Bytown and Prescott Railway
Encyclopedia
The Bytown and Prescott Railway, Ottawa's first railway to outside markets, was a railway joining Ottawa, Ontario (then called Bytown
) with Prescott, Ontario
on the Saint Lawrence River
. The 52 mile railway facilitated shipments of principally lumber via the Saint Lawrence River
(and not by rail) to markets in the United States and Montreal
. The company itself was incorporated in 1850, and the train first ran from Prescott to Bytown on Christmas Day, 1854. The event was important for the City of Ottawa which was to incorporate the following year.
and partners decided to build a railway from Bytown, Upper Canada
(now Ottawa, Ontario) by the most direct route to the St. Lawrence river to transport logs, which hitherto had to be floated down the Ottawa River
to Montreal and thence to Quebec City
to be loaded onto ships bound for Europe. (McKay was one of Ottawa's founders, making huge contributions in many areas to the city's growth). Bytowners had been promoting their town as the capital of Canada since the 1840s and later several of its citizens formed a syndicate to promote the railway scheme.
The idea was to build the Bytown terminus on the Ottawa River just above the Chaudière Falls
, saving the need to form log boom
s at that point.
Former Bytown mayer and cabinet minister Richard William Scott
recalled that in early 1850, he and Edward McGillivray
's (Ottawa's second mayor) conversation regarding the need for a rail connection of Bytown with the "contemplated trunk which was to unite Montreal and Toronto". This compelled Scott to prepare a petition asking for an act incorporating a company to construct a railway between Bytown and Prescott.
Recalls Scott, "Neither Wellington
, nor the streets south of it, between Elgin
and Bank
, had been laid out. Sussex
was the business thoroughfare, and lots on it and the western ends of Rideau
, George, and parallel streets, as far north as St. Patrick Street, commanded the best values. Wellington west of Bank, to Bay Street, was fairly well built up. The Le Breton Flats
, extending north-westerly from Pooley's Bridge (in the vicinity of the Water Works building) contained a number of scattered houses."
He states the landowners of the town: East of bank above Wellington and Rideau was owned by the Imperial Ordnance Department, except for a few lots "in Letter O" facing the Ottawa River. Also Sparks
, and east of him was Besserer, also the By estate, and Lebreton owning the flats.
The charter was obtained the following month in August 1850, and a meeting of the promoters was held in the Town Hall at the Lower Town Market
, where Robert Bell
was meeting secretary, later to become secretary of the company. John McKinnon was chosen president, Walter Shanly appointed engineer. (Bell was the owner of what would become the Ottawa Citizen
). A route through Kemptville
was chosen after Walter Shanley walked over 200 miles in search of the best route, and ground was broken on October 9, 1851.
The population of Bytown in 1850, according to Scott, was about 7000. According to a directory from November 1851, Bytown's population was about 8000.
Scott noted that Thomas McKay
took a "warm interest in the project", along with his son-in-law, Mr. McKinnon.
Money was difficult to raise from the townspeople, until the city, in 1853, borrowed $200,000 and loaned it to the company.
As the project progressed, however, the location of the Bytown terminus was shifted to a property already owned by McKay well below the falls (where the Department of Foreign Affairs now stands
). McKay, a major stockholder, agreed to bail out the company provided that the line terminated at his industrial complex in New Edinburgh. This may have reduced the project's initial investment by its owner, but it seriously undermined the viability of the scheme. The re-located terminus meant that the logs had to be assembled into rafts to use the timber slide
that bypassed the falls, and then promptly disassembled and lifted up a considerable cliff to the rail yard.
After running out of money when the rail lines reached Billings Bridge in 1854, the contractor had to make do with hardwood rails capped with strips of iron. Operation of the Bytown and Prescott (the terminus on the St. Lawrence) began in 1854
, with the official arrival of the first train into Bytown on December 24, 1854.
