Ottawa, Ontario, Canada26 Apr 1870, Tue • Page 2
In the April 23, 1870 edition of the Almonte Gazette they called it a ‘marine disaster”.
Read more about our Carleton Place steamers here… Facts You Might Not Know About Carleton Place for our 150th Birthday – Part 5
September 19, 2014 ·
Let’s end our week at Riverside Park with a lovely walk by the Mississippi River. This photo was taken in 1905 by Howard Edwards and shows a young couple strolling west along the river’s edge, towards the present day boat launch. Note the steamer in the water, also heading West – perhaps to Lake Park or Innisville….
February 26, 2021 ·
Canada Department of Marine & Fisheries Temporary Certificate…This is to certify that George Willis of Carleton Place, Ont., is permitted to act as Engineer of the passenger Steamer “Lillian B” of Ottawa, Ont., to ply on the waters between Carleton Place and Innisville in Canada for the year ending 24th Sept. 1907 after which this Temporary Certificate will be null and void”. Around edges of certificate are 12 rectangular tickets: “Round Trip Steamer Mississippi~ Good to Return from Lake Park” .
Flintoff’s Bay was the terminus of one of the earliest freight routes to the village of Carleton Place. Shipments came from Montreal by way of Brockville and Perth (and probably later by way of the Rideau Canal and Perth) to Flintoff Bay, and from there by barge captained by Mr. Dougherty to a wharf in the river at Bridge Street. John Flintoff was one of the first local lumbermen of some prominence and was drowned by falling off a Quebec steamer in the lower St. Lawrence in 1851.
Another drowning of this group of settlers was that of the pioneer Donald McNaughton in 1860, while going bathing in the lake at age 67 in the middle of June. McCullough’s Landing was another of the Carleton Place steamer excursion destinations. One of its biggest gatherings was a political rally in 1896, just before a hard-fought federal election. The lake’s biggest steamer, the Carleton, provided the transportation in loads of around 200 per trip, at a return fare of 25 cents.
Heading for the Middle Lake and Beckwith Township again, Pine Point and the cottages of McNaughton’s Shore are passed in the Big Lake, and the red-buoyed submerged rocks around Sand, Loon and the Burnt Islands. After the Blacks Bay cottage shore is Hunter’s Bay formerly called Buchanan’s for its nearby farm owners. The west side of Hunter’s Bay is probably the place where Hugh Boulton quarried stone for his first millstone, the town’s first piece of industrial equipment.
The lake’s other canal story is one of nearly fifty years later. It went as far as incorporation by the Legislature of the Mississippi Navigation Company in 1809, with the authorized capital of $100,000, to build locks at Innisville and Ferguson’s Falls and carry on a shipping business. The chief freight was expected to be sawn lumber and iron ore, which was to be towed by barge to Carleton Place, and to go from here by rail to American markets. The steamer, the Enterprise, was built for this purpose, and then the lock-building scheme was abandoned.
The Enterprise, a paddle wheeler which could carry a hundred passengers, travelled the lake for twenty-five years in the service of the McLaren Mill and the Canada Lumber Co. Under the intentions of its builders, its regular run would have been between Lanark Village, Playfairville and Carleton Place. That was the route that gained some historic standing in the story of the Mississippi when a number of the first Ramsay township settlers reached their new homes in 1821 by travelling down the Clyde and Mississippi by water from Lanark Village to the site of Almonte.
Howard Brown
Facts You Might Not Know About Carleton Place for our 150th Birthday – Part 5
Lake Keminiskeg Disaster Part 2 Believe it or Not
Carleton Place Was Once Featured in Ripley’s Believe it or Not!
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