Carleton Place on Armistice Day, 1918

Armistice Day in Carleton Place Was Great Event Back in 1918

The Carleton Place Canadian, 11 November, 1954

By Howard M. Brown

 

From a letter to one of our boys who did not come back…..

 

There certainly was a great day here last Monday.  We went to bed Sunday night expecting the word of the signing of the armistice to be put off by the Germans until the last minute, but it looks as if they could not give in quickly enough.  Now they are whining and crying like they always do when caught.

The first word came to Ottawa at 3 a.m.  The general fire alarm sounded here at 4 a.m.  Findlays’ whistle was the first to give it but we did not waken until we heard the fire alarm.  We got our flags out and_________fired off his gun.

The streets were soon crowded with cheering, shouting, singing men, women and children.  There was great hand shaking, some even hugging and kissing – some cried for joy.  Before half an hour there was an immense bonfire on the market square.  Cars were decorated and flying everywhere, horns blowing.

Crowds of young people paraded the streets with banners and flags, blowing horns and making a noise with everything they could from a tin pan up.  I went in the car for Bessie who was nursing between Franktown and Smiths Falls and just got back in time for the parade about 9:30.

There was a long procession, mostly of decorated cars but there were also a lot of decorated cars but there were also a lot of buggies, wagons and drays decorated and fixed up.  One had a war canoe with all the boys in it with paddles as if going into the water.  Scores walked.  The Town Council, the Board of Education, the Firemen, the fire fighting apparatus were there.

One of the funniest things was Curly Thompson, the painter, with a moustache painted to imitate the Kaiser, and Mr. Dack alongside to represent the Crown Prince, in a little old two-wheeled pony cart drawn by men and boys.  All the bells and whistles were kept going, and at night there was another big bonfire.  It was midnight before the noise died out.

There will never be anything to approach it of the same nature again, at least it is hard to see how there ever can be, and to think that all over the civilized world there will be great rejoicing but at the same time, I suppose even in enemy countries.  It will not be long now until the soldiers will be starting to come home generally.  There will be great rejoicing but the war has lasted so long and there are so many who will never come back that the joy will be saddened.  Well it is a good job it is over, and how quickly all the Central Powers went to pieces once the start was made.

It is hard for us here to see the necessity of keeping up a large army after peace terms are signed, and that is practically assured by the inability of the Central Powers to fight any longer.

Riverside Park Site of Carleton Place Graveyard

20-Foot Square Unmarked Grave in Riverside Park

The Carleton Place Canadian, 27 December, 1956

By Howard M. Brown

 

In Riverside Park there lies a little-known site which is of some interest in the town’s history.  It is found at the extreme end of the town’s park, near Lake Avenue and close to the Mississippi River.  This was a burial ground, where members of one of the first families of settlers of the town were laid in a now unmarked graveyard.

Discovery of this site some ten years ago was reported at a Parks Commission meeting, at which the suggestion was made that the area should be marked as a historical site by erection of a cairn.  Pending the receipt of further particulars no action was taken.  The Canadian subsequently found from the late Alex John Duff, Beckwith farmer, that he recalled this burial ground in his youth in the 1880s as being at that time a little cemetery about 15 or 20 feet square, a gravestone in which bore the name Catin Willis. 

With the Morphys and the Moores, the Willises long were among the widely known earliest owners of farm land coming within the present boundaries of the town.  It is well recorded that the whole central section of the present town was first located to the Morphy and the Moore families in 1819 as Crown grants of farm land; the part extending north of Lake Avenue to four of the Morphys, and three hundred acres at the south side of Lake Avenue to three of the Moores.  William Moore is said to have aided in the founding of the town by opening its first blacksmith shop in 1820, the first year of settlement as a community.  About the same time the first marriages here were those of Sarah, daughter of George Willis, to William Morphy, and Mary, daughter of Thomas Willis, to John Morphy.  Well known descendants of these families continue to live in the town and district.

On a farm which reached the western end of Riverside Park George Willis, born about 1778, settled and raised his family.  Other Willises coming from Ireland and settling near Morphy’s  Falls between 1819 and 1821 were Henry, William, Thomas and Catin Willis.  When the present Carleton Place Town Hall was built, the central building on its site, said to be the second dwelling built in the town, was the home of Mrs. William Morphy,  daughter of George Willis, where she had lived to 1888 and the age of 85, a widow for over fifty years.  The Bathurst Courier at Perth, reporting her husband’s death in August, 1837, said in part:

“Fatal Accident.  On Friday afternoon last, William Morphy of Carleton Place, whilst on his way home from this place on horseback, in company with several others, met with an accident from the effect of which he died on Sunday morning last, under the following circumstances.  Between this and Joseph Sharp’s tavern the deceased and another of the party were trying the speed of their horses when, on approaching Sharp’s house at a very rough part of the road, his horse fell and threw him off, by which he was placed under the animal.  Severe wounds causing a contusion of the brain led to his death…….The deceased was a native of Ireland, and has left a wife and family to deplore his sudden death.”

