Scum on the Water —- Carleton Place 1958

Sept 1958

With the intense heat and the dirty hot water in the river it is probably a good thing that supervision at the bathing beach ceased some time ago, and that attendance at school will discourage children from swimming in that part of the river. An item in last week’s Carleton Place Canadian stated that there was a scum on the water there which made parents forbid their children to bathe in it. If the water is that way there it will be the same here. While the cause of polio is obscure there is a general belief “which may or may not have any foundation that it dan be induced by dirty water.

There may be nothing in this but certainly it is not healthy to swim in water that is lukewarm and smells of weeds and other vegetable matter. When the river level is high the fact that it is not too deep, at the bathing beach is an advantage but when it drops and there is a heat wave it makes swimming there less desirable. The river above the main bridge looks very dirty at presentwith weeds showing up and little “islands “which are submerged at high water level to be seen.

Most people would not care to eat fish out of the river now that the heat wave has lasted so long. It would be strange if they did not have worms and any who do go for them should skin them and cook them well. Even water in the lakes has become warm and the weeds are showing up everywhere. One thing this has done is make it less difficult for people who like summer resorts to break away from them and return to their homes.

Dan Williams

Seems to me that closing beaches on the Mississippi at times has been a thing as long as I can remember. Especially after a heavy rain. I’m 73 now and I spent every sunny summer day at the beach in CP when I was a kid. Still go for a dip now and again.

1963 Riverside Park — Stills from a 8 MM Movie Camera — Larry Clark

1963 Riverside Park — Stills from a 8 MM Movie Camera — Larry Clark

Riverside Park Comments Larry Clark ‘The Dip’

St. Mary’s and Riverside Park 1969

When Were Some of the Trees Planted in Riverside Park?

The Carleton Place Riverside Park Booth Etc. Etc.

The size of a Minivan Sitting 30 Feet Offshore— The Big Rock of Carleton Place

Let’s Build Cabins at Riverside Park!

When the Circus came to Carleton Place

Tug of War 1970’s Riverside and Centennial Park Carleton Place

Just Beat It! Carnival Riot in Carleton Place at Riverside Park

Before and After at Centennial Park

So What Did You Do in Riverside Park?

It was the Boathouse that Went On and On….

The Carleton Place Riverside Park Booth Etc. Etc.

Before Centennial Park there was.. 1900

What Can You Add to this Story? Patrick Mulrooney

Good morning.

First let me say that I truly enjoy and have come to look forward to all you write about Lanark County. It came to me as I was watching the water rise in front of my house that years ago, (perhaps 40?) I came across some carvings on the rock face on the south side of the Playfairville Rapids and that if you were not aware of them perhaps they would make an interesting story.

My memory while getting older tells me they dated back to the 1800’s and the oldest was carved by a priest. Just a little more interesting history here in the highlands. Cheers, Paddy

Thanks Patrick Mulrooney! Now what can you add to this story??

Inhabiting Playfairville Once Again?

Fallbrook and Playfair Playfairville 101–

Names Names Names

Fake News and False Reports or- What Happens in Maberly stays in Maberly ….

The Devil’s Rocks Grant’s Creek — Buchanan’s Scrapbooks

With files from The Keeper of the Scrapbooks — Christina ‘tina’  Camelon Buchanan — Thanks to Diane Juby— click here..

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
12 Dec 1958, Fri  •  Page 19

The Ottawa Journal
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
07 Jun 1975, Sat  •  Page 31

Allan’s Mills, named for William Allan, was a small milling hamlet located just west of the town of Perth in Lanark County. The community got its start after Allan built saw and grist mills, followed by a general store and blacksmith shop. A post office was opened in 1872.
At its height, Allan’s Mills included a wagon maker, shoemaker, carpenter and two blacksmiths. The surrounding area was dotted with other small mills that included the McCabe Mill, the Ritchie Mill and the Bowes Mill. A school located on the Scotch Line was shared by all the surrounding settlements.
By the late 1890s, business was beginning to slip. Timber supplies had become depleted and farmers were making a gradual transition from wheat to dairy farming. Many of the mills did not survive the upheaval. Read- Allan’s Mills— Lanark County Ghost Town

Roadside view of Bowes Mill, on Bowes Road, Bathurst Ward, Tay Valley Township; Former dam and millpond at right. CLICK

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
12 Oct 1955, Wed  •  Page 26

Perth Remembered

March 12, 2015  · GRANTS CREEK at DEVILS ROCKS 1910 Postcard. Anyone remember going back in there, behind what is now Conlon Farm and St. John’s HS?

