The Office In Which The Quebec Morning Chronicle Has Been Published
Since 1847, Belonged In 1759 To M. Jean Tache, "President Of The
Mercantile Body," "An Honest, And Sensible Man," As Appears By Memoirs
Sur Le Canada, (1749-60).
One of our first poets, he composed a poem
"On the Sea." The ancestor of the late Sir E. P. Tache, and of the
novelist, Jos.
Marmette and others, he possessed, at that period,
extensive buildings on the Napoleon wharf, which were destroyed by fire in
1845, and a house in the country, on the Ste. Foye road, afterwards called
"Holland House," after Major Samuel Holland, our first Provincial
Surveyor-General, whose services as surveyor and engineer were
subsequently so conspicuous at Quebec and at Prince Edward Island.
The Chronicle building, during nearly half a century, was a coffee
house, much frequented by sea-faring men, known as the "Old Neptune" Inn.
The effigy of the sea-god, armed with his formidable trident, placed over
the main entrance, seemed to threaten the passers-by. We can remember, as
yesterday, his colossal proportions. "Old Neptune" [90] has disappeared
about thirty years back.
THE OLD NEPTUNE INN.
"Shall I not take mine ease in mine Inn."
- Shakespeare.
"The Golden Fleece was the oldest tavern in Corinth. It had been the
resort of sea-faring men from the remotest period." - (Travels of
Herodotus in Greece, 460 B.C.)
When the brilliant Henry Ward Beecher pronounced Quebec an Old
Curiosity Shop, we are induced to think that amidst its accumulated
antiquarian relics, its church pictures and madonnas, its famous
battle-fields, its historical monuments, massive fortifications and
wondrous scenery, - more than one of the quaint French dwellings with
their peaked gables, and walls four feet thick, must have caught his
observant eye. However striking Ward Beecher's word-painting may be,
it would I opine, have required the marvellous pencil of the author of
"The House with the Seven Gables," Nathaniel Hawthorne, becomingly
to portray all the arcana of such a building as the Chien d'Or
(the old Post Office), with its ghastly memories of blood and revenge.
The legendary moss clustering round these hoary piles, is not,
however, always dark and gloomy. Love, war, adventure, occasionally
lend them their exciting or their soft glamour. Sometimes the annals
of commerce entwine them with a green wreath - a sure talisman against
the rust of oblivion. It is one of the land marks of commerce we
purpose here briefly to describe.
At the foot of Mountain Hill, lies our chief emporium of news,
labelled for more than a quarter of a century, Morning Chronicle
Office. These premises stand on a very conspicuous site, viz., at the
foot of Mountain Hill, the highway from the port to the Upper Town,
direct to the old Chateau and Citadel - a few rods only from the spot
where Champlain, in 1608, laid the foundations of his extensive
warehouses and dwelling, and close to where, in 1615, he had his
famous gardens. This business stand, for many years past, was owned by
the late Hon.
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