Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 11.
Some Reminiscences of Charles Waters Chamberlin
1829 - 1932
of Old Chelsea, Quebec
From newspaper clippings in The Ottawa Citizen - 1924
Assembled by Patrick M.O. Evans
Charles Waters was the son of Josiah Chamberlin and Sophia Frost, being born in 1829 at Kirk's Ferry. He married twice, first to Louisa Abigail Brigham (nee Aylwin), widow of Lennox Brigham; and secondly to Emma Blair.
At age 24 he moved to Old Chelsea and there built himself a house in which he lived for the rest of his life. The building is still standing and is being used as a residence in 1985.
By trade he was a millwright and bridge-builder and was connected with the building of most of the old covered bridges in evidence in the Gatineau.
Making Candles
First of all, he said, they rendered the beef into tallow, put it into a big tub and got the tallow to the right temperature. Then they made a lot of wicks out of cotton, cut them to the desired length and tied them to a horizontal stick and dangled them about two inches apart (about 5 cms). Care was taken to see that the wicks hung straight. All the wicks were dipped at once slowly into the tallow. Then the stick with all the tallow covered strings was raised and hung up until the tallow hardened. The candies were later re-dipped as many times as necessary to give them the desired thickness. Hundreds of candles were made until the tallow was all gone. That was the way candles were made in the eighteen thirties, forties and fifties. Then some chap, I guess he was a Yankee, made a mould for making candles. We have some of the moulds still in our house.
My Father - An Enterprising Yankee, Made Potash
My father before me (Josiah Chamberlin) was a millwright and either built or helped to build most of the mills of all kinds on the Ottawa between Hull and Montreal (he and three brothers set up Philemon Wright's Mills - Ed,). The senior Chamberlin was a Massachusetts Yankee of the old school - shrewd, capable and enterprising, who after many years spent at his trade along the Ottawa and down the St. Lawrence, settled on the Gatineau just south of what is now Kirk's Ferry.
Beside farming my father turned his hand to many things. He made potash, which in the eighteen twenties, thirties and forties was much in demand in Montreal, and brought high prices - as much as $100 per barrel. He was the only man in Hull Township who made potash in a large way. Neighbours for 20 miles around kept their wood ash (there was no other sort then, coal being unknown) and sold it to him at six cents per bushel, and were glad to get that price, as the money received was all profit.
Origin and Progress of New Chelsea
New Chelsea, Mr. Chamberlin said, dates from about the year 1849. In that year Julius Blaisdell, an American, started a small mill at the fall of the Chelsea rapids. He ran it till about 1853 when Col. Allan Gilmour got hold of it and greatly enlarged it. Then New Chelsea, as it was then called, began to be a place. When the mills were at their best, the Gilmours, between the mills, the booms at Cascades and the piling grounds at Ironside, employed over one hundred men. Most of the men lived on the island or along the west bank a little below, and a few at Ironside. The village at the turning to Old Chelsea began to grow. No less than six hotels flourished at one period and four stores of some size. There were also blacksmith shops. There were no garages then. Among those who kept the early hotels, whom I remember, were Edward Farrell, Charles McCluskey, George Clark and a man called Tait, or some name like that. Howard Prentiss and Edmund Chamberlin kept two of the general stores.