Kingston — Capital, Harbour & Fortifications
Kingston City Hall and Market Square
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Transcript
Kingston City Hall opened in the 1840s, when the city expected to remain politically important after becoming the first capital of the Province of Canada in 1841.
The capital moved to Montréal in 1844, so the building's grandeur outlasted Kingston's national political role almost immediately.
That makes it unusually honest architecture: a monument to ambition that history redirected.
Market Square behind the hall preserves the older commercial function of the civic centre. Markets brought rural produce into town and kept local government physically close to everyday trade.
Kingston's brief capital period also connected the city to John A. Macdonald, who practiced law here and later became Canada's first prime minister.
Do not call Kingston the first capital of Canada without qualification. It was the first capital of the united Province of Canada, not of the Dominion created in 1867.
Precision is less catchy and more useful.