Capital History Ottawa

New on my blog – the previously untold tale of Rochester's Victoria Brewery, purported to be the 1st in what would become Ottawa: ashleynewall.ca/2025/08/roches…

New on my blog: "Time-Travelling Through Ottawa History," a journey through Bytown & Ottawa's past, re-imagined w/ AI. ashleynewall.ca/2026/04/time-t…

THE OLD BERRY BREWERY 🍺 On a map from 1879, a little known brewery is shown to exist on the Ottawa River near Pinhey’s Point... The brewery was owned/operated by W.H. Berry who was also the Reeve of March Township...this brewery had a shipping pier.... If we overlay a current map with the 1879 map, we can what is left of the brewery... It seems this old brewery and/or residence is still there. The old pier can still be seen on the shoreline. I wonder what beer they made? Cheers!

@twitandrewking I wonder if he was related to Godfrey Berry, who operated a brewery on Nepean Point / Kiweki Point. (Clipping from 1852.) That brewery presumed to be at Steamboat Landing, where George Stirling ultimately est. his Dominion Brewery (by 1858).

APRIL FOOLS! Alas, one of my grandfathers was a bus driver & the other a reluctant lawyer, & both lived in the GTA. (The train/tunnel pic is AI, but pretty much how I presume it looked.) You can read my 2025 article on the Brading beer train & tunnel here: ashleynewall.ca/2025/09/bradin…

Pic of my grandfather driving the now-infamous Brading's beer train in the tunnel under Lebreton Flats, sometime in the 1950s

@beatlesincanada First of all, you wrote Beatles in Cda?! Amazing - that one's on the top of my to-read list. As for the Brading's beer tunnel, I've got you covered - I wrote about it from stem to stern last fall: ashleynewall.ca/2025/09/bradin…

@CapHistOttawa The tunnel is news to me - what became of it ?

Btw, here's a pic of the Brading's plant & giant warehouse, from about late '40s / early '50s (train tunnel under the warehouse)

@otthistoryhub Amazing - congrats!

Today I, along with some other storytellers, was given the François Bregha Storyteller Award by the The Historical Society of Ottawa. I'm proud of the award!

Enter stage right, John By, bringing with him such a large group on labourers that camp came to be known as “Bytown”. This week’s episode of the Ottawa History Hub introduces the man whose six year stay was what laid the groundwork for the future city.

1) Poem transcribed from a Jan. 31, 1925 Ottawa Citizen article. 2) Photo of Parliament & the (by then) former "Brewery Hill" (on "Brewery Bay") by Notman & Sandham, dated btwn 1878-80

Thanks to Michael Burke's early brewery on Brewery Hill (at the formerly extended north end of Bank St.), #StPatricksDay in Bytown in 1828 was a rousing success! From my recent article on the Rochester familly's Victoria Brewery: ashleynewall.ca/2025/08/roches…

With St. Patty's Day just around the corner, a reminder that the Chateau Lafayette was *originally* founded (ie. in 1849) by an Irishman! Full story: ashleynewall.ca/2024/04/chatea…

"The next two floors are devoted to billiard rooms, with panels of leather and painted fabric, the stripping and cap moulds in walnut." The Ottawa Sparks St. Bowles Lunch location also had a 'Bowles Billiard Academy'

Bowles Lunch maintained consistent interior & exterior design styling/branding across all their outlets. 1915 pics + descrip here of Toronto King St. location similar to Ottawa locations, esp. Sparks St. outlet. New photo essay on Toronto Queen St. outlet: ashleynewall.ca/2026/03/bowles…

New on my blog – photo essay (w/ a side of familly anecdotes), on former Bowles Lunch outlet in the epicentre of Toronto, on the corner of Queen St. W. & Bay St., across from Old City Hall: ashleynewall.ca/2026/03/bowles…

Mar 8, 1871: sleeping car service begins between Toronto and Ottawa when the St. Lawrence & Ottawa Railway inaugurates new "sofa cars." These cars ran between Ottawa and Prescott, where passengers connected with the Grand Trunk Railway's Montreal-Toronto overnight train. 1/3

@e_bloor Hehe. Indeed, they were celebrating "Western Day", complete with chuck wagon, on the back of a flatbed trailer looks like

A tavern with a horse out front! Brings back memories very different from my descendants’ experiences with KFC.

@StittsCentral He got around in town - he also got his goatee trimmed near the Sparks location, at my barber's previous shop on O'Connor

@CapHistOttawa Yes and the Colonel came to Ottawa on a few occasions. He sponsored a ladies bowling team for years. They bowled at West Park Bowling Lanes - my Mom was on the team. The Colonel gave my sister and I a couple of the very first Colonel Saunders piggy banks the restaurant gave out.

My Bowles Lunch mini photo essay acoutrement blog post has just been updated w/ a few more photos: ashleynewall.ca/2021/05/capita…