organized in 1846, and was incorporated by a special act of the legislature of Canada in 1847, and first opened between Quebec and Toronto. A message from Toronto to Montreal cost 3s. 9d., in Halifax currency, for ten words. The Montreal fire alarm telegraph, with which is connected the police telegraph and the telegraph in connection with the water department, was built by Messrs. J.F. Kennard & Company, of Boston. The work was commenced on the 2d of September and completed on the 26th of December, 1862, at a cost of $20,000. This line went into operation on the 19th of January, 1863, and “entered on its duties by striking the hour of 12 noon,” as is announced in a handbook issued in 1863 by the London & Liverpool Fire & Light Insurance Company. Electricity was first used as a motive power in Canada in 1883, when a short piece of track was laid on the grounds of the Toronto Industrial Exhibition. The first practical road was laid in 1884. In 1885 the track was lengthened and the overhead wire and trolley arm used. The possibility of combating the snow was demonstrated successfully in 1891 by the Ottawa Electric Railway Company. Montreal followed in 1892, when the city passenger rails were electrified. Quebec followed in 1897.
THE POWER HOUSE
FIGHTING FLOODS
Floods in the early days of Maisonneuve had threatened the old stockade fort and till modern days the lower part of the city has constantly been inundated. On Thursday, the 14th of January, 1848, the waters of the St. Lawrence rose for three days and flooded, to a depth of from two to six feet, the lower part of the city, Griffintown and the emigrant sheds at Point St. Charles, where the sick from the fever were lying. In February, 1857, Griffintown was the scene of another and similar inundation. The lower part was like a series of canals and communication between the houses was by small boats. More important was the inundation of 1861 when the flood extended over one-fourth of the city. Griffintown was again submerged. The trains from the west and from Lachine were unable to enter the city and passengers had to find their way to the city by Sherbrooke Street. “The extent of the inundation,” says Sandham, “may be conceived from the fact that the river rose about twenty-four feet above its average level. The whole of St. Paul Street and up McGill Street to St. Maurice Street, and from thence to the limits of the city was entirely submerged and boats ascended McGill Street as far as St. Paul Street. To add to the suffering of the people the thermometer sank rapidly and a violent and bitter snowstorm set in on Tuesday, April 15th, and continued to rage with great fury all night.” Another flood in the lower town, second only to that of 1861, occurred in April, 1865. The damage done was not so great owing to the gradual rise of the waters, the inhabitants being able to remove their effects.
In the flood of April 17th, 18th and 19th, 1886, it inundated nearly one-half of what then constituted Montreal. The “Witness” of the above dates contained a long account of the flood.
According to this, the conditions became really serious on Sunday morning, April 18, while the people were at church. A big ice shove occurred in the river, and ice was soon piled up twenty or thirty feet high on St. Helen’s Island. * * * But there was yet no break in the Longueuil and Hochelaga ice, and the crushing, grumbling ice in the channel commenced to pack more thickly and to rear pyramids more profusely than before. At the last the mass stopped moving altogether.