Early Ottawa and engineering

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Engineering Journal, 44, 2, pp. 70-76, 1961-02-01

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Early Ottawa and engineering

Legget, R. F.

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NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

CANADA

DIVISION OF BUILDING RESEARCH

EARLY OTTAWA AND TNCINEERING

by

Robert F. Legget

_{. LIETII1IY .}

M A R ii

1 9 6 i

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A N A L Y Z E D

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THE ENGINEERING JOURNAL

voL. 44 NO. 2

1961, P. 70-76

TECHNICAL PAPER NO. 116

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OTTAWA

FEBRUARY 196I

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- _ This publication is being dis'tributed by the Division of Building Research of the Nation:al Research council as a contribution towards better building in canada. It should not be reproduced in whole or in part, without permission of the original publisher. The Division would be elad to be of asiistance in obtaining such permission.

Publications of the Division of Building Research may be obtained by ryailing ,the appropriate remittance, (a Bank, Express, or Post Office Money Order or a cheque made payable at par in Ottawa, to the Receiver General of Canada, credit National R,esearch Council) to the National Research Council, Ottawa. Stamps are not acceptable.

A coupon system has been introduced to make payments for publications relatively simple. Coupons are available in denominations of 5, 25, and 50 cents, and may be obtained by making a remittance as indicated above. These coupons may be used for the purchase of all National Resear.ch Council pub-lications including specifications of the canadian Governrnent specificaiions Board.

Robert F . Legget, M.E.I.c.,

Director, Diaision of Bui.l.ding Research, N ational Research C ouncil- Ottawa.

bounds. If the residents of Hull and Gatineau Point will permit such a slight geographical inexactitude, for the purpose of this paper only, then it can be said of Ottawa that its im-mediate area does include the con-fuence of three important rivers, t-he Ottawa, the Rideau andthe Gatineau, all of which have had their infuence upon its development. First and fore-most is the Ottawa, one of the truly historic waterways of North America, providing the main route to the inter-ior of most of this continent for almost all of the early explorers.

It was in 1613 dhat Champlain saw and described the lovely falls of the Rideau River, as he approached the Chaudidre, there to disembark and follow the two short portages on the north bank of the river, long used by the Indians. As the continenlt was ex-plored, he was followed by a steadily increasing stream of travellers, the Ottawa being used in preference to the St. Lawrence as the more direct route to the upper lakes and ,to the north. BrCrl6 and Nicolet. Le Caron and Br6beuf, Radisson and Groseil-liers, and LaSalle in the lTth century; Lav6rendrye, Alexander Henry and Alexander Mackenzie in the l8th; and a great number, including David Thomson and Simon Fraser. as re-cently as the last century - all'these pioneers came up tlre Ottawa and por-taged to the Chaudidre. And in the

very early use of this famous portage, unknown voyageurs, anxious to make their traverse a little easier, construc-ted what can accurately be described as the first Ottawa engineering prol'ect - four or five sets of stone steps and a small stone causeway r'ear the up-stream end of the Second (or Little) Chaudidre Porttage. Largely through the efforts of the two Canadian Clubs of Ottawa, these historic relics have been preserved in place, as a national historic site, just as they were used through the years; they may be seen today near the east end of Br6beuf Park in Val T6treau (in Hull). What Canadian, and in particular what Canadian engineer, can stand on these ancient steps - looking at the won-derful panorama presented by the modern city - without being moved by tthoughts of all the pioneers who have trudged up and down that same portage path, by refections upon the the inevitability of some sort of settle-ment being formed adjacent rto the great falls, now harnessed so corn-pletely for modern convenience.

Philemon Wright, a shrewd and en-ergetic Yankee from Woburn, Mass., sar,v this possibility on his third jour-ney north of his border with the result that in February 1800 he left his home town with his family and some associates, arriving in March at the Chaudidre, there to settle on the north bank, thus founding what is,to-day the modern city of Hull. The first settlers in the Ottawa valley had come

Early Ottawa and Engineering

Presented to the first E.I.C. Ottawa Regional Meeting, Chateau Laurier, October 16, 1959. fiTTAWA is a charming city. To

\,f both residents and visitors alike the nationrs capital with its water-ways, its parks and parkwater-ways, and ilts steadily growing collection of stately buildings crowned by the noble group of buildings on Parliament Hill, must often appear to be a perfectly located city, an expanding municipality utiliz-ing an area specially chosen as a desirable site for a capital city. But all who know anything of the history of Ottawa know rthat this superffcial impression of its beginnings is far from correct. The city does occupy a lovely location but the city of today stands where it does mainly because it occupies the site of an early con-struction camp, built on a clearing in the virgin forest, its location deter-mined by the start of a military canal that is still a notable engineering un-dertaking. This is but one of the close links between early Otltawa and early engineering work. Today under the co-operative guidance of the National Capital Commission and local muni-cipal councils it is slowly being trans-formed from a rather nondescript town into a ,capital district of Which the nation may well be proud.

