November 28, 2002:

Richmond Road "Took the Cake" for Dust in the 1860's

Ottawa Citizen, c. 1910 (from my Great-Grandmothers Scrap Book ... Al):

"In this almost dustless age, new timers can have no idea of the dust
which used to be on the country roads fifty years ago.

In those days, there was no provincial highway, no suburban commission roads, no 
"second class county highways" and very few plain everyday macadamized roads.

Mr. William ARNOLD tells us about the time in the sixties when the Richmond Road 
was at the height of its fame as a dusty thoroughfare.

At that time, the square timber business was at its height. To properly understand 
what follows we must leave the road and take to the river for a few moments and see 
the square timber cribs being made into rafts below the Chaudiere Falls.

At the period, iron chainexpensive and the lumbermen, in binding up the cribs 
together into rafts, used "withes" of birch instead of chain. These "withes" were 
really a species of rope made from tender birch saplings. The sapplings were twisted 
in a machine till they became shredded and rope-like in pliability.

For these saplings, there was a great demand by the Ottawa lumbermen. Consequently, 
the supplying of birch saplings became a profitable business in itself.

And now we get back to the Richmond Road and watch the farmers of Richmond, Stittsville 
and Hazeldean bringing in saplings to Ottawa. We will watch them at the point on the 
road between Bell's Corners and Ottawa where they are most numerous.

The farmers carry their saplings (branches and all) with the top ends dragging on the 
ground and the butt ends being anchored under their seats. The Richmond Road was a 
very dusty thoroughfare. It was bad enough on a windy day to travel on it. But when 
the farmers with their trailing saplings came along (and there were many of them) the 
dust became unbearable.

The people who knew most about the Richmond Road dust, from personal experience, 
were the rivermen who travelled on foot between the foot of the entrance locks at 
Ottawa and Skead's Mills. These men went down on the cribs from Skeads Mills and 
walked back. Between Ottawa and Skead's Mills there were quite a number of hotels. 
The dust naturally made the lumbermen "very very thirsty" as Harry Lauder would say, 
and it follows that the rivermen made frequent trips into these hotels for liquid 
refreshment. It is to be feared that most of the earnings of the rivermen went into 
the hotels, and all because of the dust.

And now the dust is gone, the rivermen are gone and the hotels are gone - there is 
nothing of the past but a memory."
 June 23, 2005:
Skead's Mills at Kitchissippi Lookout
This photograph, taken June 22, 2005, shows the remaining foundations of 
Skead's Mills.
Located at Kitchissippi Lookout on the Ottawa River Parkway, between 
Island Park Drive and Woodroffe Avenue, the sawmill employed many local labourers.
The beach which is adjacent to the mill was called Westboro Beach.



Kitchissippi is the original Algonquin name for the Ottawa River. 
(actually Kitigan Zibi).
... Al

(keywords Skead, NP). 

 
E-mail Al Lewis



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