On the South side of the St. Louis road, past Wolfe and Montcalm's famed
battle-field, two miles from the city walls, lies, embowered in verdure,
the most picturesque domain of Sillery - one might say of Canada - Spencer
Wood.
[226]
This Celebrated Vice-Regal Lodge was (1780-96) known as Powell Place, when
owned by General Henry Watson Powell. It took its name of Spencer Wood
from the Right Honorable Spencer Perceval, [227] the illustrious relative
of the Hon. Henry Michael Perceval, whose family possessed it from 1815 to
1833, when it was sold to the late Henry Atkinson, Esquire, an eminent and
wealthy Quebec merchant. Hon. Mr. Perceval, member of the Executive and
Legislative Council, had been H. M.'s Collector of Customs at Quebec for
many years, and until his death which took place at sea, 12th October,
1829. The Percevals lived for many years in affluence in this sylvan
retreat. Of their elegant receptions Quebecers still cherish pleasant
reminiscences. Like several villas of England and France, Spencer Wood had
its periods of splendor alternated by days of loneliness and neglect,
short though they were. Spencer Wood, until 1849, comprised the adjoining
property of Spencer Grange. Mr. Atkinson that year sold the largest half
of his country seat - Spencer Wood - to the Government, as a gubernatorial
residence for the hospitable and genial Earl of Elgin, reserving the
smaller half (now owned by the writer), on which he built conservatories,
vineries, a pinery, orchid house, &c., far more extensive than those of
Spencer Wood proper.
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