There are many major cities of the world located on the banks of one river, some at the junction of two. There are but few cilties, however, that have 'the good fortune to have three important rivers within their

Photograph in the article heading is of a Bartlett print, published in London in 1842, in the possession of the author. It shows the entrance locks of the Rideau Canal as they appeared in 1839.

in a few years before, starting in 1791, but they were still scattered and iso-lated when Wright, with the aid of his sons, set about clearing his land. His fame spread and so he was soon followed by other pioneers who were attracted by the possibilities of busi-ness at the portage, including the re-doubtable Miss Dalmahoy of Edin-burgh (whose story all engineers should know even though it can not be classified as engineering). Caleb Bellows was one such settler; it is recorded that in 1809 he built not only a store but als,o a small ilock on the south side of the river at what soon came to be known as Bellows Landing, the location from which the Rideau Canal might have started had it not been for a strange chapter Of accidents. Nearby, another pioneer

(Ralph Smith) built, in addition to his cabin, a still which might thus be classed as the first industry of the atea.

By 1826, Philemon Wright had cleared 3,000 acres; Hull was a thriv-ing little community. The south side of the river, however, was still almost untouched virgin forest, magniffcent stands of trees extending right to the water's edge as travellers'accounts of the time vividly record. In the whole of Nepean township there were only two stores, one stone building, three squared timber houses and a few small log cabins. Such was the site of the modern city, when early in September of that year, the Earl of Dalhousie, Governor-in-Chief, accom-panied by a middle-aged officer of the Royal Engineers, and their aides, sailed up the river from Montreal, to be greeted warmly by Wright. They had come to select the site for the entrance to the Rideau Canal, the British Government having ffnally de-cided that this vital link in the alter-native route between Montreal and

the fortress of Kingston must be built, even though the government of Up-per Canada had declared itself too poor to contribute to the cost. Fear of renewed war was in the air. Mili:tary authorities knew that, if hostilities did break out again with the United States, Kingston could not be sup-plied (as it had been throughout the war of 1812) by way of the St. Lawrence, since American ambushes along the international reach of the liver would be a certainty. The Ri-deau River had to be canalized. the Rideau Lakes linked by navigable channels, and the Cataraqui River transformed from a rushins stream into a chain of navigable lakes in order to permit the passage of supply vessels from Montreal, up the Ottawa and so to Kingston.

The Engineer officer was Lieut. Col. John By, selected almost cer-tainly by the Duke of Wellington himself to be the Superintending En-gineer on this great work. By and the Earl of Dalhousie inspected the site proposed by the Governor for the canal entrance, and agreed upon the ffrst steps to be taken towards con-struction. Before ,they left to refurn to Montreal, the Governor wrote and gave to By a letter which was, in effect, the charter of Ottawa for in i't he said: "I take the opportunity of meeting you here to place in your hands a sketch Plan of several lots of land, which I though't it advantageous to purchase for the use of Govern-ment. . . . These not only contain the site for the head locks, but they offer a valuable locality for a considerable village or town for the lodging of Artificers, and other necessary assist-ants in so great a work ." the letter proceeding to explain how some of the land was to be subdivided, even going so far as to detail how buildings should be located on the

lots - the start of local town plan-ning. One year later, the "corner stone" for the locks was laid by the Countess of Dalhousie in a small but pleasant ceremony held on Sept. 29, 1827. Less than five years later, on May 29, 1832, Colonel By now ac-companied by his wi{e and two daughters and fellow officers came back to the same spot, but this time on board the ,little steamer Pumper,

(renamed Rideau tfor the occasion) at the conclusion of the ffrst voyage through the completed canal, starting at Kingston Mills. The achievements of John By during those ffve years, in design, construction and in local administration, constitute an epic of North American engineering.

