The first residents

The first real resident of our area was Captain Andrew Wilson. He built a log house just north of where the Rivergate condos are today, and named it Ossian Hall after a mythical Celt who was seduced by a golden-haired fairy and lived 300 years as a result. The original Riverside Drive was a trail to his front door and he, wife and servants welcomed all who arrived there by land or river. One of the first group of magistrates appointed by Bytown (now Ottawa) in 1828, he held court in full Royal Navy uniform, doubtless with salty language to match the rowdies who appeared before him. He boasted one of the finest book collections in the area, and his evenings at Mother Firth’s tavern were legendary.

Daniel O’Connor and wife Margaret stayed at Ossian Hall in 1827, and she loved it. Wilson encountered financial difficulties in 1829 and fled to Lower Canada (now Quebec, a separate country then). Margaret, with family money, bought Ossian Hall and its associated land.

Daniel began as a shopkeeper in Waterford Ireland, enlisted as a mercenary for the war of liberation in Venezuela but never got there, briefly settled down again as a married storekeeper in Ireland, then sought his fortunes in North America with wife and daughter. Ending up in Kingston and disliking even it, he headed for home via the Rideau Waterway. Col.By, his countryman Nicholas Sparks, and his wife encouraged him to stay in Bytown and he did. He became Bytown’s first town clerk in 1828, was soon appointed a magistrate, and was almost the only Catholic accepted in the local establishment of the time. During the peak of the Irish riots of the 1830’s, Nicholas Sparks, an Irish Protestant, named a street after O’Connor that formed a Christian cross with the street of his own name in the center of the most troubled area. They are still named that today.

Daniel died in 1858, Margaret in 1872. The Putnam map of 1863 shows Ossian Hall (just to the left of the road by the T.H.) and another building across the road. J.C.&H.Castle were tenants; land registries show that it was owned by O’Connors throughout this time. The map also shows that McCarthy Road was established by this time.

In 1854 the Bytown and Prescott Railway was completed along our eastern border; renamed Ottawa and Prescott in 1855, it was leased to the CPR in 1881. It’s now owned by the City of Ottawa and used for the O-Train.

A Historical Atlas of Carleton County, H.Belden &Co. 1879 shows that two of the O’Connors’ sons owned 300 acres here. It also shows Hunt Club Road between McCarthy and the River Road.

According to Gloucester tax rolls, no O’Connor was resident at Ossian Hall over 1860-1879, so his legatees were absentee landlords. Daniel & Margaret probably treated it as a summer cottage; they always had a primary residence on Wellington Street.

Donald McCarty was granted his first land in 1854; his name is spelled both with and without an h at the time. He, together with his father William and older brother John, held a total of 225 acres in Gloucester by 1860. The maps show he held 150 acres in our area by 1863, and retained 50 as of 1879. The family name was given to McCarthy Road, and hence to the McCarthy Woods, in the 1950’s. The Hackett and Gillespie names also still survive as local street names. Today’s Hunt Club Road is outlined in red above; the Southern Corridor in green.

Rural Green Belt

The Southern Corridor began its existence under that name in 1950, with the publication of a Plan for the National Capital by Jacques Gréber. Prepared at the request of Prime Minister Mackenzie King, the plan served as the template for the national capital for the next two generations. One of Gréber’s recommendations was for a ring road around the capital (shown in red, on his master plan), with the land outside it reserved as a rural green belt to limit urban sprawl. The Federal District Commission promptly began to buy land for both, and the City of Ottawa equally promptly annexed the area to implement it.

In the area now known as Hunt Club Woods, the land the FDC bought for the Southern Corridor (shown in green) was a bit to the north of Gréber’s recommendation. The land was then owned by Margaret and Kenneth Dowler, whose ancestors had bought it from the estate of Dr. O’Connor about 1883. Ossian Hall seems to have been replaced by a two-story brick building about 1920; its address was 3596 Old Riverside Drive when it in turn was demolished shortly after 1998 as part of the re-alignment of Riverside Drive.

Another Gréber recommendation was that railways be eliminated from the centre of the city, to reduce both the noise and pollution of coal-burning steam locomotives and the dozens of level crossings of various railways throughout the city. Ottawa Central Railway built the Walkley Line that forms our northern border in 1953, naming the west end Wass Junction after the FDC engineer who negotiated it, and diverted freight trains along it to implement that recommendation. The line is now owned by CN and carries only a weekly train to Arnprior.

Here is an air photo from 1999. Quinterra is now almost complete, as is Rhapsody Lane; Annapolis Circle is under construction.

Google’s view 30 September 2008. Riverside-Uplands Park, the Rivergate condos and Hunt Club Chase are now complete; the Sawmill Creek constructed wetland complex is in the final stages of construction; the site of the T&T Plaza is being cleared.

Google’s view 9 May 2016. The T&T Plaza is complete, the taxiway leading to it has been removed.