Here is the text of a plaque erected in the town of Prescott, as it read in 2004: "This company, incorporated in 1850, built a railway from Prescott to Bytown (Ottawa) for the shipment of lumber and farm products to the markets of the northeastern United States and Montreal. Substantial funds were raised at Bytown, Prescott and other municipalities along the line. In 1851, Walter Shanly, Chief Engineer, started construction, and a train first ran from Prescott to Bytown on Christmas Day, 1854. The railway, renamed the Ottawa and Prescott in 1855, was the first to serve the nation's future capital, giving it access at Prescott to the St. Lawrence River and the Grand Trunk Railway
. In 1867 it became the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway and in 1884 was leased to the Canadian Pacific Railway
for 999 years."
It wasn't until April 1855, recalls Scott, that "the first train crossed thr bridge over the Rideau River to the station at Sussex Street". Following its physical completion, financial difficulties ensued leading to decisions for the raising to funds to pay the debts. City council had been indebted for $60,000 in 1851 and $200,000 in 1853 and later in 1865, the property of the company (then renamed) was foreclosed in a Toronto auction at a huge loss, and money invested by municipalities was totally lost.
Eventually, the Bytown and Prescott Railway was absorbed into the Canadian Pacific Railway
. The Ottawa terminus was in use as a secondary rail yard until the 1950s. The rails in Ottawa were finally lifted in 1966, the same year in which all rail traffic was removed from the downtown core of the city. The footings of the bridge crossing the nearby Rideau River are still evident. A small spur line still exists from Kemptville
, heading south for a few kilometres.
It would be possibly as late as 1864 before rail travel Montreal to Ottawa would be possible.
Bytown
Bytown is the former name of Ottawa, Canada's capital city. It was founded on on September 26, 1826, incorporated as a town on January 1, 1850, and superseded by the incorporation of the City of Ottawa on January 1, 1855. The founding was marked by a sod turning, and a letter from Governor General...
) with Prescott, Ontario
Prescott, Ontario
Prescott is a town of approximately 4,180 people on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Leeds and Grenville United Counties, Ontario, Canada. The Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge, 5 km east of Prescott in Johnstown, connects it with Ogdensburg, New York...
on the Saint Lawrence River
Saint Lawrence River
The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...
. The 52 mile railway facilitated shipments of principally lumber via the Saint Lawrence River
Saint Lawrence River
The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...
(and not by rail) to markets in the United States and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. The company itself was incorporated in 1850, and the train first ran from Prescott to Bytown on Christmas Day, 1854. The event was important for the City of Ottawa which was to incorporate the following year.
History
Thomas McKayThomas McKay
Thomas McKay was a Canadian businessman who was one of the founders of the city of Ottawa, Ontario. He was born in Perth, Scotland and became a skilled stonemason...
and partners decided to build a railway from Bytown, Upper Canada
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...
(now Ottawa, Ontario) by the most direct route to the St. Lawrence river to transport logs, which hitherto had to be floated down the Ottawa River
Ottawa River
The Ottawa River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. For most of its length, it now defines the border between these two provinces.-Geography:...
to Montreal and thence to Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
to be loaded onto ships bound for Europe. (McKay was one of Ottawa's founders, making huge contributions in many areas to the city's growth). Bytowners had been promoting their town as the capital of Canada since the 1840s and later several of its citizens formed a syndicate to promote the railway scheme.
The idea was to build the Bytown terminus on the Ottawa River just above the Chaudière Falls
Chaudière Falls
The Chaudière Falls are a set of cascades and waterfall in the centre of the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area in Canada where the Ottawa River narrows between a rocky escarpment on both sides of the river. The location is just west of the Chaudière Bridge, northwest of the Canadian War Museum at...
, saving the need to form log boom
Log boom
A log boom is a barrier placed in a river, designed to collect and or contain floating logs timbered from nearby forests sometimes called a fence or bag. The term is also used as a place where logs were collected into booms, as at the mouth of a river...
s at that point.
Former Bytown mayer and cabinet minister Richard William Scott
Richard William Scott
Sir Richard William Scott, PC, KC was a Canadian politician and cabinet minister.He was born in Prescott, Ontario in 1825. A lawyer by training, Scott was admitted to the bar in 1848 and established a practice in Bytown...
recalled that in early 1850, he and Edward McGillivray
Edward McGillivray
Edward McGillivray was the second mayor of Ottawa, Canada from 1858-1859.He was born in Glengarry County in 1815, and moved to Bytown at the age 20. He opened a general store there in 1836 and was involved in the fur trade...