Grandchildren of William Morphy and his wife Sarah Willis included William, Duncan and Robert McDiarmid, prominent Carleton Place merchants, sons of James McDiarmid, Carleton Place merchant, and his wife Jane Morphy.

George Willis Jr. (1820-1892) succeeded his father on the farm at the end of Lake Avenue (Conc. 11, lot 12) and there brought up a family long known in Carleton Place, including Richard, drowned while duck hunting in November 1893, and George E. Willis, photographer, musician and bandmaster, who died in Vancouver in 1940 at age 96 while living with his son Stephen T. Willis of Ottawa business college fame; William and John H. of Carleton Place, and daughters including Jane, wife of James Morphy Jr. the son of “King James” of the pioneer Morphy family.

The George Willis place on the river side during one period was the annual scene of colourful sights and stirring sounds on the 12^th of July.  It was a marshalling ground and headquarters for the great Orange parade, with the Willis boys of the third generation prominent among the performers in the bands.  The names of George Willis, Senior and Junior, appear with sixty others on the roll of the Carleton Place Loyal Village Guards which mustered in 1837 and 1838 at the time of the Upper Canada Rebellion and “Patriot War,” and again with that of Catin Willis in the St. James Church monster petition of November 1846 for maintaining tenure of the Church’s clergy reserve land in Ramsay against claims of Hugh Bolton and others.

Catin Willis, born in Ireland in 1795, settled as a young man in Ramsay on the present northern outskirts of Carleton Place (con. 8, lot 2w) when that township was opened for settlement in 1821.  He died there in 1869.  His name appears as contributor to the Carleton Place fund for providing and operating a curfew bell in 1836.  The Church Wardens of St. James Church here in 1845 were Catin Willis and James Rosamond, founder of the Rosamond textile manufacturing firm.

William, another of the first Willises here, took up land in the 4^th concession of Beckwith (lot 18W) in 1820, securing his location in the usual way through the district settlement office and performing the settlement duties required for obtaining a patent to his land, which lay east of Franktown.  Franktown, then usually referred to as The King’s Store at Beckwith, and later named possibly for its sponsor, Colonel Francis Cockburn, had already been approved for surveying into town lots, and had the taverns of Patrick Nowlan and Thomas Wickham for the accommodation of travellers, in addition to the government supply depot for the Beckwith settlers.

George Ramsay, Ninth Earl of Dalhousie and Governor General of British North America, made the Nowlan Inn his stopping place, accompanied by Colonel Cockburn, during a one day visit in 1820 in the course of a tour of inspection of the Perth, Beckwith and Richmond settlements.

Henry Willis landed from Ireland in the early summer of 1819 with his young family on the sailing ship Eolus, whose passengers included the families of Beckwith settlers Thomas Pierce, James Wall and William Jones.  He first settled on the 2^nd concession of Beckwith (lot 13W) near Franktown, and later moved to Carleton Place where he is found as a contributor to the 1836 curfew bell fund and on the roll of the Loyal Village Guards of 1838.

Henry was an unsuccessful 1838 petitioner with Captain Duncan Fisher for preferential purchase from the Crown of a farm lot extending near Indians Landing (con. 11, lot 11), adjoining the farms of George Willis and Captain Fisher.  Those providing certificates of facts in support of this petition were Catin Willis, John Moore, William Willis, Greenwall Dixon, and Edward J. Boswell, Anglican “Missionary at Carleton Place.”

Thomas Willis is shown by Beldon’s Lanark County Atlas of 1880 to have been an inhabitant of the new village of Morphy’s Falls in its first year, and to have given his daughter in marriage then to John Morphy.  John (b.1794, d.1860), another of the family of six sons and two daughters of Edmond Morphy, built his home for his bride at the east end of Mill Street on the present Bates & Innes lands.  It stood there for over fifty years after his death, and last served as the watchman’s house of the Bates & Innes mill.  The large family of John Morphy and his wife Mary Willis, raised in that pioneer home, included Abraham Morphy of Ramsay, near Carleton Place; and Elizabeth, Mrs. Richard Dulmage of Ramsay, who was born in 1821 as the first child born to the first settlers in Morphy’s Falls.

It is possible that further consideration will be given to providing the added note of interest and distinction to the town, and to its popular Riverside Park, which would be furnished by a cairn and tablet at the Park denoting some of the ancient origins of the town.

Explain How Lanark County Townships Named, by Howard Morton Brown, Carleton Place Canadian, 09 November, 1961

How did the townships of the County of Lanark get the names they bear?  And how far back in time must one go to reach the days when the native Indians heard the tall forests of these townships ring to the first axe blows of surveyors and British settlers?

When the townships of this area were grouped together long ago to form the present County of Lanark their names already were the same as today.  They had been given when they first were surveyed and opened for settlement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  The origins of some, such as the Scottish names of Dalhousie and Lanark, remain well known.  The sources of others long have been forgotten locally and possibly are unknown to all of their present residents.

