Building history
Huguenot merchant Pierre Du Calvet built this house in 1770-1771, after having acquired the property of his future in-laws. The construction replaces a one-story stone house in poor condition. In 1771, the year of his marriage, he established his residence in the new house. He can also use it for his business, in addition to the neighboring building he already uses.
From 1780 to 1783, Du Calvet was imprisoned because of his problems with the law following the American occupation of 1775-1776. After his death at sea in 1786, his house was seized and sold in 1789. Nine years later, the innkeeper Frederick Gonnerman acquired the house he occupied until the 1820s, when he went bankrupt. New owner of the house, lawyer Dominique Mondelet hired carpenter John Thompson to make repairs in the spring of 1826. He probably lived there until his appointment as judge in Trois-Rivières in 1843.
From the 1840s, the building had a commercial vocation. Used as an inn until 1880, the building shelters a grocery store after its acquisition by James Skelly in 1881. Around 1890, a wooden addition of a floor and almost entirely glazed in front is built in the vacant space behind the house, facing rue de Bonsecours. It includes two shops. For several years, barbers occupied the premises of this addition; there is also a laundry room at the beginning of the 20th century. The ground floor of the main building, on the other hand, has served as a grocery store and a small restaurant for decades. The Skelly family kept the property until 1924, followed by the lawyer who became judge Bernard Bissonnette between 1927 and 1961.
The Joseph A. Ogilvy Limited company acquired the building in 1963, restored it between 1964 and 1966 and opened an exhibition site there, which the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts then used for a few years. But the initiative is unsuccessful. Meanwhile, a larger group is made up of the acquisition of three adjoining buildings by the same family, including the Maison Du Calvet in 1984 (see separate fact sheet on this subject). In 1998, this complex was converted into an inn. In 2010, the Maison Du Calvet nevertheless awaited real integration into the inn or a vocation of its own.


Du Calvet, Pierre
Born in 1735 in Caussade, France, Pierre Du Calvet is the son of Pierre Calvet, bourgeois, and Anne Boudet.

In 1758, Du Calvet emigrated to Quebec to try his luck in the trade. He was first a storekeeper in Miramichi and Restigouche, in Acadia, from 1758 to 1759. He then had to provide for the needs of thousands of Acadians who were victims of the deportation of 1755. In 1760, he was responsible for counting the number of Acadian refugees and to report on the state of the war-torn region. The following year, he was given the mandate to prevent the rebel Acadians from intercepting British ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

After the Conquest, Du Calvet founded an export trade in Montreal. He also received a commission of justice of the peace in Montreal in 1766 and wasted no time in denouncing the abuses of his colleagues. With the Quebec Act, which came into force in 1775, he was removed from office, but continued to criticize the conduct of judges and the performance of judgments. In 1779, The Gazette littéraire pour la ville et le district de Montréal published open letters from the former justice of the peace denouncing the administration of justice. The following year, Du Calvet was suspected of treason during the American invasion and was imprisoned without trial. However, the evidence incriminating him was not sufficient and he was released three years later. Outraged by having been the target of a flagrant injustice, Du Calvet published, in 1784, The case of Peter Du Calvet and Appeal to the justice of the State in order to rally public opinion to its cause. These two books denounce the despotism of Governor Frederick Haldimand and notably propose constitutional and judicial reforms.

He died at sea in 1786.

In 1771 he married Marie-Louise Jussaume dit Saint-Pierre in Montreal.