A historic Canadian relic, once part of the building where the foundations of the country's modern democracy were laid, has been recovered 163 years after a devastating fire.

A Montreal museum revealed Friday that it has been given the royal coat of arms from a pre-Confederation parliament, where the fundamental principles of an English-French democratic country came together.

The donation of the object, which once hung above the Speaker's chair in the parliament building of then-capital Montreal, is considered the biggest coup among several items recovered in recent months.

Museum officials said the British coat of arms – a mostly intact metre-high artifact carved out of pine – came from Robert Kaplan, a former Toronto-area Liberal MP who also served as Canada's solicitor general.

Item bought at flea market in New York State

Kaplan donated the object after reading in the newspaper that archeologists were excavating around the building's ruins.

Kaplan agreed to donate the item to Montreal's Pointe-a-Callière museum after reading about an archeological dig in 2010.

"I didn't know if it was authentic. But if they wanted to check it, I said I would give it to them as a gift," Kaplan said.

Kaplan, who now lives in Toronto, said a Quebecer sold him the piece at an open-air flea market in New York State for $300 about three decades ago.

Kaplan says he originally wasn't sure about the item's significance. The man who sold it to him had shown him burn marks on the back — but couldn't provide any guarantee it was authentic.

Kaplan said he and his family made a few alterations to it, filling in some cracks with putty. One of his grandchildren even used blue and green crayons to colour in parts of the faded piece.

For years, it hung as a decoration above the piano at his New York City apartment. But he said it belonged to all Canadians.

"We miss the historical part of having something patriotic in our place," said Kaplan, 74, who is currently battling cancer.

"We were sad to give it up — but I don't think objects of historical importance should be in people's homes, especially in Canada where we're still searching for a lot of things."

Museum officials said rigorous analysis confirmed the authenticity of the item. The British coat of arms was used in public buildings in Canada until 1921, when it was replaced by Canada's coat of arms.

Pre-Confederation parliament moved around

The Montreal building was not the first Canadian parliament.

An earlier one sat in Kingston, Ont., before the capital was moved east and a parliament was set up in St. Anne's Market, an imposing, neo-classical columned building located between St-Pierre and McGill streets in Old Montreal.

The first session was held in the converted public market on Nov. 28, 1844, two decades before Confederation.

Author John Ralston Saul argues that Canadians do not properly celebrate that era of history, in which the country was truly formed.

The Montreal building is where Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, leaders of Upper and Lower Canada respectively, sought to build tolerance and form compromises between the mostly French and mostly English parts of the territory.

Key pieces of early legislation were adopted in the building, including the 1848 act establishing "responsible government" in Canada — a vital step in the creation of a democratic state.

But there was still bad blood, one decade after the anti-monarchy rebellions of 1837-38. Wealthy anglophones bitterly resented that francophone landowners would be compensated for damage caused during the rebellions, the same way English landowners had.

Violent protests ensued. Then, on April 25, 1849, the parliament was burned to the ground by a group of angry Anglos.

The debate over the Rebellion Losses Bill had gotten so intense that, at one point, a young opposition MP named John A. Macdonald – later Canada's first prime minister – challenged a rival to a duel.

When the legislation received royal assent, a furious crowd pelted eggs at the carriage of the governor general, Lord Elgin, who had signed the bill. He narrowly escaped from the unruly mob.

But the crowd set the building on fire.

Two weeks later, the parliament was relocated, splitting time between Quebec City and Toronto before Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the compromise site in 1857.

To date, the most famous item known to have survived the blaze was a portrait of Queen Victoria.

That portrait, depicting a young monarch early in her reign, currently hangs outside the Senate chamber in Parliament's Centre Block in Ottawa.

Historical evidence had revealed long ago that the coat of arms above the Speaker's seat was vandalized the night of the fire.

Its current state confirms that it had been broken — but otherparts of the story remain unclear.

Despite the Montreal parliament's pivotal place in Canadian history, many locals have no idea the city was Canada's capital between 1844 and 1849.