Faithfully indeed did the Superin-tending Engineer carry out his as-signed tasks - and the citizens of today beneftt therefrom in lnnumer-able ways. He reserved for the use of goverrrmerrt 'the site now known as Parliament Hill. He laid out unusu-ally broad streets, with the co-opera-tion of Nicholas Sparks; Wellington and Rideau Streets are the legacy. He aided the establishmenrt of local churches; he initiated local educa-tion; he started essential municipal services. His construction work is seen in the canal of today, with its flight of entrance locks and those at Hart-wells and at Hog's Back, where By's great dam is now the core of the modern structure. He fooded Dow's great swamp in a singularly bold piece of engineering, thus bequeathing to the modern ci,ty the pleasure of Dow's Lake, constmcting one of the ffrst large earth dams in North America for this purpose, a dam still 'to be seen to the east side of Colonel By Drive. One of his construction build-ings still stands, most fortunately, a fine example of old masonry work now happily used by the Ottawa

His-Fig. l. The Second Union Bridge, designed by Samuel Keefer, having a clear span of 243 It, 6 in.; opirned in 1844 (From a water colour in the Public Archives of Canada. Ottawa; reproduced by permission).

Fig.2. Entrance Locks to the Rideau Canal as they appeared in 1860; the Sappe-rs' Bridge is on the extreme right, the arch obscured by the wooden sidewalk; the Chatiau Laurier now occupies the cleared area on the far side of the Canal, originally used as the construction work yard for the Canal (From a photograph by S. Mc-Loughlin in the Public Archives of Canada; reproduced by permission)'

torical Society and maintained by them as the Bytown Museum. Con-taining much interesting local histor-ical material, it is so much under the shadow of the Chateau Laurier that all too few visi,tors (and citizens too) ever notice its existence. And on the site of his construction yard and main workshops stands the Chateau Laur-ier. Rarely has the construction of one engineering project been so directly responsible for the start of a city as was the Rideau Canal for Ottawa. It is good indeed to think that the Canal has become so central a feature of the city, that it has been so well main-tained through the years, and that it has been so beautified by its sur-rounding gardens and parkways. Long may it remain so vital a paft of this city.

Even before conshuction of the Canal was complete, the little con-struction camp had become a small town. At a dinner held in 1827, rt had been suggested almost jocularly that the settl'ement, officially first called Rideau Canal, should be named Bytown. The name was quickly ad-opted for official use; as Bytown the city was incorporated and remained as such until 1855 when Ottawa was adopted as the new official name. Wharves and warehouses had been built on the River, adjacent to the canal entrance; these were very.quick-ly put to full use. The canal did serve its intended purpose of conveying troops and military supplies, even though most fortunately these were not needed for actual warfare. But civilian ,traffic on the Canal increased rapidly; the merchants of Montreal were not slow to see the advantages of shipping their goods to Upper

Can-ada by the new route, with the result that within a few years there was a regular and frequent service on what became known as the "Triangle Route" - Montreal, up the Ottawa, the Rideau Canal to Kingston, and back to Montreal down the St. Law-rence. Only when the ffrst steamer reached Kingston by way of the finally

completed St. Lawrence Canals, in 1855, did the Rideau route cease to be in fact, if not in name, the ffrst St. Lawrence Seaway.

This canal traffic led not only to good business for Bytown but also to the erection of additional wharves, warehouses and service buildings, thus having an appreciable effect upon the physical development of Ottawa. So also did the corresponding traffic on the Ottawa River itself, between Montreal and Hull and Bytown. To-wards the end of the century there was an express river passenger service by which it was possible rto leave Ottawa at 7:30 in the morning and arrive in Montreal by 6:30 the same evening, making use of the once fa-mous Carillon and Greenville Railway to circumvent the rapids below Hawkesbury without the delay of using the Ottawa River Canals. The ffrst class fare for this splendid trip, including shooting the Lachine Rap-ids, was $2.50, meals being 50 cents each. The future of these picturesque and historic waterways, as old as the Rideau Canal, is now in grave doubt, in view of the start on the Carillon power project. Once before the old canals had been threatened, when the Georgian Bay Ship Canal project was under active consideration early in the present century. It was not buil't, but the Carillon project has alrcady

started. Some part of the old canals should be preserved.

