According to the Ottawa Community Housing Association, "This old heritage home was built in 1865 and was converted into seven apartments retaining the original hardwood floors, crown molding, high ceilings and more..." Given #504's stone walls and enviable perch looking down on Lebreton Flats, 1865 sounds like a credible build-date.
Ten years later, Woodburn's Directory would list "Todd Alpheus, librarian parliament" at this address. The one mile walk to a job in that most splendid room in the whole city must have provided a satisfying beginning (and end) to his work day.
As it happens, Mr. Todd was the librarian*, the Chief Parliamentary Librarian — you can read about him here.
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| Alpheus Todd, 1821-1844 |
Three years after Woodburn's entry, Goad (1878, sheet 44) shows #504 as a one-and-a-half storey stone building, ingloriously clipped by the western edge of the plan, with a bay window on its eastern side. The effect would have been that of a low-set stone cottage.
By 1888, the house was occupied by "Jenkins Chas W" (Woodburn, no occupation listed) and had gained an additional storey, ("R.C" — rough cast, i.e. plaster, per Goad) for a total of the "two-and-a-half" we see today.
*Ook!