Paul GordonIt was also a favorite Playground of myself and my good friends:Keith Fournier,Greg Bowes,Bart Young,and Bruce Blackburn–what an amazing natural setting–visited many times over the years.

Lyle MoodieGreat spot for spearing frogs & cranberry picking

Debra Sistywhat an adventure to be there for a day, we thought we had walked for miles.

Bryant MoodieI used to go there by duck boat from the “ice house” where my dad manufactured ice.

Stephen FortnerThere use to be goats up there too. Not sure who owned them 

Jeff WrightWow, used to canoe or walk up there most evenings, either fishing or hunting. That brings back a lot of good memories.

Richard FrizellI spent hours and hours and hours playing there when I was a kid !

Grant’s Creek at
   Glen Tay Road click

Postcard was bought at John Hart’s Book Store in Perth

Ottawa Daily Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
09 Aug 1861, Fri  •  Page 1

Perth Remembered
January 22, 2018  · 

JANUARY 22, 1901. QUEEN VICTORIA DIES.
This photograph taken in 1901 at the time of Queen Victoria’s death shows the John Hart Book Store on Gore Street, decorated for mourning and remembrance of Queen Victoria. Mr. Hart, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, opened his establishment in the 1850’s. He did not only sell books, his retail merchandise included heavy goods, paints and oils which were stored in a two-storey building behind the shop. He also sold wallpaper and other fancy goods and fine prints.

The Wendigo’s of Devil’s Mountain

The Devil’s Telephone? The Ouija Board

Memories of When the Devil Visited Drummond Township

Please take the Devil Out of Me? Rev. James Wilson of Lanark

Here Comes the Devil

So What Did They Find Under the Bridge?

After years of speculation the truth finally surfaced ik Almonte one day in July in 1971.

The conservationists moved in Wednesday and walked off with one of the largest caches of bottles ever made in town.

“It’s incredible,” one elderly onlooker chuckled while enviously eyeing a 20-foot line-up of botties on the riverbank, “Not one darn beer bottle among ’em. ” The bottles, along with truck-toads of assorted junk including rusting wheels, mufflers and decaying pipes, were pulled from the river under the Almonte Bridge Street Bridge.

Thousands of bottles were reclaimed from the river Wednesday and today, but most SWEEP workers believe the public will not take heed of their example and keep the Mississippi free of garbage. “It would probably take a serious epidemic as a result of polluted water before people would realize rivers aren’t supposed to be used as garbage dumps,” said 22-year-old Candy Storks, foreman of one of the Sweep crews.

One SWEEP worker. Aggie Thurmen believes, simply that cleanliness is a habit to which many people don’t subscribe. Co-worker Bill McDougall puts it down to the adage of not being able to teach an old dog new tricks. “The answer has to lie in the proper teaching of the young today,” said the student.

As the SWEEP program gains momentum, more communities throughout the watershed are seeking help for their areas. “It’s getting hard to keep’up with them all,” said supervisor Ross Blaine.

You may not get rich on the discovery at least not after carry out a four-day clean-up program at Constance Bay that was next, but bang around long enough under the heaving structure and you could coin as much as two cents an hour.

But what future Almonte’s bottle harvest? This year’s crop will be processed into hard cash for other SWEEP projects and the reapers are hoping for a decidedly poorer crop in the future.

Are old pop bottles worth anything?

MOST VALUABLE BOTTLES

Pepper, Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola bottles from the Hutchinson soda and early machine made era. The oldest bring the highest prices often $500-1000 or more for certain rare examples or rare cities. … The best examples of colored sodas can bring $5000-$12000 for scarce forms and rare colors

5 Most Common Things Found at River Cleanups

 

 

Whispers of Silent Messages in Bottles

82 Bottles of Booze on the Wall – 82 Bottles of Booze

Laundry Down By the River

Here is a story about wash-days in early times and it will prove an eye-opener to the ladies who today use electric washing machines and all the modern paraphernalia of wash-day.

It appears that between the 1840s and 1850s  many of the women used to wash their clothes in the river. The clothes were carried down in wicker clothes baskets. Then the clothes were put into a shallow natural basin near the shore. There was a current of water over this basin and the dirty wash water was thus carried away.

After the clothes had been put in the natural basin, they were thoroughly rubbed with soft soap or other lather-making soap and then then were pounded with a wooden pallet or heavy wooden stick till the dirt was pounded out of them. Then they were rinsed (the ladies will knew the process) and finally taken home, where they were hung out to dry on a clothesline in the backyard.