Passengers on the Ottawa River steamers would see not only river traffic provided try other steamers and barges, but the special Ottawa River traffic consisting of rafts of squared timbers. The magnificent stands of white pine thloughout the Ottawa Val-ley attracted ear'ly attention, to such an extent that they soon became a major source of supply for the British Navy in its great days of wooden war-ships. Philemon Wrigl,rt was respon-sible for the first ra'ft of timber to go down the Ottawa; it left Hul{ fune 11, 1806. Almost a century later, June 18, 1904, the last raft made the sarne jour-ney, the or.mer being ano,ther famous looal figure-J. R. Booth. The rise and fall of this great industry wi'thin the hundred years is a fascinating story, the character of the Ottawa Valley be-ing viftually transformed as the great trees were steadily cut down to be re-placed - if at all - by smaller species. The great rafts were engineering structures of note, statically lndeter-minate without doub,t, but sturdy and stable as built with all the skill of Ottawa rivermen, r#ho became fa-mous throughout the continent.

Rafts could not pass over the Chau-didre and so had to be dismantled above, the timbers being passed down separately at first, to be re-assembled in the quiet water below ttrhe falls. Hardwood had actually to be carted around the falls, as much as 2O days beins taken to transfer a full raft. It was no wonder, therefore, that during his first visit, in September 1826, Colonel By was approached for aid with this problem. He persuaded the Eall of Dalhousie to grant S2,000 for the dredging of a channel on the south side of the falls and this made some improvement. It was Ruggles Wright, Philemon's son, who ffrst sug-gested the possibility of constructing timber slides as a solution to the con-tinuing problem, following a visit he had paid to Sweden and Norway to study Scandinavian methods of handl-ing large timber. The first slide was built in 1829; two more were soon added and competition became keen. They were most successful; rafts had melely to be disarticulated at the head of the falls, sent down the slide in sections, and re-assembled bdlow.

Old photographs show clearly what an exciting venture was the "naviga-tion" of a timber slide, but the river men were adept and sure of them-selves, so sure indeed that when King Edward VII as the Prince of Wales visited Ottawa in 1860, he was taken down one of the slides on a small

raft of squared timber, greatly to the concern of some in his entourage. One of the last "official" uses of the slides was in 1901 when the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall (later to be King George V and Queen Mary) were taken down during their Cana-dian visit of that year. The slides were splendid engineering structures, them-selves solidly built of squared timbers. Remains of the slides are still to be seen, the upper part of the Wright slide within a stone's throw of the busy rue Principale of Hu'll, immedi-ately behind the old Anglican ,Church of St. James. One, at least, of these old slides should be retained, restored and preserved as a reminder of one of the most colourful aspects of Ottawa's early history.

With the steady development of Bytown a local demand for sawn lumber arose, to meet which two firrns established saw mills using water power derived frorn the use of a small amount of the water flowing over the Chaudidre. Harris and Bronson, and Pattee and Perley, were proprietors of tow companies having original grants (issued in 1861) - names which include two well known in Ottawa in more recent years. Earlier, in 1851, Ezra Eddy of Vermont rented a small building in Hull and started to make wooden clothes pins, wash boards, bowls and pails, thus starting the great industry which occupies so dom-inant a place in the local economy today. John R. Booth came to the district shortly after from his home in the eastern townships; he worked at ffrst for the Wrights but in 1858 rented a small shop of his own in Ottawa (with Robert Dollar) to manu-facture split shingles. So started an-other great local industry, the devel-opment of which has involved so much plant engineering, as the power available at the Chaudidre has been harnessed for use.

There were other mills in Bytown in those early days, the ffrst a small one operated by1he Bywash, a stream which ran down near what are now Cumberland and York Streets. The owner, Jean-Baptiste St-Louis, was leased a mill site at the Rideau Falls April 30, 1830; he was soon cutting wood along the Rideau for his new mill. Thomas McKay eventually came to own this mill; he had been operat-ing a grist mill since 1833 on the other branch of the Rideau. W. C. Edwards and Company were later owners, operating the mills until the early years of this century. There js still a "mill" at the Rideau Falls, the National Research Council today op-erating a small water power plant, recently rebuilt in connection with the rehabilitttion of Green Island. in

which about f ,500 h.p. are generated. Srnall in comparison with develop-ments at the Chaudidre, the Rideau Falls mills and power plants provide an unbroken example of local engi-neering endeavour from the earliest days of settlement.