Investigation shows that nearly all of the fourteen townships of Lanark County were named in honour of greater or lesser British public and military figures of the time when this county was receiving its first large influx of settlers.  Among them are the names of some of the leading men of that day who were associated with Canadian and British North American public affairs.  Some wider local knowledge of the origins of these historic names seems worth preserving.  They are among the oldest existing place names in the county, with such exceptions as those of the Indian-named Mississippi and the French-named Rideau.  Together they form a permanent part of the record of the early inhabitation of this district by our forefathers.

Southern Townships First Settled

The townships of Montague, North Elmsley and North Burgess, on the northern borders of the waterways of the Rideau, are both the oldest and the newest townships of Lanark County.  They were the first named and surveyed and received the county’s first settlers, but until about 1845 they remained a part of the adjoining district to the south which became the united counties of Leeds and Grenville.

Admiral Montagu and the American Revolution

Montague, the southeastern corner extending east along the Rideau River from Smiths Falls to beyond Merrickville and north to within two miles of Franktown, is the oldest township in Lanark County in point of date of settlement, naming and time of survey.  Before it was named and surveyed in about the year 1797, the first farm land to be occupied north of the Rideau River was cleared and settled in 1790 by Roger Stevens and his family.

He had been an officer in one of the voluntarily enlisted corps of those American colonists who strove to preserve a British North America from revolution and who as migrating loyalists had shaped momentously the future of Canada. This Lanark County pioneer location became lot number one in Concession A of  Montague township, near the mouth of Rideau Creek.  Three years later Stevens had met his death by drowning and his Montague associate William Merrick had begun building the first mill in Lanark County at Merrickville.

The member of the prominent Montague family for whom the township was named appears to have been Admiral Sir George Montagu (1750-1829).  He had been a British naval captain in the American Revolutionary War.  At the outset of the war he had charge of blockading the ports of Marblehead and Salem.  He captured the Washington, the first war vessel sent to sea from the revolting colonies, and he covered the embarkation of the main British force removed from Boston to New York.  During the American Revolution and in earlier periods dating from 1748 his father John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), was first Lord of the Admiralty.

Chief Justice Elmsley

North Elmsley township was named for John Elmsley (1762-1805), Chief Justice of Upper Canada from 1796 to 1802, Speaker of this province’s Legislative Council in 1799 and Chief Justice of Lower Canada from 1802 until his early death.  His land ownership in Upper Canada was measured in thousands of acres, and he maintained residences at Quebec, York and Newark.  The home of one of his present descendants is in Lanark County at Appleton.

When the Canadian parliament buildings were destroyed in the Montreal riots of 1849 and Parliament began meeting for alternate periods of years at Toronto and Quebec, Elmsley Villa became the Toronto place of residence of the governor general Lord Elgin.  North Elmsley township extends south from Perth to Rideau Ferry and Smiths Falls to Rideau Ferry and Smiths Falls.  It contains the Tay Canal and is crossed by the highway running from Perth to Smiths Falls through Port Elmsley.

Bishop Burgess

North Burgess township borders the Rideau from North Elmsley west to the Narrows lock and bridge at the junction of the Big Rideau and Upper Rideau Lakes.  It extends north to the locally historic Scotch Line.  While sometimes said to have been named for a mythical Earl of Burgess, the township is recorded as having been given its name in honour of the Rev. Thomas Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury.  At Oxford University he had been a fellow student with Henry Addington (1757-1844), the late Viscount Sidmouth, English Prime Minister.  Allan’s Mills and Stanleyville are localities in North Burgess township.

North Elmsley and North Burgess townships were separated from their southern counterparts of the same names on the south side of the Rideau and were attached in 1845 to the jurisdiction which became the present Lanark County.  Before this division they were named in or about the year 1798 and were surveyed as townships at periods between 1800 and 1810.  Along their northern Scotch Line the first group of the county’s emigrants from Britain, natives of the south of Scotland, came to establish themselves as farmers in 1816.

Pioneers of 1816

Beckwith, Drummond and Bathurst townships, each named and initially surveyed in 1816, were the first townships of the county to be prepared for the opening of Lanark County for settlement by British emigrants and demobilized soldiers and sailors after the War of 1812-14 and the end of the long wars with France.  With South Sherbrooke they continued for nearly thirty years to form the southern extremity of the new district.  The fourth of the district’s new townships to be surveyed was Goulbourn, now part of Carleton County.

The Third Earl of Bathurst

Bathurst township, extending along the north side of the Scotch Line from Perth to Christie Lake and north to beyond Fallbrook was named for Henry Bathurst, Third Earl of Bathurst (1762-1834).  He was Secretary for War and the Colonies from 1812 to 1827, years which in Canada ran from the beginning of the War of 1812 to the start of the building of the Rideau Canal between Kingston and the site of Ottawa.  He had senior executive responsibility for the emigration and soldier settlement provisions which led to the founding of Lanark County.

The entire new district also was given his name.  It became later the counties of Lanark and Renfrew and a large part of the County of Carleton.  The earl of Bathurst entered the peerage as Baron Apsley and for several years was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.  Other places in Canada bearing his name are the town of Bathurst in New Brunswick and the Arctic’s Bathurst Islands and Bathurst Inlet.

