Garage at 82 Fourth Avenue

I was wondering if you knew anything about making maple syrup in the Glebe? I was recently working at 82 Fourth Avenue doing some renovation work and I was invited to give a bid on restoring/fixing the rear garage. It's a detached garage with tin siding, roof and decorations.

The homeowner said it was originally built as a maple syrup shack...sounds pretty strange to me but maybe. It's a very unique garage. There's no wood, just tin siding with angle iron frame all bolted together and these unusual dragon head decorations on the front. It almost looks like a kit shipped from Asia or something. If you know anything about this address, or about the business of maplesyrup, can you please let me know?

I have not been able to track down any record of the garage at 82 Fourth Avenue ever being used as a maple sugar shack. My lack of evidence does not exclude the possibility, of course.

That said, I think it is unlikely, in that a commercial sugar shack would depend on a large bush of sugar maples in close proximity. Original old growth forest in the Glebe was logged over before Colonel By built the Rideau Canal (1828-32). Between then and the housing boom in the 1880s, Glebe lands were rented out to market gardeners, so it is unlikely that a large sugar bush was allowed to grow up in the meantime.

I have spoken to Don Ray, who moved out of 82 Fourth Avenue in August, 2005, after living there for 19 years. He said that the house was built in 1886, and that the garage dated from much later, perhaps the 1920s-30s. He did confirm that the garage had a few unusual attributes.

First, it is a pressed tin cover over an angle iron frame. In the first 40 years of the twentieth century, prefabricated garages, cottages and even houses were often sold from catalogue books by department stores like Eaton's, and shipped across the country for construction. My guess is that the garage at 82 Fourth was mail ordered, and arrived in a package for assembly on sight. I do not have any photos of it.

Don added that the garage had a chimney that at one time served a coal-burning stove, as the floor of the garage is covered in several inches of cinders. Also the garage had been wired for electricity a very long time ago (70-80 years?) judging by the disconnected wiring evidenced on the west side.

These are all unusual characteristics for an early Glebe garage. Don thought that it was likely used as a workshop by a craftsman such as a carpenter or a small engine mechanic.

Don further mentioned that he bought 82 Fourth Avenue from a Carleton English professor named Robin Matthews. Professor Matthews had owned the house for about twenty years. He was a founder of the National Party of Canada (NPC), and ran this organization from the house.

The NPC was concerned with the increasing American influence over Canadian culture, education and politics, and strongly advocated an independent Canada. The NPC contested several seats in the 1980 federal election. Professor Matthews ran in Ottawa Centre, but placed a distant fifth in a field of ten candidates. Professor Matthews also ran a company named Steel Rail Publishing out of the basement of 82 Fourth Avenue. It mostly published materials in support of his political philosophy.