Thomas McKay

Thomas McKay's name is an hon-ored one in Ottawa; the city owes much to him. A masonrv contractor r'vho had earned an enviable reputa-tion in Montreal before the start of the Rideau Canals works, he was en-trusted by Colonel By withthe mason-ry work for the great entrance flight of locks, now so familiar a feature of the Ottawa scene. Testimony to the excellence of his workmanshio can be obtained by going and lookin-g at the masonry in the locks, so close to this hotel. Colonel By's satisfaction was shown by his gilt to McKay, at the end of the work, of a silver loving cup, specially wrought in London. McKay was a successful as well as a capable contractor, with the result that he made a good profit on his Rideau contracts. Alone of all the major canal contractors, he chose to stay in Bytown, making this district his home for the lest of his life. Some of his money he invested in the mill already mentioned. Another use to which he put his profits was to build for himself a stone mansion, using the skilled Scottish masons he had em-ployed on the locks. This great house was located so far from the centre of the settlement that it was called, de-risively, McKay's Castle. McKay pur-chased the land on which he built, and 1,000 acres around, another act of folly in the view of the local in-habitants of the time. The 1,000 acres eventually included much of the

vil-lage of Ro.ckcliffe Park. McKay's Castle is known today as Rideau Hall, andther legacy of engineering to the nation.

It was in 1868 that McKay's Castle, and 90 acres of land around it, were purchased by the nation (after being rented for two years) for the use of the Governor General of the newly-formed Dominion, afiter ilt had been decided not to build a new "Govern-ment House" on Nepean Poin! as had been originally planned and strongly urged. Sir John A. Macdonald was

overruled by his cabinet colleagues on this matter for he is reported to have said, at a later date: "I also wished rto acquire all'that property" (pointing to the direction of Nepean Point) "and to build Government House there; but some of my colleagues would not hear of it . . . the consequence is that . . . we have spent more money patching up Rideau Hall than a palace would have cost at Nepean Point." The patching up process still continues but the old house now has becom.e such a nartional monument that any alter-native to it as the Canadian home of Her Majesty and of her Canadian rep-resentative is unthinkable.

Parliament Buildings

An associated buildins must be briefly mentioned, even tf,ough engi-neers can claim no share in its de-sign; its construdtion, however, was at the time an unprecedented feat of "engineering construction". This was the original block of Parliament Build-ings, started as early as 1859. In 1860, the Prince of Wales made his special journey to the little settle-ment of Bytown in order to lay the foundation stone. The East and West Bloeks of today give a good idea of what the original group of tluee Fig. 3. Part of a timber raft going down one of the Chaudiere timber slides towards the end of the nineteenth century, (From a Tapley photograph in the Public Archives of Canada; reproduced by permission.)

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buildings must have looked like. De-strudfion of the main building by ffre in February, 1916 was a national tragedy, but the noble building re-placing it after the war years now forms a most fftting centre to the lovely grouping on "The Hill". Writ-ing in 1864 rto John A. Macdonald, George Brown had this to say: "The buildings are magnificent; the style, the extent, the site, the workmanship are all surpassingly ffne. But they are just 500 years in advance of the 'time. It will cost half the revenue of the province to light them and heat them and keep 'them clean. Such monstrous folly, was not perpetrated in this world before. But we are in for it, I do think the idea of $topping short of completion is out of the question . . I go in for such a superb folly that will bring visitors from all coun-tries to see a work they can't see elsewhere. To say the truth, there is nothing in London, Paris, or Wash-ington approaching it." Engineers can share with 'their architectural col-leagues the pleasure which these old words may bring, even as they can share also in the responsibility for some of the interesting, if unusual, older buildings of the city such as the old "tin house" on Guigues Street at the corner of Dalhousie which shows how engineering skill, of a peculiar variety, can be applied to architec-ture.

An architectural friend suggests thatt the men capable of producing such work in the past were the prede-cessors of those who provide the air conditioning systems of today. Throughout the years, engineering and architecture have been closely linked in Ottawa. Today, irt will take the un-ited efforts of both professions, working with other citizens, to

pre-serve for posterity at least some of the remaining links with the past.

Buildings are peripheral to engi-neering activity; bridges are not, their design being a major branch of civil engineering. The ffrst maior civil en-gineering undertaking in Canada west of Montreal was the construction of a bridge of which every Ottawa engi-neer may be justly proud, partts of which are still in daily use by heavy traffic, although unknown and unrec-ognized by all but the few. Reverting again to that busy visit to Hull in 1826 of The Earl of Dalhousie and Colonel By, the two men saw clearly thart access from the north to the south bank of the Ottawa River would be an essential preliminary to the start of the Canal works. Another result of their short visit was therefore a decision that the river must be bridged, Colonel By noting that this could readily be done by a series of shorrt bridges linlcing together the several islands that made the Chau-didre a fall of such beauty. His Clerk of Works for the Canal, a Scot named John McTaggart, was therefore sent up from Montreal together with Thomas McKay, with instrudtions to get the bridge started; they arrived in Hull early in October, 1826. Un-daunted by all the tales he had heard of the Canadian winter, McTaggart decided to build tthe ffrst stone arch immediately; McKay loyally sup-ported him, as his master mason. So started Canada's ffrst winter construc-tion job, a dry-stone arch with a span of 57 feet being completed by Febru-ary, work proceeding through whatt must have been a particularly cold winter. McTaggart has left a graphic account, noting 4121 he froze one of his hands one morning while shaving

