Matthew Murphy & Catherine Ebert in Nepean, 1863

This is a detail view from an 1863 ordinance map of Nepean that shows the actual location of the Matthew Murphy farmhouse (it is circled in green). It is possible to verify the correct legal address (at Lot 25, Concession II, Ottawa Front) which agrees with the 1861 Census and the City Directory information of the pre-Confederation era. You can see the shoreline of the Ottawa River as the irregular thick black line along the left (the left side of this map faces "north").

We don't know exactly when the Matthew Murphy & Catherine Ebert family moved here: of course it must have been some time after the 1851-52 Census, which locates them in Bytown West. We know that the family moved to Aylmer in 1868, after all of their children were born (and their grandchildren had begun to arrive!).

After the property was sold by Matthew Murphy, this building, a 1 & 1/2 storey log house, was very probably burned in "the Great Fire of 1870". It had definitely been replaced by 1879, with the two houses shown on the above map fronting on March Road replaced by a single, larger home set back from the road, possibly built (or rebuilt) by the Sparks family. The site was located on the south side of Carling Avenue, just west of the intersection with Woodroffe Avenue South. In the 1860's, the road was known as "March Road", being the overland route to March Township.

Back to Murphy Family of Ottawa, Canada Web site.