The reason that the river was used for washing, instead of the back yard at home, was chiefly because of the cost of water. Water cost 12 cents per barrel and most people in that era were poor, and kept the bought water as far as possible for drinking. Every house In those days had its rain-water barrels and the rain, water was used for all purposes except drinking.

There was no particular day was wash-day and the ladies went to the river with their household washings when it suited them best. Perhaps another reason the ladies went to the river to do their washing was the opportunity it gave them to meet the neighbours and hear all the latest neighbourhood gossip.

The women used to claim that clothes washed in the Ottawa river were cleaner than those washed at home, because of the unlimited amount of rinsing water available. Three, four or five women would wash at the one place side by side, and the washing process was made less onerous because of the talk that could be indulged in as the washing went on.

where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun and theSherbrooke Record and and Screamin’ Mamas (USACome and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place. Tales of Almonte and Arnprior Then and Now.

 

Lots of Laundry– Lassie Come Home!!!!

I am a Laundry Girl

Musings about Vibrating Appliances and Other Dirty Laundry

Tales From the Chinese Laundry on Bridge Street

Tales of the Queen’s Underwear and all those “Accidents”

As the World Turns in Carleton Place — Soap and Ground Beef

I will Wash Your Mouth Out with Soap!

What the Heck was Electric Soap? Chatterton House Hotel Registrar

Now You see it, Now You Don’t: The Disappearing and Reappearing of the Tim Horton’s Subterranean

Photos by Bill and Carole Flint= The Sky Pilots

A disappearing stream or subterranean (under Tim Horton’s Franktown Road) is the term used to describe a stream or a river, which flows into a sinkhole or a crack. There is a geological reason for this vanishing act: the bedrock under Tim Horton’s on Franktown Road is made of early Carboniferous (around 325-360 million years old) limestone. Limestone is prone to dissolving when it comes into contact with slightly acidic rain water, creating of fissures, sinkholes, and underground channels and caves (Pike Hole) that surface water can escape into.

In the past the stream flowed down Rochester Street where memories of opening up basement windows to let the flood streams go through are still talked about. Then it flows under my house (Springside Hall on Lake Ave E.) where in the Spring before we bought it and installed sump pumps after the first Spring the basement waters would be about 4-5 feet deep.

From there it flows into the old stream at the bottom of Lisgar Street where that stream was once a lot bigger. Big enough to warrant a small bridge on Lake Ave East where there was a small bridge near Beckwith Street. The staff at Nichols/Waugh used to clean their work tools in the stream on a daily basis on the corner of Lake Ave East.

But, where does it come back to the surface again? It is commonly stated that it reappears a few miles downstream and flows out at the arena. I asked our popular photographer John Rayner to shoot some photos, if he was near the arena, so we can see where it finally flows out into the Mississippi River.

So thanks to John here it is.

All Photos courtesy of John Rayner 

These are just some of his fabulous photos–see the rest his Lanark Couty photos here on his blog The AC is Always On..

                      Go to about where there is a path between the ball fields.

 

That scene above was to my back as I looked at the drain pipe.pipe (metal) below.

There is another drain pipe (plastic) to the left as you look toward the river from the path, but it didn’t look as though it had discharged anything for awhile.

​

I was able to go down the embankment to look back at the drain pipe (the metal one).

​

​

A young nimble-footed person might have been able to get to where your stream enters the Mississippi, but I am neither young nor nimble, so I took a few photos back up on the trail, all to the right (toward the arena) of the drain pipe above. You can see where they meet up below, with your stream being on the foreground.

​All Photos courtesy of John Rayner

So that’s all I’ve got for you. You might see better later in the fall when all of the leaves have fallen.

I didn’t know about this, so it was fun to explore and find it.

Thanks John!!

— I grew up on Lake Ave. E. in the last war time house. We played in treasure valley a lot. Spring time we would build a raft in the pond in the valley and skate on it in the winter. Summers we played house at the ledges of rock going into the valley. One time some boys had bows and arrows. The end of the arrow had a nail on it. As we were running home guess who got an arrow in her little behind. That’s right me!

 

Photo-Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum-This map dates to 1868 with updates in red done in 1873. Rochester Street didn’t exist in 1868 “This has become the division line by length of occupation”. The name Rochester is penciled in red in the 1873 update along with “this part of Street laid out by third parties”.

Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum The stream crossing under 12 Con. (now Lake Avenue East) had A BRIDGE! (at the corner of Beckwith Street). This stream still runs, mostly underground, but is visible in backyards along Argyle Street, and then again along Sussex Avenue.

Is that part of Tannery Creek? This is the barn where Canadian Tire was..

Peter Iveson-– There was Tannery Creek– it emerged on the east side of Beckwith Street and ran between the MacDougal House and where Canadian Tire was, then run under the CPR tracks and eventually went through the old dump and into The Mississippi River.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun and Screamin’ Mamas (USA)

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.

“The Tim Horton’s River” Under my House.. Is That the Way To Fraggle Rock?

Feeling Groovy by the Lake Ave East Bridge

Did You Know we had a %^&* Creek in Carleton Place?

Where Was One of the Open Air Rinks in Carleton Place?

The Morphy Cram House — Springside Hall

Winter —Rochester Street Looking North– Before and After

Friday October the 13th– 6:30.. meet in front of the old Leland Hotel on Bridge Street (Scott Reid’s office) and enjoy a one hour Bridge Street walk with stories of murder mayhem and Believe it or Not!!. Some tales might not be appropriate for young ears. FREE!–

Here we go Carleton Place– Mark Your Calendars–
Friday October the 13th– 6:30.. meet in front of the old Leland Hotel on Bridge Street (Scott Reid’s office) and enjoy a one hour Bridge Street walk with stories of murder mayhem and Believe it or Not!!. Some tales might not be appropriate for young ears. FREE!–

Join us and learn about the history under your feet! This year’s St. James Cemetery Walk will take place Thursday October 19th and october 21– Museum Curator Jennfer Irwin will lead you through the gravestones and introduce you to some of our most memorable lost souls!
Be ready for a few surprises along the way….
This walk takes place in the dark on uneven ground. Please wear proper footwear and bring a small flashlight if you like.
Tickets available at the Museum, 267 Edmund Street. Two dates!!!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1211329495678960/

OCT 28th
Downtown Carleton Place Halloween Trick or Treat Day–https://www.facebook.com/events/489742168060479/

So Where Does the Water come from Under my House?

 

Years ago when we bought the house Springside Hall on Lake Ave East the basement floor was bedrock that was painted over with orange paint.  Several wooden tree logs held up the first floor in the basement. Every Spring 2 feet of water would flood the basement when the river waters were high.

 

Seeing that the fridge was down there when we bought it– it wasn’t really handy at all in the Spring. So the basement was finished- except the cistern we dug out and a small tool room where the oil furnace used to be. That same small room still has the original bedrock floor as well as the cistern.

A sump pump was put in so we could control the Spring run off and no longer is our basement Seaworld in April.

There is a brook at the bottom of the hill on Lisgar and Argyle Street which I have talked about before and it runs behind Jennifer Fenwick Irwin’s home on Argyle. It used to flow down the back of my property. There was once a bridge at Beckwith Street and Lake Ave East– but my question is- where does this water originate from?

I was told it came down from the Gatineau’s but that seems a tad far fetched.

Actually there is a creek which begins under the Coleman Street Tim Horton’s and travels down Rochester Street under my house and down to Lisgar and then flows over to the arena and empties out out Shi* Creek. In the old days people on Rochester Street would open their basement windows to let the water flow through.. or so I have been told LOL

Did You Know we had a %^&* Creek in Carleton Place?

 

Feeling Groovy by the Lake Ave East Bridge

 

RELATED READING- Springside Hall

Glory Days in Carleton Place– Linda Seccaspina

Time Capsule in the ‘Hi Diddle Day’ House?

Sometimes When You Least Expect it– The Dunlop Issue

The Spirits Are Alive and Well

Feeling Groovy by the Lake Ave East Bridge

October 13, 1977 George W. Raeburn of Lake Ave East— Artist and C. P. R. Man

RELATED READING-Sky Pilots

Glen Isle and Appleton by Air-The Sky Pilots of Carleton Place

The Spirit of Carleton Place -Shotgun with the Sky Pilots of Carleton Place PT.1

Saturday in Carleton Place Photographed by our Sky Pilots Bill and Carole Flint

Aerial Shots of Carleton Place Cares -Carole and Bill Flint – Sky Pilots of Carleton Place

Tales from Arklan Island–Odds and Ends

Tales From Arklan Island –The Midnight Heist

So What Happened Down at the Power Plant One Dark and Stormy Night?

Aerial Images of the Old Cold War Barracks Fire-Carole and Bill Flint

Today We Need Your Help!— Come Hungry!