Reprinted Dec. 1974, Original print Braeside, Ontario 1943
Physical Description
hard covered book - 172 pages
Scope and Content
The book is the story of Gillies Bros. Limited up to 1942, including their logging operation and mills at Braeside. At the end of this description is a partial index of the book.
Included in the book are two loose sheets:
1. Gillies Family Tree Chart
2. Map - Rail and Truck Routes to Different Limits Operated by Gillies - 1960
Index (partial)
-- excellent map of the watershed showing limits of the Gillies brothers
p.viii - list of tributaries on the Ottawa
p.iii & xiv - economics outside Canada
p.4/5 - dispatch to layout townships and protecting the forests
p.13 - 1822-district of Bathurst was created with Perth selected as the judicial Center in 1823
p20/21 - description of first log houses
p.21 - summer sleigh & arduous land clearing
p.22 - potash making/poor soil
p.23 - 1835-people moving on
p.35 - between 1826-1894 -- 85M pieces of pine
p.35 - last crib 1909
p.38 - Gillies first sawmill/Swamp Road from Lanark to Perth
p.40/41 - Arnprior/Renfrew starts; Pembroke etc.
p.41/42 - 1845/46 Geological Survey Report
p.42 - lumberer versus farmer
p.43 - Smith-quote benefit to farmer
p.46 - settlers trying logging/regulations
p.47 - market for produce and labor
p.48 - definition of the size of a square stick of timber
p.54 - Neil Robertson on the Madawaska starting in 1850
p.55 - 1853-4, short description of timber on the Madawaska -- around Barry's Bay
p.55 - 1854 US treaty
p.59-60 - Gillies to Arnprior
p.60 – "the Canada Central Railway out of Brockville had crawled as far as Almonte by 1859, and was projected to go on to Arnprior for the Madawaska country and trade. That area was comparatively untapped for the river's turbulent waters had defied running until 1835."
p.61 - North America Act -- forest control given to provinces
p.61 - Renfrew Mercury, July 7, 1871 reported on the quantity of timber running through the Chaudiere slide at Ottawa in four days at the end of June
p.62 - railways & Gillies eyeing Braeside
p.63 - Laird McNab & McLachlin arrives
p.64 - McLachlin, McDonnell, Usborne
p.65 - Gillies buying at Braeside
p.66 - Great Depression 1873-8
p.67 - one dollar per day for Teamsters and fire at limits
p.68 – depression - prices paid
p.68.69 - USA tariff conflict
p.70/71 - steady growth
p.71(bot)/72 - 1892 -- cutting on the Madawaska for the first time. "In 1892 they went into the Madawaska country above Calabogie, their first operations on that rough and unruly River."
p.73 - new century boom
p.74 - last square timber rafts – 1903 last down the Ottawa by Gillies brothers;
1905 last square timber from the Montréal River limit by rail to Kingston, where the Calvin Company rafted it to Garden Island and drove it down the St. Lawrence for delivery at Québec.
p.74 - fire at Braeside mill
p.75 - 1902? - memo to the railway listing 356 freight cars needed and where they would be shipped to – "100 are to go to Montréal with export orders, 120 for the New York Central lines, 20 to Montréal for local trade, 12 through to Burlington, Vt., 80 are required for CPR local lines, three to haul local orders over the Canada Atlantic, one to haul on the Grand Trunk."
p.76 - cutting going further afield/ pulp and paper/ war affect
p.77/78 - June 23, 1919 -- fire at mill
p.78 - 1921 recession, & 1930 crash
p.79/80 - average production
p.81 - Gillies is Canadian Lumberman President
p.91/92 - examples of fires
p.93 - 1885 -- McLachlin Brothers and fire rangers
p.93 - World War II and list of previous wars
p.93 - women – lumberjills
p.94 - very high output in more years
p.100/101 - cutting and farming and selling produce
p.102 - Valley culture.
P102 - 1942 -- buying McLachlin limits
P102 - Arnold Muirhead.
P104/105 -- employees and drivers.
P108 -- list of the Gillies limits by year 1842-1942.
P109-130 -- describes square timber operation.
P117 -- waney started 1861.
P119 -- 1869 -- caulked shoes
P119 – tools
P119 -- 1855 Peavey
P120 – caulked shoes/log jams
P121 -- John McCoshen
P122 -- timber slides and dates
P123 -- assembling Madawaska rafts
P124 -- picture of square timber crib.
P127/8 -- going through slides.
P130-133 -- Prince of Wales.
P132-description of Chats Falls
P133/34 -- overview of waste when making square timber
P134 -- McFadden's life and timber
P134-1903 -- Gillies last raft
P136 -- peak of square timber trade. An overview
P137/138 -- former firms
P139-143 -- sawlogs and lumber
P141-actually description of log drives-danger and romance
P141-description of power in sawmills and how cut
P142-quantity of men and supplies needed
P142-progress in sawmills
P143-1870 -- Timber Marking Act passed.
P146-155 -- shanty & rivermen
P148-Madawaska haunting
P148-tall tales – example Bunyon
P149-Charles Macnamara -- land sailors
P149-Renfrew.
P151-White Lake and lost distillery barrel
P152-farmer to shanty, and wife at home.
P152-the Nile expedition and Khartoum – 1884
P153/4-current camps description and current work.
P156-driving rights and first drive
P156-Larry Frost -- foreman -- caulk marks
P157-the Rivers And Streams Bill 1881-4 -- use of slides, private versus for all, final outcome
P159-Upper Ottawa Improvement Co. (ICO) - cooperation -- public works Canada
Notes
Another copy of the book is in the archives' holdings
Partial Index prepared by Irene Robillard while researching information