's (Ottawa's second mayor) conversation regarding the need for a rail connection of Bytown with the "contemplated trunk which was to unite Montreal and Toronto". This compelled Scott to prepare a petition asking for an act incorporating a company to construct a railway between Bytown and Prescott.
Recalls Scott, "Neither Wellington
Wellington Street (Ottawa)
Wellington Street is an important street in Ottawa, Canada most notable for being one of the first two streets laid out in Bytown in 1826 Wellington Street (French: Rue Wellington) is an important street in Ottawa, Canada most notable for being one of the first two streets laid out in Bytown in...
, nor the streets south of it, between Elgin
Elgin Street (Ottawa)
Elgin Street is a street in the Golden Triangle of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Originally named Biddy's Lane, it was later named after Lord Elgin....
and Bank
Bank Street (Ottawa)
Bank Street is the major north-south road in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It runs south from Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa, south through the neighbourhoods of Centretown, The Glebe, Old Ottawa South, Alta Vista, Hunt Club, and then through the villages of Blossom Park, Leitrim, South...
, had been laid out. Sussex
Sussex Drive
Sussex Drive is a major street in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's major ceremonial and institutional routes....
was the business thoroughfare, and lots on it and the western ends of Rideau
Rideau Street
Rideau Street is a major street in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and one of Ottawa's oldest and most famous streets running from Wellington Street in the west to Montreal Road in the east where it connects to the Vanier district...
, George, and parallel streets, as far north as St. Patrick Street, commanded the best values. Wellington west of Bank, to Bay Street, was fairly well built up. The Le Breton Flats
Lebreton Flats
LeBreton Flats is a neighbourhood in Ottawa, Canada. It lies to the west of Centretown neighbourhood, and to the north of Centretown West with "Nanny Goat Hill" as the dividing line...
, extending north-westerly from Pooley's Bridge (in the vicinity of the Water Works building) contained a number of scattered houses."
He states the landowners of the town: East of bank above Wellington and Rideau was owned by the Imperial Ordnance Department, except for a few lots "in Letter O" facing the Ottawa River. Also Sparks
Sparks Street
Sparks Street is a street in downtown Ottawa, Canada that was converted into an outdoor pedestrian street in 1966, making it the earliest such street or mall in North America....
, and east of him was Besserer, also the By estate, and Lebreton owning the flats.
The charter was obtained the following month in August 1850, and a meeting of the promoters was held in the Town Hall at the Lower Town Market
Byward Market
ByWard Market is a district in Lower Town located east of the government & business district, surrounding the market buildings and open-air market on George, York, ByWard and William Streets.The district is bordered on the west by Sussex Drive, on the...
, where Robert Bell
Robert Bell (Ottawa politician)
Robert Bell was a surveyor, journalist and political figure in Canada West.He was born in Ireland in 1821 and arrived in New York state with his parents . In 1823, they moved to a farm near Kemptville, Upper Canada. He qualified as a land surveyor for the province in 1843. He moved to Bytown,...
was meeting secretary, later to become secretary of the company. John McKinnon was chosen president, Walter Shanly appointed engineer. (Bell was the owner of what would become the Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa Citizen
The Ottawa Citizen is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Canada. According to the Canadian Newspaper Association, the paper had a 2008 weekly circulation of 900,197.- History :...
). A route through Kemptville
Kemptville, Ontario
Kemptville is a community located in the Municipality of North Grenville in Southern Ontario, Canada in the northernmost part of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville...
was chosen after Walter Shanley walked over 200 miles in search of the best route, and ground was broken on October 9, 1851.
The population of Bytown in 1850, according to Scott, was about 7000. According to a directory from November 1851, Bytown's population was about 8000.
Scott noted that Thomas McKay
Thomas McKay
Thomas McKay was a Canadian businessman who was one of the founders of the city of Ottawa, Ontario. He was born in Perth, Scotland and became a skilled stonemason...
took a "warm interest in the project", along with his son-in-law, Mr. McKinnon.