Canada’s Defender Sir Gordon Drummond

In Drummond township in 1816 Perth was established as the new district’s regional administrative centre.  Extending eastward on the upper Mississippi Lake to the location known as Tennyson, Drummond township contains the present smaller communities of Balderson, Ferguson’s Falls and Innisville.  Drummond is the only township in the county to be named for a native of Canada.  General Sir Gordon Drummond (1771-1854) was born in the city of Quebec.  In his British army career he served in the Netherlands, Egypt, Ireland, Canada and the West Indies before returning to Canada in 1813 to become second in command of the forces engaged in this county’s defence in the War of 1812-14.  His vigour and ability as a leader played a large part in turning the balance in British Canada’s second successful war of independence against the power of its southern neighbours.  After becoming the administrator of Upper Canada in 1813 he was wounded at the conclusive winning battle of Lundy’s Lane.  He was commander in chief and administrator of Lower and Upper Canada in 1815 and 1816 when the first large scale settlements of Lanark County were begun.  In Quebec his name was given to the city of Drummondville in the County of Drummond.

Sir Sidney Beckwith Directed Settlement

Beckwith township gained its first few settlers in 1816, when the township was named and partly surveyed.  It received its largest single group of early residents from Perthshire in the Scottish Highlands in 1818, and became the location of the town of Carleton Place on the Mississippi and the smaller communities of Prospect, Franktown and Black’s Corners.  The township was named for Major General Sir Sidney Beckwith (1772-1831).  Entering the army at the age of nineteen, Sir Sidney Beckwith served in India, under Sir John Moore in the Spanish Peninsula, and in North America in and after the War of 1812-14.  He became commander in chief at Bom in 1829 and died two years later in India.

As quartermaster general of the British forces in Canada when the first main settlements in this county and district were made, Sir Sidney Beckwith headed the branch of the army in Canada which from 1815 to 1823 issued supplies to the several thousands of emigrants who, together with groups of demobilized soldiers, began the conversion of this section of Ontario into an inhabited region.  Under the immediate direction of his military department from 1816 to 1822 the farm sites then being granted in the present County of Lanark and other nearby areas were assigned individually through local offices opened at Perth, Richmond and Lanark.

Story of The Lanark and Renfrew Scottish Regiment, by Howard Morton Brown, 14 Sept. 1961

Some 13 years ago The Canadian prepared an article on the history of the Lanark and Renfrew Scottish Regiment which has a company stationed at Carleton Place.  Here is the story recalled.

Lanark and Renfrew Regiment, July 22, 1948

Glorious pages of history, full of stirring accounts of hard fought battles on the field of honor, of meritorious commendation for efficiency and service, could be unfolded if the complete history on the Lanark and Renfrew, Scottish Regiment, was available.

One of Canada’s oldest and most famous military units at present under command of Lieut. Col. W. K. McGregor, Pembroke, the regiment, since organization in 1862 as a volunteer militia company has aided in the suppression of the Fenian Raids of 1886, contributed 2,956 men to the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War, won five battle honors, and finally recruited 73 officers and over 2,000 men who served in active units in the present war.  How the regiment was organized is told in an abridged copy of its activities which have been notated from time to time through the years.

Early settlement of the Ottawa Valley started with the disbanding of the British regiments after the war of 1812.  Conditions in England and Scotland at this time were such that men discharged from the army were unable to find employment and so came to Canada.

Although the 42^nd Brockville battalion of infantry (the “Old 42^nd”) as it was formerly known, was not formed until 1866, the early settlers belonged to several units which were established at that time.  The Militia Act of 1855 authorized the formation of volunteer militia companies and the following were formed in Lanark and Renfrew counties :   Infantry company at Almonte, Dec. 5, 1862 ; at Brockville, Dec. 11, 1862 ; at Perth and Fitzroy, Jan. 16, 1863 ; at Lansdowne, June 15, 1866 ;  and Smiths Falls, June 22, 1866.

Units Are Concentrated

On October 5, 1866, these independent units were concentrated into one unit “the 42^nd Brockville Battalion of Infantry.”  When the regimental command was given to Lieut. Col. Jacob D. Buell in the same year, the unit became known as the Lanark and Renfrew Regiment.  Another unit, an infantry company at Pembroke, was attached and absorbed as No. 7 company in 1871.

In 1866, the militia received training under active service conditions.  When the threat of Fenian raids assumed serious proportions in 1870, contingents from the companies stationed in the two counties were detailed for duty at Brockville, Prescott, Cornwall and along the shores of the St. Lawrence River.  In the same year, a small detachment led by Capt. Thomas Scott, was sent with the Red River Expedition to the Canadian West to help crush the Riel Rebellion.

Drill sheds (as they were then called) were under construction for the battalion in 1868 at Lansdowne, Almonte, Carleton Place, Smiths Falls and Perth.

During the succeeding five years, activities of the unit were comparatively quiet although it is said the camp of 1875, was the first “dry” one since its formation.  The original historian facetiously remarks on this point.  “The matter has since been rectified and great improvement noted in the orderly conduct of the men.”  In 1877, the Pembroke company commanded by Lieut. Moffatt was called out to aid the local civil authorities in repressing riotous raftsmen.  This occurred during the great lumbering days.

