Halifax and Its People / 1749-1999

The original Governor's House of 1749 was a small one-storey structure. The frame and material were brought from Boston and the governor took up residence in early October 1749. The new Governor's Mansion shown in the centre of this engraving was built in 1755 during the tenure of Charles Lawrence. With the arrival of Lieutenant Governor John Wentworth in 1792, complaints were heard of the unfitness of the house as a viceregal residence, and in 1796 Wentworth convinced the government to build a new structure, this time in the South Suburbs – thus allowing Government House to assume the aspect of an English country seat. The 1755 Mansion was pulled down in 1800. Mather's Meeting House (later St. Matthew's Church), the oldest Protestant Dissenting congregation in Canada, began worship in 1749 and in the following year built the church structure seen to the left in this illustration, at the corner of Prince and Hollis Streets. The church was used for worship, the basement as a bonded warehouse–until New Year's Day 1857, when a huge conflagration destroyed the church and two adjoining buildings.

Artist: Richard Short, 1759; described & published by Short, 1 March 1764, London, England, Aveline, engraver; subsequently painted by D. Serres and published by John Boydell, London, 25 April 1777

Date: 1777

Medium: engraving with etching, 36 cm. x 51 cm.

Reference: Nova Scotia Archives 1979-147 no. 169  / negative: N-4215