History
The first European to scale the mountain was Jacques Cartier, guided there in 1535 by the people of the village of Hochelega. He named it in honour of his patron, King François I of France. He wrote in his journal:
- Et au parmy d'icelles champaignes, est scituée et assise ladicte ville de Hochelaga, près et joignant une montaigne ... Nous nommasmes icelle montaigne le mont Royal.
- ("And among these fields is situated and seated the said town of Hochelaga, near to and adjoining a mountain ... We named this mountain, Mount Royal.")
The name of the Island of Montreal derives from mont Réal, as it was spelled in Middle French, (Mont Royal in present French). The name was first applied to the island and was unofficially applied to the city, formerly Ville-Marie, by the 18th century.
In 1643, De Maisonneuve made a pilgrimage to the top, in order to fulfill a vow made in the winter season on occasion of a great flood which swept up to the town palisades.
In 1876, land owner and farmer James Swail began residential subdivisions on the western slope of Mount Murray, in what is now the Cote-des-Neiges district. In 1906, a large housing development was started in the area, called Northmount Heights, with homes built along what is now Decelles Street by developer Northmount Land Company. Much of this area has been expropriated by the Université de Montréal.
In 1914-1918, a railway tunnel was dug under the mountain by the Canadian Northern Railway, a predecessor of the Canadian National. It is currently used by the AMT's Montreal/Deux-Montagnes commuter rail line.
The area was briefly considered as the site for Expo 67, before the exposition grounds were ultimately built on islands in the St. Lawrence River.
For the 1976 Summer Olympics, the park itself hosted the individual road race cycling event.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)