Perth, Ontario, Canada
Early History and Genealogy

Painting by Ruth McMillan in 1976
Shows the Head of the Rideau Canal Locks in Ottawa, Canada in 1893
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January 11, 2021:
This picture of the mill at Glen Tay, owned by Captain Joshua Adams, is from page 97 in the book
Lanark Legacy, Nineteenth Century Glimpses of an Ontario County,
by Howard Morton Brown and Glenn J. Lockwood, 1984, ISBN 0-9690289-2-X.
Page 98 of this book gives a good short biography of Captain Adams.
December 20, 2020:
St. James Anglican Church in Perth, built in 1861. Keywords: Fuller and Jones, Architects
Picture Source: Page 87, Perth: Tradition and Style in Eastern Ontario, by Larry Turner, ISBN 0-920474-75-6,
published by Natural Heritage / Natural History, Toronto, 1992.
December 20, 2020:
Here is the Perth Carnegie Library, built in 1907. Picture Source: Perth: Tradition and Style in Eastern Ontario,
by Larry Turner, ISBN 0-920474-75-6, published by Natural Heritage / Natural History, 1992, page 81.
December 17, 2020:
This photograph is of the Winn Shoe Company, later the Perth Shoe Company and then the Brown Shoe Company of Perth.
Source: Perth: Tradition and Style in Eastern Ontario, by Larry Turner, 1992, page 97, ISBN 0-920474-75-6.
November 28, 2020:
The Scottish Settlers at Perth, Upper Canada in 1818
Names of Settlers: Peter McPherson, William McPherson, James McLaren, James Taylor, John Simpson, James Miller,
Hugh McKay, William Spalding, William Rutherford, John Hay, Thomas MacLean, Archibald Morrison, John Holliday,
Alexander McFarlane, James McDonald, John Fergusos, John Flood, William McGillevry, William McGillivray, John Brash,
Ann Holderness, John Miller, William Old, Francis Allan, Thomas Cuddie.
This table of settlers at Perth in 1818 is from the book by Lucille Campey from the University of Aberdeen in 2005,
The Scottish Pioneers of Upper Canada, 1784-1855 - Glengarry and Beyond, published by National Heritage Books,
Toronto, ISBN 1-897045-01-8, page 47.
November 27, 2020:
This picture and text of the Reverend William Bell is from the book by Lucille Campey from the University of Aberdeen in 2005,
The Scottish Pioneers of Upper Canada, 1784-1855 - Glengarry and Beyond, published by National Heritage Books,
Toronto, ISBN 1-897045-01-8, page 46.
Keywords: Lanark County, Beckwith Township, Smiths Falls and Richmond
February 18, 2020:
Perth Town Map as originally designed and surveyed in 1820
Map Source: The Upper Ottawa Valley to 1855, Edited by Richard Reid,
Carleton University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-88629-100-3, page xcii in the Introduction

February 7, 2011:
We have just aquired a copy of the book Perth Remembered, published in 1967 by the Perth Museum.
Source for Drawing below: 175th Anniversary (1817-1992) Church Bulletin
for St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Perth, Ontario
dated June 28, 1992

February 13, 2011:
Here is a photograph showing the members of the St. Andrews Church Choir in Perth, Ontario, in 1920.
Source: Newspaper clipping (undated), believed to be from the Perth Courier.
Surnames for Search Engine: Dodds, Hammond, Stone, Doyle, Ainsworth, Ferrier, Casselman, McKee, Muriel Wilson,
McKay, Cavers, Oatway, Gibson, Flett, Spalding, Estelle Scott.
September 25, 2011:
Another new book for the Bytown.net Library:
Perth: Tradition and Style in Eastern Ontario, by Larry Turner, ISBN 0-920474-75-6, published by Natural Heritage / Natural History,
Toronto, 1992.
A lot of early history and settlement and information regarding the Tay Canal, built by John Haggart.
John Haggart Sr. came to the Perth area to build the Rideau Canal works at Chaffey's Locks. He was originally from
Breadalbane, Scotland.
December 16, 2011:
The Perth Historical Society has published a list of military settlers who settled in the Perth area beginning in 1816.
This list is very detailed - it shows the Township name as well as the lot and concession number of the land granted to the ex-soldiers.
Novmber 18, 2015:
Here are 2 places to visit while you are in Perth.
February 20, 2019:
In 1906, the artist Edmund Morris, 1871-1913, whose family had early ties to Perth, Ontario, was sent with the
Department of Indian Affairs to the James Bay area of northern Ontario. His role was to paint portraits of the Chiefs who signed
Treaty Number 9 in 1906.
Edmund Morris became Canada's best known painter of portraits of chiefs of the First Nations people. His life and works are
described in the book Edmund Morris, Frontier Artist by Jean S. McGill, Dundurn Press, ISBN 0-919670-79-2.
Here is an excerpt from page 13 of the above book:
August 25, 2015: (added new book on CD)
Interesting Notes and Comments from the Diary of Reverend John MacDonald, Roman Catholic Priest, Perth, Upper Canada, 1823-1837,
CD in .pdf format, GlobalGenealogy.com Inc., 2015.
February 22, 2017:
During the Great Famine (Black '47), families were sent from Grosse Isle, Quebec to Montreal and then on to
local communities which were either on a canal system or where industrialization was taking place and jobs were opening up. In Perth, Ontario
there was an already established Irish community and some had been workers on the Rideau Canal or the Tay Canal
twenty years earlier.
Some of the famine emigrants stayed here in Perth and others moved on to nearby townships such as Lanark County and
Renfrew County to acquire farm work.
Here are names of some folks who came from Montreal to Perth between 1845 and 1847. Most of these folks came with their families:
Peter Daly & family, Widow Lamb, Widow Hughes, Widow Robinson, John Wilson, Mary Ross (to her son), John Corbett, Ann Elliott, Bridget O Hanlan / Hanlon & family,
Thomas Cobourn, John McCann, wife and 2 children, John McDonald, wife and child, Samuel Morrison, Simon McInnery (sp?), John O'Neil and family,
John Bern (Burns / Byrne), wife and 2 children, Robert McKewen / McKewan, Robert Gosson, Owen Hagan or Hogan, Mary McGrath, Mary Maher / Meagher,
Johanna Conner / O'Connor.
Source: Names of Emigrants from the 1845-1847 records of James Allison, Emigrant Agent at Montreal, Irish Research Group of the
Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, publication number 94-2, 1994, ISBN 1-55116-72-8.
This publication (112 pages) is now available from Global Genealogy in either hardcopy format or as a download in .pdf format.
... Al Lewis
Picture source: A Pioneer History of the County of Lanark by Jean S. McGill, page 137.
Keywords: Colonial Georgian architecture, Radenhurst Inderwick House
E-mail Al Lewis
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