The McManus family at 168 Murray Street in their 1840s log house

By Nancy Miller Chenier

In May 2025, the Heritage Impact Assessment and Conservation Plan for the proposed development at 168-174 Murray Street stated that it would include “the conservation and rehabilitation of both the two-storey brick clad frame building located at 174 Murray and the one and one half-storey log/frame building at 168 Murray.” The proposed four-storey addition/infill behind the two existing buildings is now advertised as potentially offering 20 residential units.

The story of the James McManus family on this Murray Street lot supports efforts to conserve and rehabilitate the two existing buildings. James is recorded as the owner of Lot 23 Murray as early as 1843. This was the year that the Ordnance Vesting Act of 1843 permitted the sale of land in Lowertown that had previously been set aside for military or canal purposes. By then, Lowertown was well established as a commercial and residential centre.

James McManus was Irish, reported to be from County Cavan, and by the mid 1840s was married to Alice Brady, also from Ireland. The 1851 census indicates that James was a skilled labourer, a mason by trade. His Roman Catholic household included wife, Alice, and three children – Hugh (6 years of age), Mary (4 years), and Bridget (2 years) – living in a building later described as a log house.

Alice’s death in 1867 left James widowed with six children – one boy and five girls. Hugh, along with his youngest sister Annie, lived at home into the 1880s. By 1890, Hugh was married to Catherine Lance and running a hotel at 46-48 Clarence Street. Annie was married to Anthony Butler and living with her father, James, at 168 Murray. Annie, like her sister Bridget, had married a man with a background in the lumber trade. Anthony had been a raftsman and a shanty foreman before taking on other jobs in Ottawa. Bridget’s husband, Bartholemew Gilligan, was from Mattawa and his work as a Crown Timber Agent for the Nipissing District meant that her family lived in the north.

While Murray is now dominated by fast-moving vehicle traffic, when the McManus family settled on Lot 23, it was a dirt road with no sidewalks and no drainage. Traffic in those days consisted of an occasional horse-drawn vehicle and wandering domestic animals, perhaps including the McManus cow and pigs. The 1850s brought plank sidewalks and a drain in the middle of the street. With the 1870s, came a naphtha gas lamp at the corner of Murray and Dalhousie Streets, and the 1880s, a levelled and macadamized road surface.

From the 1840s to the 1930s, the log building was occupied and expanded by members of the McManus family.  In 1906, the east half of the McManus lot was sold to Ferdinand Cassan and the current two storey with brick facade was built.  While both buildings have been modified over time, 168-174 Murray have been listed for sale with “certain specifications dictated by Heritage Designation.” The McManus home and nearby streetscape and community changed continually over the decades of the family’s occupancy.  The community is watching and following the next iteration of change to the place occupied for almost a century by this pioneer Ottawa family.