Morgan's Alley - a public right-of-way in the Valley

In 1966 the north side of Main Street below Fort Howe was an aging phalanx of retail businesses, but there existed a few places for local residents to slip through...

Morgans Alley in the North End - a photograph made in 1930 by A.M. Montrose. He was standing between two wood frame buildings on Moore Street. Main Street is at the bottom of the alley and Long Wharf in the distance.

For several years I puzzled over this photograph taken in 1930 by Saint John fireman Allison M. Montrose. I knew it must be on Main Street, but where? I had all but convinced myself that it was taken between Elm and Lansdowne but I lacked maps of sufficient scale to prove it. The best maps we Legion of Saint John Expatriates had to go on is the wonderful set of street plans drawn in the 1920s by the S.J. Public Works Department. These were made available to us on the Municipal website about seven years ago, not long before I started the LOST VALLEY BLOG.

The problem for me was that the charts, drawn on a scale 40 Feet to an Inch, cannot be enlarged onscreen with sufficient clarity to pick out finer detail - such as the names of the dozen or more alleys which traced along the north Valley wall. These alley's are of interest to me, as are the many unmapped footpaths which once existed all over the North End.

Two weeks ago I raised the question of "where" on a Facebook chat site, but alas Morgan's Alley had dropped from "living memory". As I had made the challenge, I felt some obligation to find the answer, rather than let my query dangle. I did at last locate the alley on Sheet No. 54, and was relieved that the members of the chat-group accepted my enlargement of the tiny detail. It was a fuzzy image, and I still had a wee bit of doubt.

I confess that over thirty years I have collected so much material in support of dozens of research projects, that I often lose track of what I have. Tonight provided me a fresh kick in the pants. I stumbled upon a roll of blueprint-copies of the very plan set which I have been consulting online these many years - and my set is FULL SIZE.

Finger pointing. Tonight's photo confirms the link from Moore St. down hill to Main St. a short cut down from Fort Howe to the business level.

Proof positive. This lost alley once connected the tenements of Moore St. to the many shops on Main Street and the jobs on the busy waterfront.

My suspicion is that Montrose took the photograph out of professional interest and concern. He was living at 37 Adelaide Street at the time this street plan was drawn and he worked in the North End. The lives of his neighbours as well as the preservation of their hard-earned property was his duty and he may have walked the streets and alleys in search of dangerous By-Law infractions that might lead to fires. There were fires among the tenements and the businesses on a regular basis, often with appalling loss of life. I still do not know how the alley got its name, but the answer must exist in old property records for that block of Main Street.

I do know that the alley's were a vital part of daily life in the old Valley. Public right of access was essential to the working poor in particular, as automobile ownership was largely a post-WW2 phenomenon in Saint john. The north valley wall in particular was teeming with a population which was largely dependant on walking - the children to school, the men to work and the wives to the grocers, butchers and dry goods merchants who crammed the commercial corridor which was Main Street in its heyday. Morgan's Alley pointed like an arrow to the heart of employment on the Portland foreshore - the Long Wharf and light industry which crowded that section of the harbour. If you look carefully at the Montrose photo you will see vehicle traffic moving on "Long Wharf" - the name of the street which lead down to the pier of the same name.