Edward Van Cortlandt and the making of Canada's sandstone capital
Third in a weekly Citizen@175 series on one of Ottawa's most remarkable 19th-century figures.
Randy Boswell, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Jul 27, 2020 • Last Updated 5 days ago • 7 minute read
Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt was determined to carve his place in Ottawa history.
The 19th-century civic booster and amateur geologist did just that through the city’s push to become Canada’s capital, and the construction of the Parliament Buildings. Third in a weekly Citizen@175 series on one of Ottawa’s most remarkable 19th-century figures.
There’s hoarding and scaffolding everywhere, and a giant white shroud covers a great stone tower. A construction trailer currently adorns Ottawa’s all-time No. 1 tourist site.
Even now, with all the clutter, the Parliament Buildings are no eyesore. Nothing says “Canada’s capital” as emphatically, enduringly, magnificently as the monumental sandstone structures atop Parliament Hill.
Billions will be spent to restore and renovate Ottawa’s — and Canada’s — signature architectural statement to the world. The 155-year-old West Block has had its makeover and the results are breathtaking.
Centre Block is in the midst of a massive, decade-long rejuvenation and reconfiguration. But already the facelift has done wonders for the Peace Tower and other parts of the century-old symbol of Canadian statehood, which replaced the original legislature after it was destroyed by fire in 1916.
And East Block — which is getting a lot of attention right now from stonemasons and structural engineers — still impresses despite all the disruption: the multi-hued patterning of its walls; the intricately carved ornamentation; the elegant windows and archways; the colossal presence.
It’s impossible to imagine Ottawa without the Parliament Buildings.
But how they look today — still spectacular, if time-worn — was no sure thing before the launch of construction in early 1860. Nor, in fact, was Ottawa’s destiny as Canada’s capital secure until the hammers started swinging on Parliament Hill.
For each of these achievements — its status as Canada’s seat of government and the appearance of its showcase, buff-coloured buildings on the Hill — the city owes a debt to Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt.
When he wasn’t delivering babies, fighting pandemics or splinting lumbermen’s broken legs, the pioneer physician was leaving his mark as one of early Ottawa’s loudest civic champions and its leading amateur geologist.
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There are many storylines that lead from rowdy old Bytown of the 1840s to “metropolis” Ottawa of the 1860s and beyond: centre of government and (at least aspirationally) culture and commerce.
But a particularly compelling narrative begins in July 1853, with the historic visit to Bytown of Lord Elgin, the Province of Canada’s governor general.
Uniquely positioned on the boundary between French and English Canada, Bytown wanted to prove it had matured into a place that deserved to be named Canada’s capital over Montreal, Toronto and other cities.
The highlight of Elgin’s visit was a scientific, industrial and cultural exhibition meant to show off Bytown’s growing sophistication. Samples of the region’s natural resources — its wood products, mineral wealth and building stones — were a central feature of the highly successful event.
“All who had the good fortune to visit the exhibition expressed surprise and admiration,” the Citizen reported. “To Dr. (Edward) Van Cortlandt is due the credit of originating and commencing the Exhibition.”
Bytown, renamed Ottawa in 1855, had finally put itself on the map as a serious contender to become Canada’s capital. And on New Year’s Eve 1857, Queen Victoria made the city her choice.
There is a myth, however, that Victoria’s decision ended the long-running controversy. But the issue remained contentious for years afterwards, and a government headed by John A. Macdonald even fell in 1858 over his opponents’ angry rejection of the royal decision.
Throughout this turbulent time, Van Cortlandt worked to shore up Ottawa’s destiny. Within weeks of the Queen’s announcement, the Citizen published his proposal that a monument to Victoria — “a colossal statue of the beloved monarch” — should be erected to express the city’s gratitude.
Then, in April 1858, he co-wrote the first published history of Ottawa — officially attributed to his 14-year-old daughter, Gertrude — to underscore how cosmopolitan the place had become since the days of boisterous, boozy Bytown. “May the metamorphosis call forth expressions of surprise and astonishment,” the short sketch stated.
Records of the Rise and Progress of The City of Ottawa, printed by the Citizen and “most respectfully dedicated” to Lady Head — wife of the new governor general, Sir Edmund Head — was a transparent piece of propaganda aimed at helping Ottawa hold on to the great prize now within its grasp.
There was one more thing Van Cortlandt deemed essential to upholding Ottawa’s selection as capital: the successful planning and completion of the grand public buildings that would house Canada’s government.
