Parliament mill

plants and sharp rocks

from https://aix1.uottawa.ca/~weinberg/libruins.html:

This ashlar foundation dates back to the 1870's during the great boom of the Ottawa lumber operations.

It may seem odd that permission would be granted to build a steam mill below Parliament Hill where, just a few years earlier, the greatest neo-gothic monument in North America, the Canadian House of Parliament was built. A smokey vulgar steam-powered lumber mill, noisily sawing wood and spewing sawdust was set right below our national parliament! The first Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald held that there should always be industry within view of Parliament Hill to reinforce the impression of the hard-working nature of Canadians. Was this symbolic consideration the basis for the permission given by the planners of the national capital to build the mill?

The earliest representation of the mill that I can find is on the "Bird's Eye View of the City of Ottawa" drawn by Herm. Brosius and published in 1876. In that year the lumber industry in Ottawa was in the midst of a depression so it is more likely the mill was built a few years before that. The mill is not shown on any of the river views drawn in the 1860's. In 1871 in Ottawa there were approximately 1,200 saws producing 250 million board feet of lumber annually and therefore, that year seems the most reasonable time to suppose it was constructed. When was it taken down? It is shown on a map of Ottawa of 1918 in the Ottawa room of the public library. It is definitely missing from a certain 1932 watercolour of the back of Parliament. I have not seen it in any photographs from after 1916 with the new Parliament buildings. Was it a casualty of the municipal beautification exercises which took place between the wars?

The mill was about 40 feet wide and 60 feet deep with a smoke stack that towered about 60 feet above river level. Photographs show the top half of the stack was lighter in colour than the bottom half. The steam boiler was certainly fueled by cuttings and wood waste from the industry. It was one of many steam mills in the Ottawa area. The first steam-powered sawmill in the Ottawa area was owned by J.C.Blasdell in 1849 on the Ottawa River near Rockcliffe. Andrew Leamy built a second at Leamy Lake in 1853. In 1868 there was a steam mill built on the Hull shore opposite the Parliament buildings for the Wright & Batson Co.