Monklands

In 1675, the Décarie family were one of thirteen families who purchased farms from the Sulpicians along the Côte Saint-Antoine. In 1780, they sold 125-acres to the Boston-born, European-educated lawyer, William Dummer Powell. His career saw him become a Judge in Detroit and then Newark before he settled in York (Toronto) as Chief Justice of Upper Canada. In 1795, Sir James Monk, who was also born in Boston and in the previous year had been appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench at Montreal, advised Powell to put the estate up for auction to settle various of his debts. Monk then promptly purchased it for himself, at a tidily reduced price. For a long time, it was thought that Monklands was an embellishment of an existing house built by Powell, but it has since been dated to 1803 indicating that even if Powell had built a house here, Monk chose to start anew.

Employing master masons Gilbert Duchâtel and Jean-Baptiste Sené, master joiner Pierre Poitras, and master carpenter Germain Durette, Monk built a house that was said to have followed the plans of another which he knew in England - possibly Woodlands, home of the art collector John Julius Angerstein at Blackheath in Greenwich. Standing two stories high over a raised basement and with a hipped roof, the five bay stone house measured 60-by-48-feet and features two massive chimneys that reach up 55-feet into the air.

Lady Monk and the Justice on Slavery

In London in 1774, Monk had married the "well-connected" Elizabeth Adams of St. James', Piccadilly, whose family were among the wealthiest sugar plantation owners in Barbados. She was the aunt of Edward Hamlin Adams who bought Middleton Hall and whose American wife was a daughter of the swashbuckling Captain John Macpherson of Mount Pleasant in Philadelphia. It was perhaps his wife's childhood in Barbados that influenced Monk's decided antipathy towards slavery. In 1793, the House of Assembly failed to pass a bill that would have abolished slavery, but that didn't stop Monk - contrary to fact - declaring that slave ownership in Lower Canada was unsupported in law and he systematically dismissed all suits by slaveowners wishing to reclaim runaway slaves.

The Liberal-Minded Mrs Aubrey

Lady Monk - who is buried in the grounds here - died sometime in the early 1800s. Her husband continued to live at Monklands with their adopted daughter, Eliza, who was also his niece and her god-daughter. In the last year of his life, Monk retired to Cheltenham in England where he died in 1826. Monklands was bequeathed to Eliza who in 1823, at the English Ambassador's palazzo in Naples, had married Major George W. Aubrey. Sir James had hoped for a better match for Eliza, but having brought her up to be of an independent and liberal spirit, he felt he could hardly complain when she married for love.

"A Coward and a Poltroon... The World Will Judge"

The Aubreys seemed to live here without incident except for one peculiar episode: In November, 1829, Charles Grant - afterwards the 5th Baron de Longueil - called at Monklands and greeted Aubrey by stating that he supposed Aubrey knew, "to what cause I was to attribute his visit". Entirely confounded by Grant's purpose, "I expressed my utter ignorance of it". Grant elucidated on the subject by saying that he had come from Major G.C. Coffin (his brother-in-law), "to demand immediate satisfaction". Thoroughly bemused, Aubrey enquired, "for what offence?" to which he received the curt reply, "the pamphlet". Aubrey, still having no idea as to what Grant was talking about told him, "it was quite out of the question to think I should meet Major Coffin". Grant retorted, "then you decline doing so" - "I do" - replied Aubrey, at which point Grant made good his leave.

The following morning Aubrey was informed by his friends that placards had been placed around the city, declaring him, "a COWARD and a POLTROON," signed by G.C. Coffin. In turn, Major Aubrey published a letter in the "The Vindicator," and ended it by saying: "Upon the subject of Major Coffin's appeal to me, I shall not dwell, but shall allow the public to form their own opinion upon the nice sense of honour, upon the correctness of judgement, and upon the discriminating and wary prudence which dictated the demand of a satisfaction from that very individual who had, a short time previously, refused to allow his friend to meet so unworthy an opponent. I shall here take my leave of G.C. Coffin, who has denominated me a coward and a poltroon: these epithets are in juxta position to his name - and whether they ought to stand still nearer, the world will judge."

"The Last Lay Proprietor of the Ancestral Home"

Eliza Aubrey died in 1843. She left Monklands to her brother, Judge Samuel Wentworth Monk, and her nephew, Henry George Windsor (on the condition that he take the name "Aubrey"), then resident in Barbados, but to be held in trust by her husband until he came of age. In 1846, while Windsor-Aubrey was studying at Exeter College, Oxford, he sold his share to Judge Monk - "the last lay proprietor of the ancestral home" - for £3,000. 

The Vice-Regal Retreat

In 1843, William Bingham sold the Bingham Mansion on Notre-Dame Street that for the last ten years had served as the vice-regal residence of the Governors-General of Canada. Taking advantage of the moment, Judge Monk offered Monklands to the British government at a rent of £450/year and from 1844 to 1849, it served as the vice-regal residence, occupied successively by Lords Metcalfe, Cathcart and Elgin, during which time it played host to countless dinners and balls. In 1844, in preparation for its new role, the architect George Browne added a pair of 44-by-41-foot wings fronted by columns and verandahs, a bell tower, and a servant's wing at the rear that measured 32-by-30-feet.

Hotel Monklands, and the Perils of Rural Life in Winter

As a consequence of the burning of the Houses of Parliament (an alternative to burning down Monklands on account of Lady Elgin being pregnant with the future Viceroy of India) and the subsequent riots that saw the Bingham Mansion among others put to the torch, the seat of government was moved to Toronto in 1849. Monklands' lease was then taken up by the restauranteur and hotelier, Sébastien Compain - the popular owner of the Dillon Coffee House on the Place d'Armes - in partnership with Angello Gianelli.

For the next five years (1849-54), Compain and Gianelli ran the "Hotel Monklands" as a fashionable country resort. While the summers saw it brimming over with guests, mostly from the States, its remote position made for something of a headache in the winters. The clerk, Mr. Hogan, related, "with much gusto his adventures on show-shoes while in search of bread for the almost starving guests, who, on one occasion, having exhausted their supply of flour had to content themselves with hard tack instead of bread".

The Villa Maria School

Compain did not renew the lease for Monklands and that year (1854) Judge Monk sold his uncle's estate for £9,000 to the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, to serve as a boarding school for girls. Naming it "Villa Maria" and replacing the bell with a statue of the Virgin Mary, it opened that year with 45-students, both French and English, and in fact for many years classes were held in French in the morning, and English in the afternoon. Approaching two centuries later, the Villa Maria School remains a private, bilingual - and since 2016 co-educational - Catholic high school. Monklands remains at the centre of their campus and was named a National Historic Site in 1951.

"The Real Truth Lies Buried in the Graves..."

An article in 1883 pertained to Monklands being haunted: "there are weird and strange stories which hang about the memory of the old establishment. Those stories are (some of them) bathed in blood. There is unquestionably a skeleton, as such things are termed, in the closet of Monklands. Cries of distress were, it is said, formerly heard in some of the rooms. Ghostly figures were accustomed to flit among the trees surrounding the pond at the rear of the house, while every gust of wind as it roared through the branches was declared to be an eloquent proclaimer of the wrongs of some one. In one of the rooms, it is stated, there are yet to be seen stains of blood upon the floor, which almost three quarters of a century have failed to wash out. The legend is of a tragedy, but what it was is not accurately known. There are many surprises, but without doubt, the real truth lies buried in the graves of those who for the last time left the grim old manor long years ago".