Market louses: 1813 ~ 1958

by Mary K. Cullen

{^Markets came late to Charlottetown. The few hundred people who formed the population of the village before 1800 depended on British imports and the produce of their own gardens to maintain their families. A site for a market had been reserved at the water- front when the town was laid out in 1768, but building was delayed for several reasons. Provision for adminis- trative and judicial accommodation took precedence in planning public build- ings. Farmers, moreover, required time to establish themselves before produc- ing a marketable surplus; and once established they needed roads to bring their goods into town. Thus, it was only after a Court House and Assembly building had been constructed in 1812 that attention was focussed on a market house to end the precarious supply afforded by the irregular visits of country vendors. The 1813 market was the first of four buildings which were to serve the Island capital for the next 145 years. When Governor Charles Douglas Smith and his Executive Council de- cided a regular market should be established in Charlottetown, they felt that the building would be most conven- Public Archives of iently situated, not at the waterfront, but in the centre of Queen Square, the Drawing of the Round Market, circa 1830. The building to the right of the present location of Province House. In market was the residence of former Lieutenant-Governor Edmund Fanning. August, 1813, Samuel May Williams 27 contracted to build the market accord- ing to John and Robert McDonnel's proposal for a rectangular building, 18 x 26 feet, "framed and picketed." Frame and picket was a common mode of pioneer building in Prince Edward Island. It was described by contempor- ary observers Lord Selkirk (1803) and Walter Johnstone (1820) as either logs or whip-sawn boards fixed vertically to a frame and then covered with boards or shingles. The first market (for which there is no extant illustration) shared space on Queen Square with two other wooden structures — the 1795 Anglican Church and the 1812 court house and legislative building. By 1819 the market house was considered too small and plans and estimates were ordered for a new building. "Public Architect" John Plaw, who had designed the court house and other local works, was paid £10 for his i^t^^^^l^»^^^^^^^^^S«- •- • -. ,»««.-...,, w.w.. plans of a wooden market, but no action was taken before his death in 1820. Three years later tenders were called for • ^ ». ' ' M^ erection of the Plaw market and Isaac Public Archives of Prince Edward Island Smith and Daniel Hodgson were awarded the contract to build it. Con- Looking southeast to Queen Square, circa 1855, the Round Market, Colonial struction commenced in the summer on Building (Province House) and St. Paul's Church. the site of the old frame and picket building and was finished in November, 1823. Charlottetown's second market followed the vogue for circular market buildings in British North American towns of this period. The one-storey structure was divided into twelve even bays and capped by a high conical shingled roof projecting several feet beyond the main wall and supported by slender columns. The semicircular shape of the doors and windows in each bay was repeated in the openings of the round cupola which crowned the roof, giving the whole a picturesque gazebo- like appearance. The interior of the "round market" (as it was commonly called) was lined with butcher stalls, while the centre space was reserved for the sale of butter, poultry, eggs, and other light articles. Bulkier produce was sold out- side where hucksters or petty traders jostled with the farmers whose carts or sleighs were laden with potatoes, oats, fish, hay, wood, and carcasses of beef and pork. Operation of the market was regu- lated by Order-in-Council and, after Public Archives of 1855, by city by-law. Market was held both winter and summer with Wednes- day and Saturday designated as market Arthur Newbery's New Plan of Charlottetown 1869, showing the site of the days. About mid-nineteenth century the 1867 market and the separation of Market Square from Queen Square. stalls in the round market rented at £ 4 28 Public Archives of Prince Edward Island

