This display case holds 45 artefacts — a mere sampling of approximately 150,000 objects that are held in trust by the City of Ottawa as part of the LeBreton Flats Archeological Collection. In a nondescript warehouse, located near big-box stores and a golf course, thousands of plastic bags, stuffed with artefacts from close to 20 archeological sites, fill 300 boxes.
A total of 12,400 artefacts were recovered from the Ottawa Street site: 3,647 pieces of ceramics, 5,397 pieces of glass, 1,369 bones, 1,382 pieces of metal, 37 beads, 218 buttons, 6 coins, 51 pieces of fabric, 47 marbles, 56 pieces of slate, 119 smoking pipes, and 71 pieces classified as “other.”
This is all that remains from number 13 and 15 Ottawa Street, one of the archeological sites of LeBreton Flats. Plagued with controversy and misfortune, the neighbourhood has a layered past.
The area first known as Richmond Landing was purchased by John LeBreton in the early 1820s. LeBreton hoped to sell the land to the British at a significant profit, thinking that they would need his land to connect the Rideau Canal to the Ottawa River, but his offer was declined. On April 26, 1900, a fire that started in Hull decimated the area and left 15,000 people homeless. In the 1960s, the neighborhood, then considered a “slum area” (Toronto Star, 1966) was expropriated and razed by the federal government to make way for planned headquarters for the Department of National Defence.
Today, the area is undergoing a major redevelopment and is home to the Canadian War Museum.
Measuring spoon, 1/2 teaspoon, LeBreton Flats Arch. Coll., City of Ottawa, BiFw-59.
Photo: G. Iddon © Bytown Museum, 2010.
1/2 penny and 1 loaf bread, LeBreton Flats Arch. Coll., City of Ottawa, BiFw-78.
Photo: G. Iddon © Bytown Museum, 2010.
