Home for the Holidays in 1880s Hintonburg

This month's new edition of the Kitchissippi Times is out, and within its pages you'll find my newest article, "Home for the Holidays in 1880s Hintonburg". 

This was a very fun one to write, and I did my best to try to capture what living in Hintonburg in 1880 would have been like. 

If 1880 sounds like a bit of a random year, it isn't. I considered it a major turning point year in the history of Hintonburg (and Ottawa), when electricity was just about to arrive, the global depression the 1870s just ended, new-found patriotism was being established, consumerism just starting off, and a new round of industrial revolution began changing how cities would grow.

It's a fun article to show how different, yet similar, Christmastime would have been 140 years ago in the community. A few vintage illustrations/newspaper clippings added in to help bring it alive as well. 

Find out who the merchants of Hintonburg were in 1880, how people were decorating their houses, what they were doing for wintertime entertainment, what the weather was like... lots of local, 1880-specific detail to enjoy!

https://kitchissippi.com/2020/11/30/home-for-the-holidays-in-1880s-hintonburg/

(The illustration below is an actual drawing circa 1870 of the Stewart family stone farmhouse on Wellington Street - then Richmond Road - on what is now the southeast corner of Julian Avenue, but then was in the middle of the vast wilderness of Nepean Township. Hard to imagine that in the background today would be the streets and houses of Wellington Village and Hintonburg!)