Col. Buell retired in 1896, after 20 years continuous service and was succeeded by Lieut. Co. Arthur J. Matheson.  The new commanding officer approached his task under difficult circumstances as many of the officers had reached the age of retirement, but under his direction, the regiment was able to go to camp near Prescott with a strength of 15 officers and 185 other ranks.  It is noteworthy the regiment was highly complimented on its showing during an inspection. 

For the next nine years, training was reduced to a minimum due to a reduction in militia grants but the battalion was kept together through voluntary training at local headquarters.  A brief scare in 1895 due to differences between Great Britain and America over the Venezuela boundary, (which was finally settled by arbitration) helped arouse interest in the militia and the strengthening of Canadian defences.

In 1898, Lieut. Col. J. McKay succeeded Col Matheson.  Three years later he in turn was succeeded by Lieut. Col. Lennox Irving.  During his tenure of office the 42^nd was selected the rural unit to take part in the ceremony and review on the occasion of the visit of Their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of York.  After the march past, General Otter addresses the regiment stating, “Well done 42^nd.  It was simply splendid.”

In 1906, Lieut. Col. H. J. Mackie succeeded to the command.  During his tenure of office an amusing incident took place at the camp.

Lost Spur is Found

One of the staff officers was fond of brilliant dress.  He wore a pair of brilliant golden spurs.  One day camp orders reported the loss of a spur.  A soldier found it and brought it to the Orderly Room.  The unit, through exercises for the day, was immediately called out and a stretcher party of four men was detailed to carry the spur.  An armed guard was detailed to accompany the party.  With the regimental band leading the parade, the unit proceeded to headquarters.  The story concludes at this point.

Lieut. Col. J. M. Balderson succeeded Col. Mackie in 1908 and he remained in command until 1920.

During the Great War, the regiment enlisted and transferred men to the Canadian Expeditionary Force as follows:  First contingent, 150 ; 21^st Battalion, 120 ; 38^th Battalion, 285 ; 77^th Battalion, 103 ; 80^th Battalion, 321 ; 130^th Battalion, 1,024 ; and the 240^th Battalion, 963.  The 130^th Lanark and Renfrew Overseas Battalion was mobilized Nov. 14, 1915, at Perth, under Lieut. Col. J. E. de Hertel, and the 240^th, on June 1, 1916, at Renfrew under Lieut. Col. E. Watt.

Battle honors awarded to the regiment were, the Somme, 1916 ; Amiens, in the same year ; Arras, 1917-18, (Hindenburg Line) ; Ypres, 1917, and the pursuit to Mons in the same year.

The unit was re-organized in 1922 and Lieut. Col. J. R. Caldwell succeeded to the command.  Companies were allocated as follows : Headquarters, Perth ; “A” Company, Pembroke ; “B” Company, Renfrew and Arnprior ; “C” Company, Carleton Place, and “D” Company, Perth.

Two years after Lieut. Col. J. A. Hope, D.S.O., M.C., V.D., was given the command in 1925, the name of the regiment was changed to the Lanark and Renfrew Scottish Regiment and became affiliated with the famous Black Watch regiment.  During his term of office, headquarters of the battalion was at Perth, on the Tay River.  In Scotland, a Lieut. Col. Hope commanded the 42^nd Regiment of the Black Watch.  His headquarters was also at Perth, on the Tay.

The colors were presented to the battalion at Barriefield, July 13, 1930, by Miss Constance M. Dawes, and the ceremony of dedication took place the same afternoon.  Hon. Major H. H. Bedford Jones, D.D., officiated at the dedication.

A few years later, Col. Hope commanded the Bisley rifle team.  He was succeeded in 1931 by Lieut. Col. E. H. Wilson, V.D., who remained in command until 1933 when Lieut. Col. P. H. Gardner, M.C., V.D., was appointed commanding officer.

During his tenure of office, the regiment resumed training at Petawawa Military Camp for the first time since the war years.  He had the honor of being present at the Coronation of King George VI.

In 1938, the present commander, Col. Beatty, succeeded Col. Gardner.  During this visit of the King and Queen in 1939, his regiment was given a prominent part in the ceremonies at Ottawa and Kingston.

Aids at Ottawa Function

At Ottawa the regiment was credited with preventing what might have developed into a serious situation on the evening Their Majesties attended a parliamentary dinner at the Chateau Laurier.  Over 300 strong, the battalion’s duty was to line Mackenzie avenue and control the traffic and crowds.  About eight o’clock, the crowd began to press forward and civilian “casualties” occurred right and left.  The situation rapidly got out of hand.  But the pipe band was brought forward and played in front of the Chateau.  Soon the temper of the crowd changed and the situation was under control.

A personal bodyguard for the Queen was selected from the unit and stationed in the hall leading to the East Block of the Parliament Buildings.  It was commanded by Capt. A. Wallace.

