The Curious World of Bill Bagg — The Gillies Blacksmith Shop

Photo from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

In 1875, John Gillies built a machine shop for his 20-year-old son, Alexander, on Rosamond Street in Carleton Place, right on the bank of the Mississippi River. Next door was the Blacksmith shop that was used for the machine shop.

A few years later in September of 1878 a very sad case of drowning which occurred in the Mississippi Lake. Two young men, Alexander Gillies, son of David Gillies and Martha Poole, machinist and Peter Peden, miller, left home about 8:00 in the evening and went up the lake in a small canoe to shoot ducks by moonlight.Their bodies were found embedded in the mud only a few inches under the surface of the water. Read more here-The Sad Tale of Alexander Gillies and Peter Peden

Here is a look at the interior of the Gillies Blacksmith shop along the Mississippi River in Carleton Place. All photos from an MLS listing click here

Here is the old blacksmith shop that the late iconic Bill Bagg owned and is for sale and thanks to the internet we get to see the interior.

All photos from an MLS listing click here

The Mississippi River flows around McArthur Island and a man made channel for the Mississippi River was built and re-directed for the McArthur mill. The shocking part was realizing that another channel once lapped the back doors of the old Gillies Mill. Yup–right by the back door and through the late Bill Bagg’s adjacent property that was once the blacksmith shop for the Gillies Mill.

When Bill Bagg bought that house he found an open cistern/well inside his home and it had to be boarded up so no one would get hurt. That made me shiver and think of the film Silence of the Lambs. This is the first time I have seen the cistern– so I wanted to document it for history.