The south side of the third market house showing the 1876 western extension and belfry. per annum with no sub-letting permit- the increasing congestion of Queen brick building. By the time the construc- ted. Blown meat was seized for sale by Square on market days and the barn- tion contract was signed in 1865, the market clerk, while diseased meat yard appearance of the grounds promp- however, Smith's plan had been re- was publicly burned and the offender ted debate on relocation of the market. jected in favour of a more reasonably tried in the 's or Police Court. A Party leaders in the Legislature, and priced building designed by cabinet- railing was erected around the market in both Islander and Examiner newspa- maker and city councillor Mark Butcher. 1855 to separate the hucksters from the pers, strongly argued that the area The Butcher Market House, opened wagons and carriages. surrounding the Colonial Building in January, 1867, was hailed by the To provide the central position on should be ornamented and kept up as a Patriot as "the largest and the best Queen Square for the construction of park. A market location in the suburbs building of the kind in the Lower Province House, the round market was seemed ideal; however, despite its Provinces." It was seen by travellers, moved 294 feet northwest in rhetoric, the Government was not pre- however, in a less complimentary light. November, 1842. When the Supreme pared to spend money for market Some called it plain, others ugly. Al- Court and Legislative Council and property and decided to grant the city a though far from elegant, the long Assembly moved into their new quarters part of the original crown reserve in the narrow two-storey structure did exhibit in the Colonial Building (Province southwest corner of Queen Square. In some pleasant Italianate detailing: a House) in 1847-8, the "old Court March, 1861, the site designated for the central projecting pavilion, cupola, House" was used as a flour and meal market was marked off and tenders semi-circular ground floor windows, market. Later, with the incorporation of advertised for the best plan. labelled windows in the second storey, Charlortetown, this building became The question of who should pay for a and bracketed eves. The dimensions of City Hall. It was thus the round market new market house — the colonial the building were 150 feet long, 45 feet and "old Court House"-City Hall which government or the city — delayed wide, and 30 feet post (to the top of the formed the Queen Square vista during building for six years. Isaac Smith, the wall). The ground floor, or principal the historic confederation meetings at architect of Province House and builder storey, was divided into three sections: Province House in 1864. of the round market, won the 1861 one for butchers; another for country In the decade before Confederation design competition with his plans for a produce, fruit, and fowl; and the third 29 for meal and flour. Main floor stalls and ten apartments in the stone cellar were let by auction at rates varying from £ 8 to £21 a year, the cheapest stalls thus doubling the cost of those in the round market. The upper storey of the market was finished as a public hall. The desire to further beautify the grounds in the vicinity of Province House prompted a late-1860s decision to build a road dividing the market house-City Hall area from central Queen Square. The separated west side of Queen Square was officially called Market Square, a name which endured as a popular reference point in the geographical lexicon of Charlottetown citizens for nearly a century. For sixteen years of the late nineteenth century the third market house also accommodated City Hall. This latter function was reflected in several structural changes to the market building. City officials were moved to the market after the Plaw Court House or City Hall was sold in 1872. Four Public Archives of Canada years later an extension was made to the west end of the market to provide 1878 Bird's Eye View of Charlottetown. The Post Office-Dominion Building space for a police station and a belfry to (1871) and the Court House (1876) have been added to Queen Square and house a new fire bell (named "Big the old Court House-City Hall has been removed from Market Square. Donald" in honour of the Chief of the Fire Department, Donald McKinnon). When a new City Hall was completed at the corner of Queen and Kent Streets in 1888, "Big Donald" was placed in its tower and the belfry removed from the market. The original cupola also disap- peared about this time, leaving the building towerless throughout the 1890s. In December, 1902, the third market, then 35 years old, burned to the ground. The design of a market house to replace the burned structure was the subject of an intense competition be- tween leading Charlottetown architects C.B. Chappell and W.C. Harris. Exam- ples of the work of both men were already evident throughout the Island: Chappell had designed City Hall (1888), the Prince Edward Island Hospi- tal (1898), and (1900), while Harris was responsible for such buildings as the Georgetown Courthouse (1887), Cabot Building (1887), and St. Paul's Anglican Church (1895). Harris's plan was originally accepted, then dropped when Chappell altered his design to lower the cost. Harris protested that his opponent's Public Archives of Prince Edward Island altered plan was almost identical to his submission and he promised to change A butcher stall (circa 1900), probably in the third market his design to reduce the cost from $50,000 to $38,000. The Harris plan 30 was finally adopted and the construction contract let to Maritime Contracting and Mining Company for $39,470. Charlottetown's fourth and last mar- ket was opened 30 August 1904. Almost square in its dimensions (130 x 116 feet), the building was basically Gothic in style with Romanesque Revi- val overtones. It had a high pitched roof, asymmetrical gables, rough dressed walls of Island sandstone, and heavy voussoirs (window and door trim) of Wallace freestone. Cellar and first floor spaces were devoted to market uses, while the second floor was designed as a hall capable of seating 1300 people with a stage for 300. Use of concrete flooring meant that for the first time the fish market joined the other stands under one roof. The 1867 and 1904 market houses did more than just provide shops for agricultural produce: they also served as community centres, a use that in time superceded marketing. Many Islanders will remember momentous political and social gatherings in market hall. The 1867 market house was the home of no Courtesy Keith Rckard less than three city bands, while quarters in the upper storey of the Harris Market Presentation drawing by William C. Harris of his design for the fourth were successively occupied by the Old Charlottetown market. Strand and Empire Theatres and Little Theatre groups. As the twentieth century advanced, transportation improvements and the development of food processing plants created larger and more profitable outlets for agricultural produce, with the result that the number of rural residents using the market dwindled to a handful. Portions of the building were remodel- led in the 1950s to contain the Prince Edward Island Travel Bureau and the Island Motor Transport Bus Terminal. A few public stalls, Roop's Meat Market, Peter's Egg Candling Station, and the City Fish Market were the remaining food businesses left when fire broke out on 30 April 1958. That day the 54-year-old market house was totally consumed, symbolically ending a pat- tern of marketing which was already dying. Market Square was subsequently used as a parking lot until the 1960s, when it became the site for the Fathers of Confederation Memorial Complex. Markets and market houses have enjoyed a resurgence in several Cana- dian cities in recent years. Their popular- ity springs from a growing consumer Public Archives of Canada demand for fresh and pure food pro- ducts; concentrated populations ensure The W.C. Harris Market, 1904. their vitality. Should these same forces lead to a fifth Charlottetown market, 31 citizens will see the continuation of a tradition that is an integral part of the history of the Island capital.

Sources Much of the documentation for this article was compiled during the course of my Parks Canada research on Province House. Executive Council Minutes, Statutes of Law, Legislative Assembly debates, and nineteenth and twentieth century newspapers were the principal sources. Reports of the Ac- counts of the City of Charlottetown, 31 Dec. 1878 (Charlottetown, 1879) was particularly useful for its history of city affairs in Appendix 13. City Council Minutes were only consulted for the decade 1855-65. Later minutes, una- vailable when the foregoing research was conducted, have recently been acquired and organized by the Prince Metropolitan Library Board, Toronto Public Library Post Card Collection Edward Island Archives. Known as Record Group 22, these minutes un- 1906 post card of the public buildings in Charlottetown showing the fourth doubtedly constitute the richest source market completed in 1904. to date for the urban .

Photograph by Wayne Barrett

The Fathers of Confederation Memorial Complex which today occupies the former site of Market Square and a portion of Queen Square.

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