At the outbreak of the present war, guards were established for a time at each armory, and shortly afterward the regiment was required to detail a guard of two officers and 50 other ranks over the Magazine, Pump House, and Main Gate at Petawawa camp. 

The regiment provided a guard over aliens interned at Centre Lake, in December, 1939.  Within a short time, a complete company of 250 officers and men were supplied to the Governor General’s Footguards, under command of Major Harold Baker.

Appointments announced in 1943 were : D. E. Jamieson, Smiths Falls, and now of Pembroke, will shortly receive his commission and will be appointed adjutant.  Lieut. W. R. Eliott, Renfrew, is training officer.  The following N.C.O.’s will be appointed assistant instructors with the rank of warrant Officer H, Sgt. Major J. B. Rouselle, Headquarters Company, Renfrew ; C.Q.M.S.P.J. Rooney “B” Company, Almonte ; C.Q.M.S.C.A. Clarke, “C” Company, Smiths Falls, and Sgt. L. E. Fagan, “D” Company, Carleton Place.

The spring of 1946 marked a turning point in the history of this famous regiment as it came under the scrutiny of the Department of National Defense under new plans announced for the Canadian Army in the post-war period.

The regiment was placed under command of Col. William Boyd, of Smiths Falls, who succeeded Major Alex Bathgate, of Pembroke, who was in command for a short time after Lieut. Col John McLaren Beatty.  A short time later, Col. W. K. McGregor, of Pembroke, succeeded Col. Boyd.

The regiment became known as the 59^th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Lanark and Renfrew Scottish (Reserve).  Instead of the old time companies in an infantary regiment, the unit was divided into artillery batteries.

The 176^th Battery was subdivided into two troops.  “A” Troop is located at Perth under Capt. W. Arbuthnot ; “B” Troop at Smiths Falls under Capt. Gordon Thom.  Headquarters is at Carleton Place under Major C. R. Ryan who commands both troops.

The 17^th Battery is located at Renfrew and the 177^th Battery at Pembroke.

In command of Headquarters in Carleton Place for the 176^th Battery are : Major Ryan, Lieuts. G. W. Comba, Ivan Romanuke, Ronald McFarlane, M.B.E., John Dunlop ; Battery Sergeant Major E. M. Evoy, M. M. and Bar, Battery Quarter Master Sergeant, W. E. Fraser ; sergeants H. Neil, Thomas Poynter and Transport Sergeant Thomas Leach.

The first post-war camp was held at Point Petre that year.  The camp is located on Prince Edward Island, near Picton.  A considerable number from this area attended and were introduced to the new equipment allotted the regiment.  This included the main weapons, the 40-mm. Bofors gun and the 20-mm. Polsten rapid-fire gun.

The following year, the next camp was held at the Royal Canadian School of Artillery (L.) at Picton on the site of the former airport.  More advanced training was given and as a result of the men’s progress, the regiment was complimented on its showing.

At this camp, guns were fired at Point Petre.

During the winter of 1947, considerable training took place at various troop headquarters.  Carleton Place made use of the 40-mm. Fofors, gun tractor and 15-cwt. Transport allotted to them.  Many lectures were given and some schemes were completed.  The year 1948 saw a repetition of previous training at the artillery school during the annual camp, just completed.

1910 Year of Great Fire Town Had 7 Automobiles, by Howard Morton Brown, Carleton Place Canadian, 06 October, 1960

A series of local history notes recalling the first century of community life at Carleton Place is ended with the present recollections of events in this area in the years from 1910 to 1920.

Fifty years ago the town and district began to move out of the old-time horse and buggy days.  Its maturity coincided with the years of the First World War, when this district served its country well.  Among local municipal developments was the forming of a public utilities system, with the installing of waterworks lines in the town’s rock-ribbed streets and the transfer to public ownership of electric generating and distributing facilities.  Total industrial employment in the town continued with little change.

Seven Automobiles

1910 – The greatest Carleton Place fire of living memory destroyed about twenty-five buildings between Bridge Street and Judson Street, including Zion Presbyterian Church, the Masonic Hall, the militia drill hall, the curling rink and many homes.

Following the death of James Gillies, the Bates and Innes Company bought the Gillies Machine Works building and converted it into a felt mill.  The Hawthorne woollen mill was reopened by its new owner, the Carleton Knitting Co., Ltd.

There were seven automobiles owned in Carleton Place, including a Buick, a Packard, a Reo, Fords and a Russell-Knight.

Hospital building proposals were discussed at a town meeting and abandoned.  The cost of erecting and equipping a suitable hospital was estimated by a provincial official at $1,000 a bed, and maintenance costs at under $5,000 a year.

The Starland Theatre here was showing moving pictures of the Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Film Company.

The first Boy Scout troop was formed by William Moore.

George V became king when death ended the ten-year reign of Edward VII.

New Power Plant

1911 – Electric power was supplied to the town from the new 125,000 north shore hydro electric plant of H. Brown and Sons.  The firm’s old south shore generating units were maintained as a supplementary source of power.

Reconstruction of buildings destroyed by fire included Zion Church, the Masonic Building and a number of residences.

