The Gilmour family played a pivotal role in the economic development of Québec throughout the nineteenth century.

In the early 1800s, the Gilmour family firm, based in Glasgow, was one of the largest shipbuilders in the world. In search of high quality ships‘ timbers, they established outposts in Canada under various family members: first in the Miramichi in 1812, then in Québec City in 1828, and Montréal in 1832.

What began as a simple purchase-for-export operation evolved into a mainspring of the Canadian economy. The firm began to acquire logging rights, opened new territory and established shipbuilding in Québec City (a tradition continued to this day); it built dams, mills, roads and harbour facilities, broadened its product base, opened new markets, pioneered innovative technologies, provided employment to a large workforce, and over time developed into a fully integrated and highly diversified independent Canadian forest products organization. At the centre of this evolution were the Gilmour House and mills on the Gatineau River at Chelsea.

The Establishment of Chelsea

In 1841, the management and operation of the firm began to shift to the Outaouais, with the opening of an office here.

With the termination of the restrictive “Gatineau Privilege” in 1843, the Gilmours acquired the timber rights to 3,700 square miles.

To deal with the rapidly expanding log drive down the Gatineau, the Gilmours financed a stone-filled dam, a mill, and a two-mile lumber slide on the Gatineau River at Chelsea Falls.

By 1849, 45 saws were cutting 300,000 deals per year, employing 180 men in Chelsea. The 1854 Reciprocity Treaty with the United States signalled an outburst of expansion; planks and boards were now classed as raw materials and allowed free entry. Business prospered. Gilmours‘ Chelsea mill began producing good strips, good siding, stocks, pickets, covers, lath, and shingles.

From the outset it was also necessary for the Gilmours to provide housing for the workers. Fragmentary municipal tax records show that the company maintained over 50 houses. Chelsea became a community of some importance, with tri-weekly mall service and a population of 300, including blacksmiths, butchers, a land surveyor, two priests, a tailor, a shoemaker and a sash and door factory. No less than six hotels and four stores of some size flourished. It was during this time that the Gilmours built themselves a residence in Chelsea.

The Gilmour Legacy

Before the Gilmours, local road transportation was a real impediment to economic development. In 1844, it took a whole day to make the trip to Hull... The road was so bad then that it was almost impossible to get a load up the Mile Hill with a team... The whole road was, at first, really only a sort of trail through the thick brush. One had to wind around stumps and pick the best spots.

The Gilmours established the Hull and Wakefield Macadamized Road Company (HWMRC), opening up the Gatineau valley to settlement and agriculture. The HWMRC operated as a toll road (with a toll station north of the Gilmour house). The tolls never paid for its upkeep. The Province finally accepted responsibility for the road on August 2, 1923. Today it is known as Highway 105.

The Gilmours also promoted and financed the Gatineau Log Drive Company and the Ottawa and Gatineau Valley Railroad Company.

Gilmour and Company maintained several thousand men in shanties through a network of local roads, depots and company farms. Their Riviere Desert farm comprised 2,000 acres. Here cows, sheep, chickens, draught horses, Berkshire pigs and short-horn bulls were bred. This had a good effect on the breed of settlers‘ animals in the region of the depots. In private life the Gilmours were no less prominent. It would seem that they were on intimate terms with Governor General Monck as these diary entries from Her Excellency’s writings suggest:

Sat. 28 Jan 1854. Dinner at Mrs. Gilmour’s. We had the usual oyster pies at supper; the very look of them makes me sick.

Tuesday 18 April 1865. Yesterday Mrs. G. drove to town with me in the phaeton. The drift at their gate was so bad their wagon could not be got out. The old drifts along the road are marvellous. They have been cut through, and I can‘t describe the height of them.

The Governor General was also impressed by the Gilmours‘ pioneering philanthropic work on behalf of Ottawa’s battered women, orphans, and elderly:

They sat down 56 to dinner yesterday. They have a school, a nurse, and a schoolmistress; the children of a drunken father would be taken in. Then they have many feeble old women; they have an infirmary for the sick, a laundry and baths. It is very clean and lofty. The institution is almost entirely supported by Mr. and Mrs. Gilmour.

John Gilmour was the first Canadian-born president of Gilmour and Company, and oversaw all the Canadian operations, including new sawmills in Trenton and on the Nation and Blanche Rivers. He was “one of the lumber trade pioneers of the Gatineau, who lived many years in a dwelling overlooking the Gatineau River, at Chelsea.”

John and Jesse Gilmour often returned from a ball or dinner in Ottawa six miles to Chelsea well wrapped in furs in their sleigh, with a coachman on the box, behind two splendid horses.

In Chelsea they raised eight children. Three sons (David, Sutherland, and Hamilton) formed the nucleus of the famous “Silver Seven” hockey team which brought the Stanley Cup to Ottawa for the first time, and, years later, was voted Canada’s outstanding hockey team during the first half century. “When the mother entertained friends in the Gilmour home, this trophy was always given a prominent place at the center of the table.”

John Gilmour also served for a time as President of the Wakefield Trout Fishing Club, Denholm. Anglers may wish to note Rule 27: “No member shall be allowed to take out more than 50 pounds of fish at any one time.”

In 1904, John Gilmour bought a large stone house at 29 Cartier Street in Ottawa, subsequently the home of the Royal Canadian Legion. After John Gilmour’s death, the firm was sold to the Gatineau Company Limited, then Riordon, then the Canadian International Paper Company(CIP). CIP still uses the Gilmour “G” barkmark to mark its logs.

In 1926, the entire area of the mills at Chelsea was flooded for hydroelectric development.

Before the Flooding:

Honnegger, Hans and Major, Warren, Excerpt from Up the Gatineau! Volume 19, 24–30