in an unheated room. It is this same arch that is Still in use as an integral part of the modern Chaudidre Bridge, located just north of the gateway to the Hull plant of the Gatineau Power Company but natturally unseen from automobiles; one has to be a humble pedestrian to see clearly this splendid piece of masonry work, still serving after 130 years.

Work on the remaining arches pro-ceeded throughout the early months of. L827; Colonel By himself is cred-ited with ithe way in which connec-tion was made across the Big Kettle, where a span of 200 feet had to be bridged. He had a small cannon brough't to the edge of the gorge (probably borrowed from Philemon Wright for the occasion) and a shot was ffred witth a light cord attached across the rushing waters. This was used to pull successively heavy ropes over, until ffnally it was possible to haul across strong 'iron cables" ob-tained forthe purpose from the naval stores at Kingston. Wjth this connec-tion made, cables were strung from which was supported a remarkable 200-foot span wooden truss that can better be illustrated rather than de-scribed. The bridge was opened for use in 1827. It provided a 30-foot roadway and is said to have cost only 52,500. Appropriately named the Union Bridge, it was the ffrst connec-tion between Upper and Lower Can-ada, and served well throughout the busy Canal construction period. But in the spring of 1836 the truss col-lapsed, fortunattely without loss of life.

A ferry service was quickly insti-tuted. Operated by John Perkins, the main ferry boat was one of the early engineering wonders of the Valley for it was one horse power in fact, a horse walking in the boat on a treadle geared to a shaft on which were two paddle wheels. It was not until May 23. 1843 that the foundation stone for a replacement of the ill-fated timbel truss was laid, a suspension bridge having been designed by Sam-uel Keefer under the supervision of H. H. Killaly, Chairman of the Board of lVorks of Upper and Lorver Car-ada, predecessor of the Federal Dc-paltment of Public \Vorks. The ner.v span of 243 ft. 6 in. rvas opened Sept. 17, 1844; it served for many ),ears, until the construction of mills began to obscure the great falls from sight.

Colonel By was lesponsible fol tr.r'o other bridges, a smzrll structure initi-ally built of unpeeled logs to span a gully near the north encl oI the Uniorr Bridge, dubbed "Pooley's l3ridge" by Colonel By since it was constructed by one of his trusted assistants, Lieu-Fig. 4. McKay's Mill at Rideau Falls. (From a Tapley photograph in the Public

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tenant Pooley, R.E. Much more im-portantt, however, was the bridge ne-cessary to span the valley in which the entrance locks were to be con-structed. Clearly necessary if construc-tion operaconstruc-tions in the narrow valley were to be co-ordinated, it was tthe ffrst major canal work to be under-taken under Colonel By's immediate direction by the Royal Sappers and Miners, two companies of which were raised in England in March, 1827 especially for service on the Canal. The bridge, known down the years as the "Sappers' Bridge", was a grace-ful arched structure occupying pait of the site now used for the much larger Confederation Bridge. Built of cut limestone blocks, it was of such massive construction that its evenfual demolition in 1912 was an unusually difficult operation, as older residents of Orttawa stlll recall. Althoueh the bridge probably had to go in the march of progress, two stones from it were saved. They now form the mon-ument in Major's Hill Park that marks the site of Colonel By's own residence (also destroyed), the stones fortunattely still showing some of the carving with which the Sappers adorned this ffrst piece of bridge building irr the "wilderness".

It was not until tthe turn of the century that bridge building again be-came a major engineering activity in Ottawa. It was in 1900 that the still gracbful Minto Bridges were built across the Rideau, and the great Inter-provincial Bridge (more kindly named the Royal Alexandra Bridge) was opened Feb. 21, 1901. (Robert Surtess and Guy C. Dunn were the

respec-t 9 r o t 9 3 0

too. He complained that he "was dis-turbed (in his office) half ,a dozen times one day by the Presidentt (of his Cornpany) rushing in to try to f,orce me to play cricket-'. It was not until the'close of the century that the effects of the "railway mania" were seen in Ottawa. These were the years of the Quebec, Montreal and Occidental Railway; the Canada-Atlantic Rail-way; the Pontiac Pacific RailwaY Company and others with names al-most as pretentious, but their devel-opment, construction and eventual incorporation into the C.N.R. and C.P.R. of today, with some disappear-ing completely, is a tale of this cen-tury.

