Province House
Walking through the center of Charlottetown, it is difficult to miss Province House. The large sandstone building occupies a prominent place in the city, but its importance extends far beyond Prince Edward Island. This is one of the places where the idea of Canada began to take shape.
Province House was constructed between 1843 and 1847 to serve as the home of Prince Edward Island’s colonial legislature. Designed by local architect Isaac Smith, it was built from Island sandstone in the Classical Revival style. It remains the historic seat of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island.
Its defining moment came in September 1864. Delegates from Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had planned to meet in Charlottetown to discuss the possibility of a Maritime union. Representatives from the Province of Canada, present-day Ontario and Quebec, asked to attend and arrived with a much larger proposal: the creation of a federation of British North American colonies.
The discussions held here became the Charlottetown Conference. Among the delegates were men who would later be remembered as Fathers of Confederation, including John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier and George Brown.
No final agreement creating Canada was signed at Province House. Instead, the delegates agreed that the larger idea was worth pursuing. They met again at the Quebec Conference the following month, where the framework for Confederation was developed. On July 1, 1867, the Dominion of Canada was created.
There is an interesting twist to Charlottetown’s role as the “Birthplace of Confederation”. Prince Edward Island hosted the conference that helped begin the process, but the Island itself initially refused to join the new country. Prince Edward Island did not enter Confederation until 1873.
That is one of the things I enjoy most about exploring a city on foot. History is not always separated from everyday life behind museum doors. Sometimes it is sitting right in front of us, at the end of the street, waiting for us to stop and discover what happened there. For Charlottetown, Province House is exactly that kind of place. It helps explain why this relatively small city on Prince Edward Island holds such an important place in the history of Canada.
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