It Is The Glory And Privilege Of The Latter Institution In Accordance With
The Object Of Its Royal Charter, To Offer To Citizens Of All Creeds And
Nationalities, A Neutral Ground, Sacred To Intellectual Pursuits.
It dates
back to 1823, when His Excellency, George Ramsay, Earl of Dalhousie,
assisted by the late Dr. John Charlton Fisher, LL.D., and ex-editor of the
New York Albion, successfully matured a long meditated plan to promote
the study of history and of literature.
The Literary and Historical
Society held its first meeting in the Chateau St. Louis. It is curious
to glance over the list of names in its charter. [52] It contained the
leading men on the Bench, in the professions, and in the city. In 1832 the
library and museum occupied a large room in the Union building facing the
Ring. From thence they were transferred to the upper story of the
Parliament Buildings, on Mountain Hill, where a portion of both was
destroyed by the conflagration which burnt down the stately cut-stone
edifice in 1854, with the stone of which in 1860, the Champlain Market
Hall was built. What was saved of the library and museum was transferred
to apartments in St Louis street, then owned by the late George Henderson,
J.P. [53] The next removal, about 1860, brought the institution to Masonic
Hall, corner of Garden and St. Louis streets. Here, also, the fire-fiend
assailed the treasures of knowledge and specimens of natural history, of
the society, which, with its household gods, flitted down to a suite of
rooms above the savings bank apartments in St. John Street, from whence,
about 1870, it issued to become an annual tenant in the north wing of the
Morrin College, where it has flourished ever since.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 166 of 864
Words from 45201 to 45498
of 236821