The development of mun-icipal en-gineering services was, corresponding-ly if surprisingcorresponding-ly, also a feaiture of the later years o{ the last century. There is still so much to see of the origins of Ottawa tha't it is easy to forget thart even when the Parliament Build-ings were completed, Ottawa was still a rather grubby little town. The first road in the district had been built by Philemon Wright in 1818, from Hull to what is now Aylmer. It was operated for many years as the Aylmer toll road. Colonel By laid out some of the main streets of what is now the city and built a few o,ther roads to give access to the canal works at Hartwells and Hog's Back. Statute labour was, however, still in use for road maintenance until 1850 so that it is perhaps not surprising that rthe streets of Bytown had the reputation of being impassable in the spring and fall because of mud, and in the sum-mer on account of dust. It was not

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Fig. 5, The Growth of Ottawa.

tive engineers.) Both struotures were constructed by the Dominion Bridge Company, the Royal Alexandra Bridge (despite the horror with which it is now viewed by town planners) being still a notable struoture and in its day the greatest bridge of the Domin-ion. Ottawa still has in use one of the ffrst reinforced concrete bridges in Canada, this being the original Hurd-man's Bridge built in 1906 by Emil Wah'lberg. Engineers of the capital should keep a watchful eye on plans for the future of this interesting old structure. This gap in the history of bridge building in Ottawa is not sur-prising when one considers the slow growth of the little city throughout the nineteenth century. This is illus-trated in an accompanying chart. It is true that railways had come to By-town as early as 1854 but it was not until the twentieth century that they really displaced water transpot't.

It was on Christmas day, 1854 that a small train was pulled into the ffrs,t railway station of Bytown, located in New Edinburgh through Thomas Mc-Kay's infuence. The train ran on rails improvised from maple scantlings since there were no funds le{t to pur-chase iron rails. This was the nor,thern terminal of the Bytown and Prescott Railway Company, for many years the only rail connection,that Ottawa had. Until 1855, when the Rideau was bridged, passengers for Ottawa had to be taken across the river by boat after leaving. their train. Walter Shanley was the engineer; his letters describ-ing his work on the construction make fascinating reading. He found Bytown "a fast place (but) a snobbish town"

until 1862 that the city got permis-sion to issue $40,000 worth of deben-tures for the drainage and macadam-izing of its streets, the first city engi-neers being appointed in 1866. And it was not until 1895 that the ffrst paving was laid, this being on Sparks Street, between the Canal and Bank Srtreet, specially provided for the hold-ing of a bicycle race. It is therefore not surprising that, in view of the slow development of good streets, Ottawa should have had one of the earliest street railway syStems in Canada, the Ottawa City Passenger Railway Com-pany being incorporated in 1866. It provided a service of one-man horse-drawn trams until its amalgamation with the newly formed Ottawa Elec-tric Street Railway Company in 1893. The latter had operated its first elec-tric streetcar in June, 189I. Residents of Ottawa saw the last operating streetcar May 1, 1959, electlicity hav-ing had to give way here also to the claims of gasoline.

With abundant water power so close, it was natural that Ottawa should have been one of the first of Canadian cities to use electricity for lighting, even before it was used for power. It was ffrst used for street lighting Nov. 4, 1884. Pemtrroke beat its neighbour city by merely a month and ,thus lays claim to be the ffrst

electrically-lit city in Canada. Oil lamps had been used for such public lighting from the earliest days, super-seded by gas lamps about 1854, It is an interesting turn of the wheel of fortune to ffnd gas again taking its place in the public service although now brought from the west and not made from coal, and used for heating rather than for light.

