In 1801, Louis Charland, roads inspector in Montreal, drew up an official map of the city at the request of the justices of the peace. instead of buildings, this map shows landholdings for the whole of the city's extended territory. Charland in his map distinguishes between the city and the old town of Montreal. The city of Montreal, la citÄ de MontrÄal in French, refers to the entire city shown on the map, whereas la ville is the old town surrounded by its fortifications. The first feature to note is the considerable number of agricultural properties: the large rectangles, labeled with the owner's name, all represent farms or orchards under cultivation. It can be seen that the great fur merchants, for example McGill and Frobisher, owned such estates. The suburbs developed according to these property lines, but it should be realized that the subdividing of land did not necessarily result in construction and settlement; more often it meant speculation, the landowner hoping to sell off cheap building lots. The hope was sometimes premature: the Saint-Pierre suburb, at the top of this detail view, had not in fact come into being; only a few houses had been built there by 1825. Charland's map should be compared with John Adams's map of 1825 (illustration 4) which shows all buildings.