David Smythe, of Ferguson and Smythe, harness makers, was elected for the first of seven yearly terms as mayor of Carleton Place.

Waterworks Construction

1912 – Findlay Brothers Company commenced a fifty per cent enlargement of its stove plant. 

A public vote endorsed a waterworks installation bylaw.  Twenty-five thousand feet of steel pipe was ordered from Scotland.  The excavation contractor from Kingston began work with thirty Bulgarians, who were quartered in the old Caldwell sawmill boarding house in the town park, a dozen Italians accommodated in the Leach school house building, and a dozen Roumanians in addition to local excavation workers.

A town landmark adjoining the home of A. R. G. Peden on Allan Street was removed when the ruins of the large log house of Edmond Morphy, a first settler at Carleton Place, were torn down.  It was said to have been built about 1820.

The first rural mail delivery route from Carleton Place was started in Beckwith Township, to be followed by opening of a second mail route on the north side of the town in Ramsay township.

Town Clock

1913 – A town clock was installed on the Post Office.  James A. Dack, jeweler, was given charge of its care, and J. Howard Dack first started its 150 pound pendulum in motion.

Dr. A. E. Hanna of Perth was elected in a South Lanark by-election occasioned by the death of the Hon. John G. Haggart, member for the constituency in the House of Commons for a record continuous period dating from 1872.  North and South Lanark in the following year were combined for future Dominion election purposes.

A steel bridge replaced the wooden bridge across the Mississippi River at Innisville.

High school principal E. J. Wethey and nine high and public school pupils attended a cadet camp of over twelve hundred boys at Barriefield.  Plans were made to form a Carleton Place High School cadet corps.

First Contingent

1914 – The year which saw the start of world-changing events began locally with a mid-January record low temperature of 32 below zero.

The ninth annual spring show of the Carleton Place Horse Association was opened by the Hon. Arthur Meighen (1874-1960), Solicitor General of Canada, who said his grandfather was among the early settlers of Lanark County.

For transportation by gasoline motor power, there were twenty-five automobiles in the town and fifty motor boats on the lake when summer opened.  Ford touring cars were selling for $650 f.o.b. Ford, Ontario.  A resident was awarded damages for injury to a horse frightened by an unattended and unlighted automobile parked on High Street.

F. A. J. Davis (1875-1953), editor and publisher of this newspaper for nearly forty years, bought the Carleton Place Central Canadian.  He changed the name in 1927 to The Canadian.

The Great War began in August.  Within two weeks the town’s first dozen volunteers under Captain William H. Hooper, joined by volunteers from the Pembroke, Renfrew, Arnprior and Almonte areas, left Carleton Place.  Their parade to the railway station was attended by town officials, the Carleton Place brass band, the Renfrew pipe band and hundreds of citizens.  The send off ended in the singing of Auld Lang Syne.

Guards were posted on railway bridges.  Local industries started producing war supplies.  Active service enlistments increased.  Food conservation began.  Women’s groups organized sewing services for war hospitals and shipped food parcels to the district’s overseas soldiers.  Belgian and Serbian Relief Fund collections were made.

Another pioneer home dating from about 1820 was removed when the original farmhouse of John Morphy, son of Edmond, was torn down.  It was the birthplace of the first child born to settlers at Carleton Place (Mrs. Richard Dulmage, 1821-1899).  In later years the old building had accommodated the night watchman of the Gillies Woollen Mills.

War Service

1915 – The municipal waterworks system, completed in the previous year, went into operation.  Electric lights were installed in the town’s schools.  The Hawthorne Woollen Mill, bought by Charles W. Bates and Richard Thomson, was re-opened and re-equipped to meet war demands.

War news and war service work dominated the local scene.  There were many district recruits joining the armed forces, reports of heavy casualties, the furnishing of a motor ambulance and the making of Red Cross Society supplies, industrial work on government orders, increase in price levels and some food restrictions.

The Mississippi Golf Club was formed and acquired the old Patterson farm and stone farmhouse on the Appleton road.

The Goodwood Rural Telephone Company was organized.  It let contracts for installing forty-four miles of lines in Beckwith and in the west part of Goulbourn township.

Recruits and Casualties

1916 – A local option vote closed the public bars of Carleton Place.

Patriotic Fund campaign objectives were oversubscribed.  The 130^th Battalion, formed from the district, went into training.  Recruiting began for the Lanark and Renfrew 240^th Battalion.  Some 125 men of the 240^th visited Carleton Place on a training and recruiting tour, accompanied by a bugle and drum band and a thirty-piece brass band.  They were entertained by two nights of concerts and dances in the Town Hall.  Some wounded soldiers came home on leave.

The McDonald and Brown woollen mill, previously leased, was bought by the Bates and Innes company from H. Brown and Sons, and its machines were removed to other local mills.

Road shows performing in Carleton Place included two circuses, one of which disbanded here ; September Morn (a “dancing festival from the Lasalle Opera House, Chicago”) and D. W. Griffith’s great motion picture, The Birth of a Nation, which was travelling with an orchestra of thirty musicians.

