The Ottawa Street Names Project aimed to document the histories of Ottawa’s major streets and thoroughfares.
After a stint with Western Union of New York, Ahearn came back to LeBreton Flats and at age 25 became the manager of a local telephone company. Two years later, he formed an electrical equipment firm with Warren Y. Soper, the manager of a rival telephone firm and another former operator. Together, Ahearn and Soper obtained a contract to rig up telegraph equipment from ocean to ocean for the Canadian Pacific Railway. They then moved into the field of invention, with a particular interest in electricity. In 1887, Ahearn rounded up investors and started an electric company that lit the first light bulbs and street lamps in Ottawa. Next, Ahearn tackled transportation. In 1891, he inaugurated Ottawa’s electric streetcar service. In response to winter weather, he equipped the trolleys with large rotating brushes to push away snow, and used electricity drawn from the overhead supply instead of wood stoves to heat the interiors of the cars. His company also produced streetcars for other cities. By pursuing these varied interests, Ahearn became the first Ottawa millionaire who made his money in something other than timber. He was a utilities mogul: in addition to his electricity and urban transport enterprises, he snapped up the Ottawa Gas Company, creating the Ottawa, Light, Heat and Power Company. He was also an innovator, reputedly inventing the electric cooking range that was installed in the Windsor Hotel. And in 1899, he drove the first automobile in Ottawa-an electric model, of course. Rich by 1900, Ahearn became a director of the Bank of Canada and other leading institutions, as well as a prominent local philanthropist. Chairman of the Ottawa Improvement Commission (later the National Capital Commission) from 1926 to 1932, he established Ottawa’s parkway system and personally financed the Champlain Bridge over the Ottawa River in 1928. That same year he was appointed to the Privy Council. As time went on, Ahearn continued to play a role in the development and spread of new inventions. He made the first telephone call between Canada and England in 1926, as well as the first national radio broadcast a year later, establishing a continental chain of radio masts. He died on June 28, 1938. In 1810, at the age of 27, he was poor, alone and in debt. Through perseverance, hard work and astute business decisions, he eventually improved his lot in life. Fundamental to his success would be his acquisition and subsequent exploitation of land (up to 1500 acres). For Billings and other men like him, the land could provide countless economic opportunities. As a farmer, lumberman, land prospector, money lender, employer, provider of vital services, clerk, assessor, collector, warden, pound keeper, path master, registrar, justice of the peace, Braddish Billings became a man of influence and power. His farm at Junction Gore would bring prosperity and a respected position in the community to five generations of Billings. Billings provided the surrounding community-eventually known as Billings Bridge-with roads, a bridge, a sawmill and, near the end of his life, rail. In short, Billings emerged from poverty to become the single most important economic force in his area. Booth made a substantial profit from this contract, which allowed him to pursue further business opportunities. In 1867, he outbid other lumbermen for the Madawaska River timber limits formerly held by the late John Egan. He turned a $45,000 investment into an enormous profit; years later, he turned down an offer of $1.5 million for those limits. Eventually, his mills produced more lumber than any other operation in the world. While the Ottawa River watershed provided a natural highway for transporting timber rafts, its tributaries did not extend into the outer reaches of Booth’s timber limits. So he embarked on a new enterprise: building a railway system to complement his other operations. He already owned the Canada Atlantic Railway, which he used to transport sawn lumber from his Chaudière mills to his planing mill and sorting yards in Burlington, Vermont and to sales offices in Boston. The new Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway’s primary purpose was to transport timber felled in areas inaccessible by waterway. Since the production of pine timber alone could not offset the cost of the railway, Booth diversified by adding passenger and freight cars. He also built grain elevators on the Great Lakes and formed a freighter company so that growers could use his railway to ship western grain. And they did, since the railway shortened the route between Chicago and Montreal by 1,300 km. Booth sold the railway to the Grand Trunk Railway in 1904 for $14 million. Booth was among Ottawa’s most generous philanthropists. He made considerable donations to charitable institutions and other agencies that cared for the sick and destitute. As one of three founding members of St. Luke’s Hospital, a predecessor of the Civic Hospital, he donated $10,000 towards its establishment. Booth eventually expanded his business ventures into pulp, paper and cardboard production, remaining active right up to a few months before his death at 98. He never recovered from a cold caught during one of his yearly trips to his Madawaska timber limits. On December 8, 1925, he passed away as one of the richest men in Canada, with an estate valued at approximately $33 million. Erskine later diversified the firm’s interests, expanding its lumbering operations to California, where he was a director of the Little River Redwood Company. He also capitalized on the growing demand for electricity by founding the Ottawa Electric Company. Other business interests included roles as president, vice-president or director of several electricity and power companies. He served as a member of the Board of Public School Trustees for 18 years and on city council as an alderman from 1871 to 1877. First elected to the provincial legislature in 1886, he was re-elected in 1890, when he was sworn into the Ontario cabinet as a minister without portfolio. Erskine Henry Bronson passed away on October 19, 1920, at the age of 76. At the outbreak of the First World War, he entered Canada’s First Division as an artillery officer; he finished the war as a lieutenant colonel. Serving in various capacities between the wars, he became commandant of the Royal Military College with the rank of colonel. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Crerar was promoted to brigadier. He became chief of the General Staff in 1940 and a lieutenant general in 1941, when he commanded the 1st Corps. He assumed command of the First Canadian Army on March 20, 1944. He became the first Canadian to gain the rank of full general while still in active service at the front. Born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland on January 7, 1827, Fleming studied surveying and engineering in Scotland and came to Canada in 1845 to work in the railway industry. He was appointed chief engineer of the Northern Railway in 1857. He was also the chief engineer of the International Railway during its construction and in 1871 was appointed chief engineer and surveyor for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Fleming spent most of his life in Peterborough, Halifax and Ottawa. Author of many scientific papers on railways and other topics, he was one of the founders of the Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Scientific Knowledge. He published the first large-scale surveyor’s map in Canada, designed the first usable chart of Toronto Harbour and promoted the trans-Pacific submarine telegraph cable, doing all this in addition to handling his duties as chief engineer of the CPR and as chancellor of Queen’s University. Fleming also designed Canada’s first postage stamp, the “three-penny beaver,” in 1851. One of the major problems Canadian travellers encountered in the late 19th century involved keeping proper time. How could one be sure of having the correct time at every stop along the way? More importantly, how could rail connections be coordinated in a coherent, permanent system? Traditionally, it was noon in each place when the sun was directly overhead. So if it was noon in Toronto, for example, it was 12:25 in Montreal. This system became complicated as voyages became longer. For instance, during the Halifax-Toronto rail journey, passengers had to re-set their watches in Saint John, Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Belleville and Toronto. In 1878, Sandford Fleming decided to do something about this situation. In a series of papers delivered to the Canadian Institute, he suggested that the planet be divided into 24 time zones, each covering 15 degrees of longitude, from an accepted meridian. The time in each zone would be the same, notwithstanding the position of any point in relation to the sun. Fleming, with his reputation and his energy, encountered little resistance to his idea. By 1883, all railways in North America were using this system. In 1884, the first International Meridian Conference was held in Washington D.C., and Fleming’s idea was officially adopted. The only objections came from some religious groups who accused him of being a communist and of proposing a system contrary to God’s will. Sir Sandford Fleming passed away on July 22, 1915 at the age of 88. The younger Allan Gilmour came to Montreal in 1832 with his cousin James Gilmour. They worked for William Ritchie & Company until 1840, when Ritchie retired. The younger cousins assumed the management of the branch and opened an agency in Bytown, where Allan would frequently travel to oversee operations. James retired from the business in 1853 and Allan decided to move permanently to Bytown. Year after year, Gilmour supervised the sawing and shipping of millions of feet of lumber on timber rafts floated down the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers to the Gilmour timber coves in Quebec. In spite of periodic setbacks, he persevered and retired at 57 in 1873. He was appointed to the rank of major in the local militia at the time of the Fenian Raids (1866-1867) and was later made colonel. Gilmour was also a cultivated man with a fondness for poetry and history; he was a steady friend of the Ottawa Literary and Scientific Society and other local institutions. He died in 1895. Grant sat as a member in the first Parliament of Canada, in the government of Sir John A. Macdonald. He also served as president of the Canadian Medical Association and the Royal Society of Canada, and was knighted by Queen Victoria. He lived in a beautiful home built by Braddish Billings Jr. in 1875 at the corner of Elgin and Gloucester Streets, an establishment now known as Friday’s Roast Beef House. Its interior trim is characteristic of many Ottawa homes of the period, with heavy moldings outlined with thick round wood. He passed away on February 6, 1920. According to legend, Grant (who was asthmatic) still haunts the halls of the restaurant with the sound of chronic coughing and an eerie presence. His son Robert established himself closer to Ottawa, founding the new suburb of Hintonburg. In December 1893, Carleton County passed a bylaw making the community a separate municipality. Many of the new town’s residents