Money was difficult to raise from the townspeople, until the city, in 1853, borrowed $200,000 and loaned it to the company.
As the project progressed, however, the location of the Bytown terminus was shifted to a property already owned by McKay well below the falls (where the Department of Foreign Affairs now stands
Lester B. Pearson Building
The Lester B. Pearson Building is the headquarters of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It is located at 125 Sussex Drive in the Lower Town neighbourhood of Ottawa, Ontario, and was built between 1968 and 1973. It is named after Lester B...
). McKay, a major stockholder, agreed to bail out the company provided that the line terminated at his industrial complex in New Edinburgh. This may have reduced the project's initial investment by its owner, but it seriously undermined the viability of the scheme. The re-located terminus meant that the logs had to be assembled into rafts to use the timber slide
Timber slide
A timber slide is a device for moving timber past rapids and waterfalls. Their use in Canada was widespread in the 18th and 19th century timber trade. At this time, cut timber would be floated down rivers in large timber rafts from logging camps to ports such as Montreal and Saint John, New...
that bypassed the falls, and then promptly disassembled and lifted up a considerable cliff to the rail yard.
After running out of money when the rail lines reached Billings Bridge in 1854, the contractor had to make do with hardwood rails capped with strips of iron. Operation of the Bytown and Prescott (the terminus on the St. Lawrence) began in 1854
1854 in Canada
See also:1853 in Canada,other events of 1854,1855 in Canada.----Events from the year 1854 in Canada.-Events:*January 27 - The Great Western Railway opens, linking Toronto, Hamilton and Windsor....
, with the official arrival of the first train into Bytown on December 24, 1854.
Here is the text of a plaque erected in the town of Prescott, as it read in 2004: "This company, incorporated in 1850, built a railway from Prescott to Bytown (Ottawa) for the shipment of lumber and farm products to the markets of the northeastern United States and Montreal. Substantial funds were raised at Bytown, Prescott and other municipalities along the line. In 1851, Walter Shanly, Chief Engineer, started construction, and a train first ran from Prescott to Bytown on Christmas Day, 1854. The railway, renamed the Ottawa and Prescott in 1855, was the first to serve the nation's future capital, giving it access at Prescott to the St. Lawrence River and the Grand Trunk Railway
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system which operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, as well as the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec; however, corporate...
. In 1867 it became the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway and in 1884 was leased to the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
for 999 years."
It wasn't until April 1855, recalls Scott, that "the first train crossed thr bridge over the Rideau River to the station at Sussex Street". Following its physical completion, financial difficulties ensued leading to decisions for the raising to funds to pay the debts. City council had been indebted for $60,000 in 1851 and $200,000 in 1853 and later in 1865, the property of the company (then renamed) was foreclosed in a Toronto auction at a huge loss, and money invested by municipalities was totally lost.
Eventually, the Bytown and Prescott Railway was absorbed into the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
. The Ottawa terminus was in use as a secondary rail yard until the 1950s. The rails in Ottawa were finally lifted in 1966, the same year in which all rail traffic was removed from the downtown core of the city. The footings of the bridge crossing the nearby Rideau River are still evident. A small spur line still exists from Kemptville
Kemptville, Ontario
Kemptville is a community located in the Municipality of North Grenville in Southern Ontario, Canada in the northernmost part of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville...
, heading south for a few kilometres.
It would be possibly as late as 1864 before rail travel Montreal to Ottawa would be possible.
Officers And Directors
Officers And Directors Of The Bytown And Prescott Railway Company, 1851:- John McKinnon, president;
- Alfred Hooker, vice-president;
- Robert Bell, secretary;
- Edward Masse, treasurer at Bytown;
- C. H. Peck, treasurer, Prescott.
- DIRECTORS: Joseph Aumond, John Egan, Charles Sparrow, N. Sparkes, Wm. Patrick, John Moran, D. McLachlin, Joseph Bower, J. S. Archibald, Alpheus, Jones, Wm. Creighton. Office Aumond's building, Bytown.