Fire destroyed the Houses of Parliament of Canada, in a blaze visible from high observation points of this town.

The War Continues

1917 – The Lanark and Renfrew 240^th Battalion under Lieut. Colonel J. R. Watt left for overseas service.  Heavy war casualties continued.  Memorial services were held for men killed in action.

The Hawthorne Mills Limited was incorporated with a capital stock authorization of $200,000.  Electric power was installed in the C.P.R. shops.

Increased horseshoeing charges, to fifty cents per shoe, were quoted in a joint announcement of fourteen blacksmith shops.  They were those of Duncan Cameron, Richard Dowdall, Robert Kenny, McGregor Bros. (Forbes and Neil), and James Warren & Son, all of Carleton Place ; Edward Bradley, William Jackson, Edward Lemaistre and William McCaughan, all of Almonte ; and George Turner of Appleton, George Kemp at Black’s Corners, S. Robertson at Ashton, Robert Evoy at Innisville and Michael Hogan at Clayton.

John F. Cram and Sons bought over eight thousand muskrat pelts in one week from district trappers and collectors.

Highly popular home front war songs ranged from “Keep the Home Fires Burning”, to “Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers.”

The Armistice

Another year of war ended in November.  Armistice celebrations commenced in Carleton Place at 4 a.m. when the news was announced by the sounding of church and fire alarm bells and factory bells and whistles.  Cheering, shouting and singing groups gathered in the streets.  A great bonfire soon was prepared and burning in the market square on Franklin Street.  In a long and noisy morning procession there were decorated automobiles, buggies, wagons, pony carts, drays and floats, one of them with a war canoe full of young club paddlers in action.  The Town Council and Board of Education paraded with the firemen and their equipment and with cheering marchers on foot.  Groups of young people had their own banners, flags, horns and other noise makers.  Celebrations continued until midnight.

Major W. H. Hooper, home after four years’ service including two years as a prisoner in Germany, was welcomed in a reception held outdoors.  Indoor meetings had been banned by reason of deaths from a world influenza epidemic.

The Hawthorne woollen mill, with two hundred employees, was enlarged.  Fire destroyed the Thorburn woollen mills in Almonte.

End of an Era

1919 – Members of the armed forces returned to Canada.  Over fifty from Carleton Place had lost their lives, together with similar numbers from all sections of the surrounding district.  A military funeral was held here for the burial of a young officer who had died overseas.

Roy W. Bates was re-elected for the second of three yearly terms as mayor.  The town’s electric power supply facilities were converted to public ownership under the Ontario Hydro Electric Power Commission system.

Three persons were killed when an automobile collided with a train at the William Street railway crossing.  Another local fatality was caused by a fallen live wire of a municipal distribution line.

In a baseball game at Riverside Park between junior teams of Carleton Place and of the Smiths Falls C.P.R. club, local players included Mac Williams, Bill Burnie, Howard Dack, Jim Williamson, George Findlay, Tommy Graham, Gordon Bond and Clyde Emerson.  The umpire was Bill Emerson.  The score was 15 to 14 for Smiths Falls.

In the Town Hall Captain M. W. Plunkett presented the Dumbells in an original overseas revue, “Biff, Bing, Bang,” with an all-male cast of returned soldiers at the outset of their years of Canadian stage fame.

Centenary Celebrations

One hundred years after the first settlers had come to occupy the site of Carleton Place, a centenary celebration of the settlement of Beckwith Township was held at McNeely’s 10^th Line Shore on Dominion Day in 1919.  Among the thousand who attended was a representation of descendants of most of the township’s Scottish, Irish and English emigrants of a century earlier.  A few  elderly first-generation sons and daughters and many grandchildren of the district’s honoured pioneers were on hand to mark the day.  Speeches included a review of the township’s history by the Rev. J. W. S. Lowry.  Fiddlers and a piper provided the music for dancing.  A collection of pioneer household and farm equipment was on display.

At Almonte an Old Home Week was held in 1920.  The Centenary Celebration and Old Home Week of Carleton Place in 1924 was opened by the ringing of church bells and the sounding of the whistles or bells of the railway shops, of Findlay Brothers foundry and of the Bates & Innes and Hawthorne woollen mills.  The week’s programme was the result of months of planning and preparation for the return of the town’s young and old boys and girls from distant and nearby points.

Parades, shows, bands, fireworks, dancing, midway attractions, banquets, concerts, church and cemetery services, an array of athletic events and open house accommodation for renewing old acquaintances were all combined to fill the seven day programme.  The chief sports events were a number of baseball games, a football game, track and field sports, a cricket match, horse racing, an aquatic carnival, trap shooting, a boxing tournament and old timers’ quoit matches.  An historical exhibition of district relics, curios and heirlooms was shown.  The native son chosen to be chief guest of honour was D. C. Coleman (1879-1956), vice president and later president of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.

These civic honours opened our area’s second century of settlement by paying tribute to those of the past who had paved its way.  The district’s centenary celebrations may be claimed to have reflected on a small scale something of the enduring viewpoint once recorded by a great English historian in the following thought: – “A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.”