The most vital matter? A wise selection of the stone from which Parliament would be built.
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The planned “public buildings” became a hot topic of discussion. Van Cortlandt was the city’s leading lecturer on geological topics and curator of the Mechanics’ Institute’s museum, as well as an avid collector of objects for his personal “cabinet of curiosities” — plant and animal specimens, rocks and minerals, and more. So Van Cortlandt was soon being queried about the best building stone for the planned parliamentary complex.
“It is said that in the choice of stone for the public buildings, there is a likelihood that specimens will be procured from different quarries on the Upper Ottawa,” Toronto’s Globe newspaper reported in May 1859. “Dr. VanCortlandt has a very good collection of specimens in his museum.”
By October, just weeks before the winning designs were to be chosen, pressure was intensifying on Van Cortlandt to help identify the right stone for the project. His initial suggestion — limestone from several sites close to Parliament Hill — was the leading contender throughout 1859, despite the doctor’s own publicly expressed concerns about the challenge of selecting only those blocks of limestone free from “shaly” intrusions and other imperfections commonly seen in local quarries.
On Oct. 4, the Citizen published a letter from Van Cortlandt in which he listed the required characteristics of the main stone to be used for the project.
“Having been repeatedly applied to for information relative to the Building stone proper to the Ottawa Valley and adapted for the intended Public Buildings,” Van Cortlandt stated, “I beg to say that so soon as a material which is entirely free from shaly seams and ferruginous deposits, exempt from parasitic vegetation, unchangeable in colour … insoluble in water, and which evinces moderate hardness combined with compactness, is discovered, then most safely a selection may be made therefrom — provided always that the distance is not too great from the city.”
Van Cortlandt followed with public lecture on “The Building Stone of the Ottawa Country” for the Silurian Society, a local group of geology enthusiasts.
Later published in the Citizen and then reprinted as a pamphlet for wider distribution, the November 1859 lecture is believed to have influenced those spearheading the Parliament project.
“Sandstone when pure is generally considered to be the best material for building purposes,” Van Cortlandt stated. “This stone exists on both sides of the Ottawa in Templeton, Stony Swamp and various other situations in inexhaustible quantities, and in some instances advantageously stratified.”
Limestone was ruled out at the 11th hour as too dark and sombre to serve as the primary stone for the Parliament Buildings. So instead, the cream-coloured sandstone of Nepean township — readily available in deposits about 12 miles southwest of Parliament Hill, near Bells Corners and Stony Swamp — was chosen for the buildings’ exterior walls, to be complemented by the darker Templeton and other decorative varieties of sandstone.
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Along both sides of Highway 417 between Moodie Drive and Eagleson Road, there’s a prominent exposure of Nepean Sandstone that can be seen by anyone passing by. The ridge is part of the same strand of rock that was quarried to construct not only the Parliament Buildings, but also the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Royal Canadian Mint and other major public buildings in the capital.
In early August 1860, as wagonloads of that stone began arriving at the Parliament Hill worksite, Van Cortlandt noted in another Citizen letter that he had been “the first person who … called public attention” to local sandstone supplies, and had noted as early as April 1858 that they “would be in demand for the new Parliament Buildings.”
The doctor needn’t have worried about his legacy in connection with the city’s greatest architectural triumph.
A few weeks later, a giant block of white marble from Portage-du-Fort — on the Quebec side of the river about 100 kilometres northwest of Ottawa — was paraded past Van Cortlandt’s house on Wellington Street to acknowledge that he had pinpointed this “remarkably clean and handsome” stone for decorative use in the Parliament project.
“On arriving at the residence of Doctor Van Cortlandt,” the Citizen reported, “the cortege halted, and gave three hearty cheers.”
The huge cube of white marble was the showpiece of the historic visit to Ottawa on Sept. 1, 1860 of the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria’s eldest son and the future King Edward VII, to lay the cornerstone of the Parliament Buildings.
It’s still there today — having been recovered from the 1916 fire and re-used to underpin the new Centre Block — along with thousands of sandstone blocks that Van Cortlandt also helped to ensure would grace the walls of Ottawa’s crowning glory.
Randy Boswell is an Ottawa writer and journalism professor at Carleton University. He’s writing a book about Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt and his times in 19th-century Ottawa. Next week: Van Cortlandt’s “cabinet of curiosities.”
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/boswel...cm/01958b36-7652-4ca8-9136-b7b3c6fcd88f/
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