It will be surprising to many to find municipal engineering iervices relatively so recent a development in Ottawa. Nothing need be said about sanitary services, particularly with papers being given at this meeting about the design of Ottawa's first sewage treatment plant. But brief reference to the long and tangled story of Ottawa?s public water supply must bring this record of early engi-neering in Ottawa to its conclusion. After the Royal Engineers had found it impossible to ffnd well water on Parliament Hill, they initiated a sys-tem of carting water from the Obtawa River. Although some public pumps rvere provided at strategic points in the little town, water carriers soon came to be an important group in the local economy. So keen did competi-tion between them become that in 1866 they had to be licensed. The ffrst report recommending a proper public rvater supply was made to the City Council in July, 1859 by Thomas

C. Keefer. Incredible though it may seem today, the lobbying of ,the water carriers was so successful that it was not until 1875 that the ffrst City Water Commissioners were actually appointed. Perhaps the delay was for-tunate since Keefer's original plan in-cluded the use of Parliament Hill as the location for a reservoir for a grav-ity supply. The ffrst water was deliv-ered in 1875, Thomas Keefer having been the engineer for a simple supply system that was the start of the ffne public water service enjoyed by the citizens of today. As is so often the case, it took a tragedy - in this case the awful confagration of 1900 - to bring home fully to the citizens of Ottawa the vital character of their water supply system. The legacy of the water-carriers' opposition to a public water supply certainly con-tributed to the great loss in that ffre which in many ways marked a turning point in the history of the city.

Impersonal though such a summary record as this has had to be, it cannot conclude without brief tribute to the early engineers who were responsible for all ,the works described. John Bv will forever be honored as the found-er-engineer of this city. His able young assistants were to make their names in many of the far places of the world, at least three becoming full Generals in the British Army.

Many works were carried ou,t by engi-neers whose names are lost, but Kil-laly, Shanley and Samuel Keefer have been mentioned even in this brief survey, as has also Thomas Coltrin Keefer, possibly Canada's greatest consulting engineer. He was the only man to hold office twice as President of the Canadian Society of Civil En-gineers, the second time while he was President also of the American Soci-ety of Civil Engineers, the only Cana-dian (it is believed) ever to hold that high office. When the A.S.C.E. held the only meeting that it has held in Ottalva, in 1913, a highlight was a garden party reception in the lovely grounds of Thomas Keefer's home, the old gentleman - then in his ninety-second year' - seated in the middle of his garden, receiving the greetings of his fellow engineers from all over the continent. He could then look back to a boyhod memory of seeing the ffrst vessels sail up the original Welland Canal to mark its opening in 1829. There are living in Ottawa today engi-neers who have spoken with Thomas Keefer; thus can the rvhole history of engineering in Canada be bridged by two lifetimes. In one of the local hospitals lives a very old man who has told the writer that he can remember hearing from his grandmother how she stood on the banks of the Rideau

River, witching Colonel By and his family go by in the Pumper on that memorable day in 1832. Thus can the engineering history of Ottawa be bridged by two lives.

It is a challenging history, a-vital part of the warp and weft of the wonderful tapestry of the Ottawa story. Significant as have been many of the contributions of the engineer to the development of this capital city, let it also be rerhembered that some of his works have been a disfig-urement of the local scene. This brief review started at the Chaudidre; there must it come to its close - but with a glance at a "Chaudidre" wh,ere one has to look hard between a conglom-eration of singulady undistinguiShed buildings even to see the waters of the great river as they come over the falls. This used to be one of the beauty spots of the region, one of the focal points of local development. Should not engineers be in the van of those who have concern for the future of the Chaudidre - for the restoration of what is left of at least one timber slide, for the marking and preservation of the arches of the old Union Bridge, for the restoration of some, at least, of ,t-he inherent natural beauty of these historic falls? Thus could honor be paid to the pioneers, service given to the citizens of today, and a further legacy provided for the citizens of tomorrow to remind them fol all time of the vital connection be-tween this capital of the North and its engineers.

Acknowledgments:

All who prepare such historical papels such as this record of Early Ottawa and Engineering are in-debted to innumerable other writers and students who have rescued and recorded details of the past. It would, therefore, be invidious for the writer to attempt to record even those to whom he knows he is in debt in this way, but he does wish to acknowledge his indebtedness to his fellow mem-bers of the Advisory Historical mittee of the National Capital Com-mission (Anthony _Adamson, Chair-man) who have shared with him their interest in and expert knowledge of early Ottawa. Further information on the subjects touched upon in this paper may be obtained from the fol-lowing books which the writer con-sulted freely in its preparation: Brault, Lucie4. Otlawa Old and New,

349 pp., ill., 1946, Ottawa.

Davies, Blodwen. Otlawa; Porlrail of a

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Legget, Robert. nideau Walerway, 249 pp., iI].. 1955, University of T-oiont; PTess, Toronto.

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