The City of Montreal
Montreal was incorporated as a city in 1832. The city's growth was spurred by the opening of the Lachine Canal, which permitted ships to pass by the unnavigable Lachine Rapids south of the island. As the capital of the United Province of Canada from 1844 to 1849, Montreal attracted more English-speaking immigrants: Late Loyalists, Irish, Scottish, and English. Riots led by Tories led to the burning of the Provincial Parliament. Rather than rebuild, the government chose Toronto as the new capital of the colony. The decision was taken to move the capital to Toronto. In Montreal the Anglophone community built McGill, one of Canada's first universities, and the wealthy built large mansions at the foot of Mont Royal.
Read more about this topic: History Of Montreal
Famous quotes containing the word city:
“The city sleeps and the country sleeps,
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;
And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)