Above the brook a low narrow wooden wharf ran to Port Street, Common Street being supported by a wooden revetment, with gaps for sloping roadway to the river.
All beyond Port Street was the natural Bank, the same as in the front of country villages, except a small wharf opposite the north end of Youville Street, at which point, then called Pointe à Blondeau, there was a cottage, with garden in front, running down to the water.
Here, too, was a shipyard and the east wall of the Grey Nunnery. Further on, all was vacant, except some buildings at the corner of Grey Nun Street, and beyond here open fields, running up to Point St. Charles, with three windmills, the graves of three soldiers, shot for desertion, and the Nuns buildings at Point St. Charles, since used for offices, while Victoria bridge was in course of construction.
The Lachine Canal had not been commenced, and distances appeared so much farther than now, that the river front was divided into “Pointe à Callière,” “Pointe à Blondeau,” “Windmill Point,” and “Point St. Charles.”
Directly before me was a sloping beach running up to an opening or street between low houses, forming the east side.
On the square, now occupied by the old Custom House, and then by the “old Market,” so much frequented by Country people, that they blockaded the approaches, and had sometimes to be driven away by constables to the “new market,” then built on Jacques Cartier Square.
On my right the natural beach continued down to Hochelaga, or “the Cross” as it was then called. A wooden revetment held up Commissioner Street and St. Sulpice Street and thence downward there was nothing but the natural bank, on which weeds grew profusely. There may have been something more opposite the Barracks.
The buildings fronting on the river were mostly old, low and dilapidated. A good part of the space was occupied by walls and mean outbuildings of the houses fronting on St. Paul Street. The new buildings were the three-story brick stores just above St. Diziers Lane, and a three-story store just below.
The “spring fleet” mostly in port (a part may have arrived a few days later), consisted of, I think, half a dozen brigs of from one hundred and eighty to two hundred and fifty tons burthen, moored to the muddy beach; below them were some “Durham boats,” which we should now call small barges, navigators to Upper Canada, carrying a very large fore and aft sail and top sail. Wind then had to do what is now done by steam. Below these, opposite the present Jacques Cartier Square, were moored many rafts—mostly of firewood.
THE HARBOR OF MONTREAL