In 1965, shortly after we moved to Ottawa, we were living in Edinburgh, right on the border of Rockliffe (the wealthiest Ottawa neighborhood). I had a friend from school (Jeff) and one day we decided to have an adventure.
A few blocks from us was an old abandoned mansion. There was a sign in front of the property stating that it would soon be demolished to make way for new townhouses.
We figured that if it was going to be demolished anyways why not explore it?
No one knew much about this place, but it was commonly referred to as the Hope estate, and it had a reputation like a typical haunted house of the movies.
As we walk to the property, an old lady sitting outside a nearby home called out to us and warned us to stay away from the Hope estate… She said everyone who lived there had died in that house and some were even buried on the property! We of course figured she was just trying to scare a couple of 12-year-olds.
In any case we did go and explore the property. It was extremely interesting. The house itself was very large although in very bad disrepair. The staircase was in such bad shape that we were afraid to go upstairs. We did find a small food elevator otherwise known as a dumb waiter… who even had those things?
The house itself had been ransacked and anything of any interest had been taken long ago. Around the back of the house there were some raised patches of ground the approximate shape and size of graves.. so we avoided that area 🙂
But next to the house was a large wooden shed. The shed, it seems, had been ignored by whoever emptied the house. Not that there was anything of value in there, but lots of interesting things for a couple of 12-year-olds.
And mysteries galore!! We found over a year’s worth of weekly religious newspapers from England that were all in their original mailing wrapper, never opened or read but carefully stored in the garage. Why would someone pay for a subscription to be mailed from England and then never read them?
We also found a torn open box with tons of handwritten letters that had been stored in the shed. We pulled a few of them out and started to read… We quickly realized that they were written by some young woman or teenager to a friend of hers in England. From the little bits that we read and that I remember she described problems in the family, financial worries primarily. Although I don’t remember the dates on the letters they were clearly very old.
Among the various objects there wasn’t anything too interesting. I found an old wooden kids high chair which was just basically a stool with a short ladder back. I decided that it might be a useful sturdy wooden stool for me so I took it (and later sawed off the back) Jeff found an old Indian exercise device that looked like a large wooden bowling pin about 3 ft high, which he took.
I also found several Good Housekeeping magazines from the late 1920s, and a Canadian weather almanac from 1924 all of which I took, and still have!
Couple of weeks later we returned to the site to watch the demolition. We were shocked to discover that the shed had a second floor! It had not been obvious to us from the inside since it was only accessed by a trap door in the ceiling. In any case when they went to demolish it they found a lot of interesting stuff stored up there including an entire sleigh complete with leather harnesses.
Fast forward over 50 years, and in 2022 I decided to see if anyone could give me any information about that place. Since I had already joined an Ottawa historical Facebook group I posted some questions there asking if anyone had ever heard of this place called The Hope estate.
Remarkably, somebody who was something of a historian answered with all kinds of information! It was in fact owned by The Hope family, and the owner apparently had a famous bookstore on Sparks street in downtown Ottawa.
It seems that some of the stories were at least partially correct.
From the replies on Facebook:
From the 1923 Directory: 174 Dufferin Road was the home of Mrs. Frances Hope who was the widow of James Hope senior. In 1899 their three sons, James C., John and William W. were all living there, with James senior. The house was still there in 1965 but replaced by a townhouse development by 1976. The Hope Building on Sparks Street is named after James Hope.
Here is the Hope family in New Edinburgh at the 1901 census. They were also all at 174 Dufferin in 1891 when it was listed as a 3-storey brick house with 14 rooms. They were also all there in 1881. James moved to New Edinburgh from downtown in 1875. James, Frances, William, and Fanny were there at the 1911 census, with daughter in law Annie Hope and granddaughter Nora Bell Hope.
The last family member to live in the house may have been the daughter Fanny, born in 1872 and still living there, unmarried, in October 1933, when she died of breast cancer in the General Hospital. The mother Frances died of old age in the house in September 1930. James Hope died in the house in March 1922, of old age and prostate cancer. James Hope had immigrated from England in 1860 and was established as a stationer and bookseller at Sparks and Elgin by 1864. He was very religious and always advertised bibles and prayer books. His new building on Sparks in 1910 was called “Bible House”.
I’m posting images of a couple of the magazine covers, as well as some selected ads that I scanned from the magazine.. they are quite interesting!
I also scanned the entire 1924 Canadian weather almanac which makes for some quite interesting reading as well!
