Duke Street has lost most of its noble roots.
The road no longer exists. It was ploughed over to create space for new LeBreton Flats developments. All that remains is a vacant dirt lot, fenced around all sides to separate it from the sidewalk. It is now barely a gravel pathway, eroded with foot prints from people taking a short cut over the property which is just off of the Ottawa River Parkway, near Booth Street.
But in Ottawa’s early years, the street was fit for royalty.
Duke Street was named in honour of Charles Lennox, the fourth Duke of Richmond and Lennox, who was the governor-general of British North America.
In 1818, Lennox travelled from Quebec City to inspect the planned route of the Rideau Canal, a long journey which he was unable to complete. While in Ottawa, Richmond and Duke Street were named in his honour.
Unfortunately while in Sorel, near Montreal, Lennox was bitten by a soldier’s pet fox. He contracted rabies two months later, a death sentence at the time. He spent his last night in a tavern in Richmond, Ont., which was renamed “The Duke of Richmond Arms” to commemorate his life. He died the next day.
The tavern was popular and one of the last buildings to be demolished on the street in 1965.
In 1881, the Duke House Hotel was erected at 101 Duke St. It was passed down to one of its previous boarders, Jean Coullaird who renamed it the Coullaird Hotel. Coullaird’s wife Olive was pregnant more than twenty times resulting in seven children who kept the hotel going well into the 1940s, when it returned to being the Duke House.
In the early 1900s, Duke Street became a thriving part of a working class neighbourhood, housing families of mechanics and saw mill labourers.