Here's a little gift for anyone who gets frustrated wrangling the online/pdf version(s?) of Belden's 1879 Historical Atlas — County Carleton, with its chopped-to-bits map scans with their overlaps and half-duplications. I know there's got to be at least one of you out there besides me.
This map shows Ottawa west of Bank Street circa 1879 and is composed of either six or seven (I lost count) screen-grabs variously stitched and pasted into place. Hopefully, if you click on the image, then "view image" or "open in a new tab", then embiggen, you should get an end result large enough to let you read all those tiny words. Or just download the bloody thing and be done with it. Blogger has shrunk it somewhat but it's still useful at 950x1600.
Note the then-position of City Limits along Division (now Booth) and Ann (now Gladstone) streets. And don't be looking for the Queensway — neither it nor the CAR/ Grand Trunk rail line which preceded it were built yet. Speaking of built things, remember that this map shows lots surveyed, not necessarily those built on. Many of the lots depicted, especially to the south and the west, were shrubby, rocky, sometimes marshy ground back in 1879.
Expect a few errors. Was Russell Island (upstream from the Chaudière Falls) ever really called "Rossell Island"? Maybe it was... it's underwater now so I don't suppose it cares any more.