worked on the railway, but it was chiefly a farming community. Its days as a separate town were numbered; the City of Ottawa annexed Hintonburg in 1907. The patriarch of the clan, Charles Hurdman, was one of the first European arrivals in the Ottawa Valley. Originally from Ireland, he joined Philemon Wright’s settlement in Hull. After six years, he left Wright’s employ to farm his property on the Aylmer Road. His first son, William H., was born in Hull in 1818. Under the name Hurdman Brothers, William started the family lumber business in 1841 with his brothers Charles and Robert. It became one of the largest timber operations in Quebec. In the early 1870s, William and Robert established themselves in the Junction Gore area of Gloucester Township, branching into large-scale farming. Eventually, both brothers were farming 200 to 300 acres each, using the most progressive methods of the day. William became director of two district agricultural societies. They won international awards for their horse breeding at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. William also organized the Dominion Exhibition of 1879. The brothers continued working in the lumber industry as well. They built their own bridge across the Rideau River to connect with their lumber and storage yards, and allowed travellers and the municipality to use it. It was the third span across the Rideau. But when the Great Fire of 1900 wiped out the family’s lumber mills at the Chaudière, they did not rebuild and decided to concentrate their efforts on farming. William and Robert established the earliest and largest piggery in Gloucester Township. The area around their farms became known as Hurdman’s Bridge, a populous area of farmers and railway workers, including many German immigrants. The present contracting firm of Hurdman Brothers (T. Fraser and Walter) was hired to remove the railway tracks from the downtown core of Ottawa in the late 1950s. Today, the firm specializes in moving heavy machinery and equipment. Keefer, the fourth child of his father’s second marriage, married Thomas MacKay’s daughter Elizabeth in 1848. He became a distinguished civil engineer and engineering consultant in Canada and the United States. He constructed waterworks systems for Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa; under his guidance, water first flowed to Ottawa’s taps and hydrants on October 18, 1874. Keefer became a specialist in railway, harbour and bridge engineering, and he was among the first to advocate an all-rail route to the Pacific. He worked on the Erie and Welland canals until 1845, when he came to Ottawa to improve the facilities of the Ottawa River for handling lumber. He also did surveys for the Grand Trunk Railway, drew up plans for the Victoria Bridge in Montreal and acted as an advisor to the Canadian government in many different civil engineering fields. He was president of the Canadian and American societies of civil engineers. After an engineering contract in Mexico, Keefer came back to Rockcliffe Park and named several streets, such as Buena Vista, Mariposa and Acacia. He died in his Rockcliffe home on January 7, 1915, at the age of 94. Between 1893 and 1896, Lampman lived in the grandiose Philomène Terrace on Daly Avenue. His close friend, the poet Duncan Campbell Scott, observed that the house was cheap and damp. Nonetheless, Lampman was enthusiastic about the house, as it was the first time he’d had a room of his own in which to write. He also earned his living as a clerk in the secretarial branch of the Post Office. Lampman has been compared to Keats. The National Film Board made a delightful film, Morning on the Lièvre, based on a Lampman poem. The imagery and the spoken verse combine to evoke the Canadian Shield country near the capital. Lampman often took to the wilderness in a canoe to get away from the stodginess of local literary societies. He passed away on February 10, 1899, at the age of 37. His father, Captain Andrew Lett of the 66th Cameronian Regiment, was one of the first settlers of Richmond, Ontario. The family arrived in Richmond in 1820, taking Captain Lett’s land grant for military service. The family moved to Ottawa in 1849. Here William Pittman Lett left on record in historic verse his famous “Recollections of Bytown and its Old Inhabitants.” As editor of the Ottawa Advocate newspaper, the younger Lett displayed his ability as a writer of both poetry and prose. In the winter of 1850, he organized a dramatic club that played in the first town hall, on Elgin Street, during several winter seasons. Five years later, he was elected to the office of city clerk when the City of Ottawa was incorporated, and remained in this position until his retirement 36 years later. Lett passed away at the age of 73 on August 16, 1892. He was elected councillor in Bytown’s first election, in 1847, and he was chosen mayor in 1848. Soon, Bytown changed its name to Ottawa. Lewis was elected Ottawa’s first mayor in 1855 and remained in that position until 1857. In 1863, he became commissioner of Ottawa’s police force. He signed the eloquent plea that Ottawa sent to the Queen on May 18, 1857, urging her to choose the city as capital of the United Provinces of Canada, which she did during his term as mayor. John Bower Lewis died on November 20, 1874. A contract to build the first bridge across Chaudière Falls and plans for the Rideau Canal first brought MacKay to Ottawa. With his partner, John Redpath, he was the chief contractor for the eight main locks at the entrance and also for certain other locks at the Ottawa end of the canal. During lulls in the canal construction work, he also built St. Bartholomew’s and St. Andrew’s