Montreal Geography Trivia No. 68

What is the significance of the shaded area of this map?

UPDATE: COOL FAT MICHAEL FROM THE JERSEY SHORE ‘87 and Jim both got the right answer: these are the borders of the village, town, city and ward of Sainte-Cunégonde, sandwiched between St. Henri (whose eastern border was Atwater) and Montreal.

Not only was this independent city tiny (in 1840 it had 10 inhabitants), it was also short-lived. It was developed after it was bought by Alexandre Delisle and William Workman around 1850. At first, it relied heavily on bordering St. Henri for basic services like schools and a church, but the village’s inhabitants, upset with the distance they’d have to travel and the taxes they’d have to pay, wanted some of their own.

Ste. Cunégonde was founded as a parish in 1875, taking its name from Cunégonde de Luxembourg. It was incorporated in 1887 and became its own city in 1890.

But around the turn of the century, Ste. Cunégonde faced the same fate as many other towns around Montreal at the time: merger. In 1905 it became a ward of the city of Montreal. By the midpoint of the 20th century, the boundaries ceased to have any meaning.

Today, the only remnants of the town are the buildings (including the old Sainte-Cunégonde church, now the Korean Catholic Mission on St. Jacques), and the street and park named after it.

For more on the village, you can read this book, published in 1893 by E.Z. Massicotte.

16 thoughts on “Montreal Geography Trivia No. 68

  1. Manuel

    I would say it is the neighbourhood of Montreal with the highest concentration of income disparity, with the condos on the canal Lachine opposed to the HLM’s across from Lionel-Groulx

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  2. noagenda

    The mountain blocks out the sun shine for that area most times during the year at around sunset. If that isn’t it, it must be crappy cell phone reception.

    Reply
  3. TGHQ

    Because the westerly border precisely follows Atwater Avenue (even the curve around the Atwater Market), while the easterly border is a line with no relation to the street pattern, I’m guessing that it has no direct link to pollution or radio interference. The easterly line may be the limits of the old (circa 1850s) City of Montreal. In that case, it may be something that was designed within an outlying parish and that used Atwater Avenue’s physical location as a distribution point. So my guess is a pre-City of Montreal water supply system.

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