Story kiosk location
- Corner of Sussex and Murray
Important dates
- (1858) The year that founded a daily newspaper, the Ottawa Union, with offices close by at York and Sussex.
Audiofile
- No
Who lived here?
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Friel, Bytown’s last mayor and Ottawa’s first, was born in 1823, and married Mary Ann O’Connor in 1848. He died of pneumonia in 1869, aged 46.
Who is this stern bearded fellow looking straight at you? Henry J. Friel was one of Ottawa’s mayors and was quite a character...
Portrait of Henry J. Friel, Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec
P137-S4-D110-P18.
Henry James Friel was an Irish Catholic who moved to Bytown from Montréal with his family at the age of three. Bytown became the City of Ottawa in 1855 and Friel, having previously served as alderman and mayor of Bytown, was mayor of Ottawa during most of the 1860s.
A reward poster for the apprehension of those involved in the assassination of Thomas D’Arcy
McGee. Library and Archives Canada.
In 1868, when Member of Parliament Thomas D’Arcy McGee was assassinated, the City offered a $2,000 reward for the apprehension of those responsible. Friel added another $2,000 to the reward out of his own pocket, around $50,000 in today’s money.
Proclamation asking businesses to close out of respect for Friel after his passing.
Ottawa Daily Citizen, 18 May 1869.
Friel was a political reformist whose newspaper, The Bytown Packet, later became the Ottawa Citizen. When he died in 1869, the City cancelled the planned Victoria Day celebrations. His memorial declared him to be “one of Ottawa’s best friends”.