Miss HARMON'S

The corner of Elgin and Maclaren Streets is a frequently visited location for then and now comparisons, so I am re-plowing some old ground. Here are some recently discovered interior photos.

Miss Harmon's School for Young Ladies looked like a converted house, but it was actually designed for the purpose by the architects Arnoldi and Calderon in 1891-92. It was flanked by smaller residences along Maclaren, and the Grace Church (later St. John the Evangelist) without its square corner tower. There was a fenced schoolyard between the church and the school.

Despite major alterations and a large addition the original school building is still weirdly apparent beneath all of this.

King McCord Arnoldi was the grand old man of Ottawa architects, and his brief partnership with Alfred Merigon Calderon produced many major institutional buildings and houses, of which Miss Harmon's was a fairly modest example.

The original window openings in the first and second floor make the then-and-now match. The main entrance way was moved the the school's central projecting bay on Maclaren Street.

The interior shots were taken by the William J. Topley Studio, presumably to illustrate a prospectus for the school. This is the drawing room, which was likely the private preserve of Miss Harmon and selected guests.

The photo set included one captioned 'Miss Harmon's Bedroom', which seems an oddly intimate subject.

Maria Harmon had started a small co-educational school for the children of lumber kings at a private home in Uppertown during the mid-1860s, when public education in Ottawa was still a dodgy business. The school moved to Wellington Street a few years later and became girls-only. Miss Harmon's went into a larger stone structure at 49 Daly Avenue (a building still used by the Union Mission for men). The date of the incorporation refers to the establishment of its final phase at Elgin and Maclaren.

The school had both boarding and day students. From the look of this classroom they probably received a serious education. This wasn't an academy for needlework and dancing lessons.

Whatever the curriculum, is was taken on hard wooden benches.

The double doors opened onto the girls' dining room.

This is a view from the dining room into the entrance hall.

And the stairway, with a very tall piece of hybrid furniture - a combined hall chair and coat rack.

The music parlour had a highly decorated piano.

There was another piano in the corner of an unidentified room at Miss Harmon's.

I was surprised to see a third piano showing up in this photo of an upper storey room until I learned that music instruction was one of the school's strong suits. They employed a full time Director of Music, Ernest Whyte, who was a composer from the Ottawa area.

Miss Harmon's School closed some time after 1910, by which time the public education system was well established and the carriage trade for educating young women was about to be taken over by the Elmwood School in Rockcliffe Park.

A third story was added to the school building and it was converted into apartments. In the 1940s shop fronts were added along Elgin Street. During the 1970s this became a restaurant which gradually expanded into the sideyard cafe (later enclosed) and up into the second floor of the apartment building.

A mixed use building with storefronts on Elgin Street and apartments above was built in the grounds of the old schoolyard.

In memory of Miss Harmon's School it was called the 'Harman Apartments', but the builders had apparently forgotten how to spell her name.