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• Gillies Bros. Lumbering Firm, The
  This firm was begun in 1873 when James, William, John and David Gillies purchased a steam sawmill here on the Ottawa River at Braeside. Building on the experience acquired by their father, John Gillies, who had begun lumbering in Lanark County in 1842, they had established themselves by the mid 1880s as one of the Ottawa Valley's large lumber producers. This position was maintained partly by the involvement of succeeding generations in the management of...

• Daniel McLachlin 1810-1872
  One of the Ottawa Valley's most enterprising lumbermen, McLachlin was born in Rigaud Township, Lower Canada, and by 1837 had built a sawmill and grist-mill at Bytown (Ottawa). In 1851, influenced by the timber potential of the Madawaska watershed, he purchased some 400 acres at the deserted hamlet of Arnprior and in 1854 laid out a town plot. The large sawmills which he built here, greatly stimulated the community's growth. In the legislature of the...

• Timber Rafting on the Ottawa
  The rafting of square timber down the Ottawa River, begun in 1806, reached its peak during 1861-91 and ended in 1909. Pine "sticks" from .1 to .2 square metres and 12 to 15 metres long were floated down tributary rivers such as the Petawawa, Madawaska, Bonnechere and Mississippi to rafting points on the Ottawa. There "cribs" were made up, containing 20 to 40 pieces of timber, and as many as 200 cribs, were in turn...