When a construction crew began to dig beneath the asphalt of a Hydro-Québec parking lot in downtown Montreal weeks ago, they stumbled upon a piece of history from centuries past.
They found a stone house with a wood floor dating back to sometime between 1801 and 1825. The archeological treasure trove tells the story of wealthy residents who lived in what is now the heart of the Faubourg Saint-Laurent.
“It was a working-class town that developed outside the fortification walls around the middle of the 18th century, where artisans, people of lesser means and farmers came to settle in response to the growing densification inside