churches. Due to the speed and skill of his work, and to his shrewd business sense, MacKay apparently made a very substantial profit on his canal contract. According to one story, when Colonel By awarded the contract to MacKay, he assumed that the stone for the lock masonry would have to come from across the river in Hull. MacKay, however, dug down in Major’s Hill Park, close to the locks, and discovered stone that he said was as good as the stone in Hull. After some hesitation, Colonel By agreed to the use of the Major’s Hill stone. MacKay’s gain from eliminating much of his transport charges must have been considerable. In 1832, with the canal system completed, MacKay and Redpath found themselves relatively well-to-do men. After a while, Redpath moved into sugar refining, but MacKay decided to settle in the district and to exploit the power of Rideau Falls. Between 1837 and 1855, he built a gristmill, a woolen mill, a brewery and a new sawmill at the falls. To house his workmen, he founded New Edinburgh on the eastern side of the Rideau River. Everything he touched seemed to succeed. In 1838, he built a grand house for himself, Rideau Hall. It was sold to the Canadian government in 1868 as the official residence of the governor general. MacKay also bought a thousand acres of land around Rideau Hall. Then known as MacKay’s Bush, it became Rockcliffe Park. In 1834, MacKay became a Tory member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, and from 1842 he was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Canada. He also commanded the county militia and travelled widely. MacKay was an early advocate of the scheme to bring a railway to Ottawa; the railway-which conveniently passed through his land-was completed shortly before his death in 1855. Perley augmented his fortune by ensuring a proper trade route to the United States. He started by organizing the local scene, where in 1866 he created a compromise urban transit system: horse-drawn streetcars that ran on rails. He then moved on to the regional scene, founding the Upper Ottawa Steamboat Company in 1868. Finally, with the financial assistance of several lumber barons, he created and became president of the Canadian Atlantic Railway (1879-1888), guaranteeing Ottawa’s access to American markets. He was also a member of Parliament for Ottawa, from 1887 until his death on April 1, 1890. Perley donated land and money to create the Perley Home for the Incurables. In 1896, his estate offered to donate a house for Ottawa’s first public library, but ratepayers rejected the project as too expensive. In 1847, Slater married Esther Sparks, the youngest daughter of Nicholas and Sarah Sparks. Although this relationship may explain why such an important street was named for him, Slater’s service as chairman of the public school board from 1863 to 1870 shows that he was a civic-minded citizen deserving of such commemoration. For amusement, they worked up a parlour trick where they appeared to read each other’s minds by winking Morse code at each other. One of the first contracts they received was to build a coast-to-coast telegraph system for the Canadian Pacific Railway. They then branched out into other innovative ways to use electricity. As manager of the Dominion Telegraph Company, Soper opened Ottawa’s first telephone exchange in 1880. The Bell Telephone Company later acquired the exchange and appointed Soper as its Ottawa manager. Along with partner Ahearn, Soper brought electricity to Ottawa in 1885, and established the Ottawa Electric Street Railway Company in 1891. With his fortune, he purchased a beautiful Rockcliffe property called The Berkenfels in the 1890s. In 1908, Soper built a summer cottage on the property, which he christened Lornado. After his death in on May 13, 1924 and his wife’s death in 1931, the Soper estate was divided up; Lornado became the official residence of the American ambassador to Canada. Sweetland was born in Kingston, Ontario on August 15, 1835. He graduated from Queen’s University in 1858 and practised medicine in Pakenham, Ontario, where he was also the coroner for Lanark and Renfrew counties. In 1865, he moved his practice to Ottawa. It proved to be even more successful than his practice in Pakenham. He served on the medical staff of the County of Carleton Protestant General Hospital and was appointed surgeon at the Carleton County Gaol. He was the founder and first president of the Lady Stanley Institute for Trained Nurses established in 1890. The physician was one of the original members of the commission overseeing the construction of Ottawa’s original water distribution system in the early 1870s, and was appointed sheriff of Carleton County in 1880. Sweetland was also president of numerous organizations, including the St. George’s Society, the Beechwood Cemetery, the Rideau Club, the Ottawa Medico-Chirurgical Society, the Dominion Sanitary Association, the Ottawa Bicycle Club and the Rideau Skating Club. He and P.D. Ross were appointed the first trustees of the Stanley Cup by the governor general, Lord Stanley of Preston. Sweetland passed away on May 5, 1907, at the age of 72. Respected throughout the community, Thompson served as a local director of the Bank of Commerce, and held extensive timber limits on the Gatineau River. He passed away in 1887.
Ahearn Avenue
Billings Avenue
Booth Street
Bronson Avenue
Crerar Avenue
Fleming Avenue
Gilmour Street
Grant Street
Hinton Avenue
Holland Avenue
Hopewell Avenue
Hurdman Road
Keefer Street
Lampman Crescent
Lett Street
Lewis Street
MacKay Street
McLeod Street
Morrison Drive
Perley Drive
Rochester Street
Slater Street
Soper Place
Sweetland Avenue
Thompson Street