March 12, 2006:
Photo Source: National Archives of Canada Digital Library
Reference # C 33280 
(Rochester Street, Rochesterville and Rochester Heights)

      

Thanks to Dave Lemkay for the following:

I am pleased to have come across this email trail.  I am descendant of the Rochester 
family and have a keen interest in anything Ottawa / Ottawa River / Valley and our 
forest heritage.  Rochesterville was indeed the area defined and after its amalgamation 
to the city, was still referenced as Rochester Heights.  That area could be described 
as that height of land around Laurier and Bronson extending southward to Gladstone.  
The George Rochester clan arrived in Bytown, from Rouses Point NY, USA around 1827 and 
were engaged as provisioners to Colonel By.  They established a brewery - Dominion 
Pale Ale was one line that is named in various accounts, being popular to the troops.  
As well, they developed a tannery and John Rochester had a sawmill at the Chaudiere.  
All of this industry was destroyed in the fire of 1900.

... Dave Lemkay

(The Rochester family was also involved in the timber trade. See posting by Mr. Lemkay
on March 12, 2006 at www.bytown.net/lumbering.htm ).  

More from Mr. Lemkay:

Yes... I would be pleased to have this included on your site.  I happen to
have an extraordinary cache of early Bytown - Ottawa - Westboro information.
The Rochesters were connected through marriage(s) to the Cole family of
Highland Farm (Maplelawn) on Richmond Road, to the Bryson family of Fort Coulonge,
Peter Morris, Canada's first official auditor general, John Lorn McDougall
of Renfrew and more.  My Rochester line - George Rochester was lured to
Burnstown in 1848 after the exile of the Laird of NcNab.  He built a grist
mill on the Madawaska, married the school teacher, Marion Baillie and they
raised six sons, each who went on to significant careers in the mining,
timbering and clergy fields.  John Rochester remained in Ottawa and was
prominent as Mayor and MP for Carleton County in the 1850s - 1870s.

There is a lot of information also on the Thomas Cole clan.  There were
eleven offspring.  I would be pleased to assemble some of that for the
record.

Dave Lemkay  

July 6, 2006:
John Rochester Sr. was my 3rd great grandfather. I have done some family 
tree research and have data on the Rochester family that was provided to me 
some years ago by another descendant  of his. If you feel that any of this 
Family Tree information would be any value to you, let me know what type of 
information you are looking for and I can make it available.

I am in the Mary Ann Rochester line (b.1824). Mary married George Honey 
Preston whose daughter Mary married Edward Valentine Johnson from New Brunswick. 
Their daughter Beatrice Amelia was my grandmother. She later moved to Bermuda and
then to Sydney Australia where she passed away.

Beatrice Amelia married Francis Arthur Lightfoot and they had three 
children. I have been fortunate in getting in touch with a distant "cousin" who is a 
memberof the Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City and has done a lot of work in 
documenting the Lightfoot family roots back to the 1500's in England. 

I would like to get some additional information on the ancestors of John 
Rochester of Rouses Point NY, USA. As you pointed out "google'ing" "Rochester Northumbria"
provides a lot of information. The difficulty I have is separating the
useful information from the simply interesting information from all the 
search hits. I am still stuck at bridging the Rochester part of the family tree back to 
England.

Do you have any information regarding the names and dates of the Northumbria
Rochester  ancestors that I could add to my records?

 ... Denis Lightfoot  
 (Note: Denis has a very complete family tree ... Al) 
October 29, 2006:
Hello Al, 

I will enter into this site once again to outline briefly how the Rochester 
clan from Bytown fits into the McNab story.  When Duncan McNab was basically 
exiled from the township, George Rochester was summoned to come up the Madawaska 
from Bytown to help the settlers develop a much needed sawmill and gristmill 
industry at Burnstown.  Rochester was born in Rouses Point NY in 1820, moved 
to Bytown with his family (John Rochester Sr.) in 1828 as provisioners to 
Colonel By, mainly establishing a brewery of major proportion circa 1829.  
The son George moved to Burnstown in 1848 and began the construction of a 
stone grist mill by Johnson's Rock (present day Burnstown bridge).  He went 
on to build a sawmill and brewery there.  He married the school teacher, 
Marion Baillie who hailed from Motherwell Scotland.  In following years,  
two other Rochester brothers moved there, William Young Rochester, marrying 
another Baillie sister - Helen, who had been widowed with the death of her 
first husband Peter Morris.  William and another brother James also established 
commercial businesses.  (In 1876, William built the brick structure that is now 
the Blackbird Café, former Burnstown General Store, long owned by the Robertson 
family.  (It was also the home of General Store Publishing House Inc., now of 
Renfrew)  George and Marion Rochester had a family of six sons.  
(George Hamilton Preston Rochester, the third son was my great-grandfather).

More on this family in future missives. 

Dave Lemkay 
 April 7, 2008:
James ROCHESTER and Anne FROST

I am trying to find some information about James Rochester who married Anne Frost 
(daughter of John Frost – Bytown).  I am actually interested in the Frost family.  
Does anyone have any information about John Frost?  He owned quite a bit of land 
in Lower Town during the 1830s.  Anne Frost and Harriett Frost are mentioned in 
letters I am transcribing (from the 1840s).  James Rochester is mentioned in one of 
the letters.  If anyone has a photograph of Anne Frost or John Frost I would 
appreciate a copy.  I have a photograph of Harriett Frost.   She married Alexander 
Graham (merchant – Bytown). 

Thank you,

... Mary 
________________________
Hello Mary,
 
I have some basic information on James Rochester and Ann Frost.  James was the second 
child of John Rochester and Barbara Young.
 
James was born in Fenham Hill, near Berwick on Tweed Dec 15, 1814.  He married 
Ann Frost of Devonshire on July 7, 1842.  She was born in 1813 and died in Ottawa 
May 2, 1900.  From this union, there were seven children, three of which died in 
infancy.  Living children were: Martha, Harriet Augusta, Margaret Ann and James Anderson.
 
There is a footnote on the parents of Ann Frost:
Elizabeth Frost, wife of John Frost, who was married in the church at Kentisbeare, 
Devon England on April 7th 1806.  From the Book of Marriages: "John Frost of this 
parish and Elizabeth Chic of the same were married in this church by Banns this 7th 
day of April in the year one thousand eight hundred and six by me, John Kingdon Cleeve, 
Curate.  Witnesses: Charles Francis Bampfylde, John Frost."
 
There is no other information that I can readily see that pertains to later life of 
any of these people, other than the extension of the offspring, which is outlined in 
Lloyd Rochester's "The Rochester Family Tree".
 
Dave Lemkay                                               

 
E-mail Dave Lemkay, Denis Lightfoot, Mary and Al Lewis



Back to Bytown or Bust - History and Genealogy in the Ottawa, Canada area -- Early Prominent Persons