By Ward Market Heritage Conservation District

A dense cedar bog was drained and cleared in 1827 by Lieutenant-Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers to create a site for workers building the Rideau Canal, and the area quickly became the commercial core of Bytown. It later served the region's farming communities and the Ottawa Valley lumber industry, whose itinerant lumbermen gave the town its rowdy reputation. Over the next century, the By Ward Market housed the businesses and institutions that served the area's Irish, French-Canadian, and Jewish communities. The district came to include substantial masonry buildings along both sides of Sussex Drive for prominent businesses, more modest structures around the Market Square for retail and agricultural supply stores, inner courtyards with warehouses and industrial workshops, and numerous hotels and taverns centered along York, Clarence, and Murray Streets.

Ontario · Canada