GVHS Logo

Up the Gatineau! Article

This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 23.

John Rudolphus Booth: A Man for His Time

Carol Martin

This article was inspired by anecdotes supplied by Graham Greig, a former E. B. Eddy employee. Dr. Duncan McDowall of Carleton University provided suggestions and constructive criticism.

John Rudolphus Booth
John Rudolphus Booth, 1881. Photo: National Archives of Canada PA 25545

The life of Canadian John Rudolphus Booth could be a true model for the fiction written by his American contemporary, Horatio Alger. But Booth’s story is about more than the personal success of a man who rose from humble beginnings to wealth and acclaim as a timber baron. From the mid-nineteenth century into the early decades of the twentieth, the enterprises Booth founded had an enormous economic and social impact on the development of greater Hull and Ottawa, and on Canadian business. Although he apparently left behind no diaries, notes or records to explain an impressive list of achievements, Booth’s death at the age of 98, in 1925, inspired comments and reminiscences in the press. Those who had worked with him could still summon memories of his determined and dominant personality decades after that date. From newspaper sources, I discovered that Booth — or JR as he was commonly known — had an early, brief, and personally-important connection with the Hull area in addition to his well-known involvement with Ottawa’s development.1 His far-reaching and important influence on the Canadian economy made him something of a legend in his own time.

Two staple products, timber and wheat, drove Canada’s export economy in the nineteenth century, as they were harvested and sold abroad to Britain and the United States. Ottawa and Hull and their hinterlands were strategically located for exploiting timber, and benefited from Ottawa’s early role as a defence and transportation route, and later a federal government hub. The area was an early microcosm of Canadian diversity as it attracted English- and French-speakers in an ethnic stew of British, Irish, Scots and native-born francophones from the rest of Quebec; Protestants and Roman Catholics; and a mix of lumbermen, tradesmen, bureaucrats and politicians. Philemon Wright and others in the region involved themselves in the timber export trade in white pine, providing squared timber needed for British ship-building during Napoleon’s blockade of Baltic ports. They also exported red and white pine “deals” to Britain where these thick semi-finished planks were sawn into smaller planks. The sawmills of these early entrepreneurs were small and catered only to local lumber needs, but this changed quickly after 1851 when several newcomers arrived and established larger enterprises in response to a growing American market demand for lumber in the New England states and the expanding Midwest. The new businessmen included Levi Young, A. H. Baldwin, F. H. Bronson, E. B. Eddy, W. G. Perley and J. R. Booth.

Like many of the Gatineau area pioneers, JR was of Irish origin, from a family who had come first to the United States, and then to the province of Quebec. John Rudolphus’ father, also a John R. Booth, was an Irish Presbyterian who had emigrated with several brothers to the United States before moving near the village of Waterloo in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. There he built a “rough stone house” and on April 5, 1827, young JR was born to John R. and his wife Helen Rowley Booth.2 JR and his wife, Rosalinda Cook, left Waterloo for Vermont shortly after their marriage. With nine dollars for capital and an elementary school education, he found work as a carpenter on the Central Vermont Railway. Four years later, in the early 1850s, he established his family in Hull, where he found work as a carpenter doing odd jobs. He helped build Andrew Leamy’s mill at Leamy Lake north of Hull, and soon became its foreman. This must have been a decisive step in his career: having responsibility for the work of others, he discovered that he had a talent for organizing and directing it.

John Rudolphus Booth
John Rudolphus Booth, 1898, Photo: National Archives of Canada PA 28000

Unlike most of his rural contemporaries who aspired to settle into farm ownership, once the hard-working and ambitious JR had made his stake, he went into business for himself. In 1853 he rented a mill in Hull and began making wooden shingles. When a fire demolished this building, he rented another, and was soon doing so well that the owner decided to double the rent. This became another decision point, and JR moved his equipment to a site just across the Ottawa River on the Ontario side and started a lumber mill. The year was 1857, and within decades this mill had become the largest in the world.3 JR obviously saw his lumber mill in the wider context of its linkage with raw materials and markets: As a first step, JR’s strategy was to obtain his own timber source for the mill, and he soon began to acquire timber limits. At the time of his death, these were the largest in the British empire.4 In 1875 he advanced money toward finishing the partly-built Canada Atlantic Railroad (CAR), in order to improve the access to his timber limits and to market his products to the United States. When its other backers foundered, he took over active control and completed the projected line. By the turn of the century, the CAR, nicknamed “Booth’s Railway,” was a commercial success, moving goods across some 500 miles of track linking Georgian Bay (and via lakers to and from the United States), to Renfrew, Arnprior, Ottawa, Coteau Junction (south of Montreal) and Lake Champlain in New York State.5

The railway linked JR’s valley timber limits and his mills, and moved western wheat and lumber as well. But a few years later Montreal, Toronto and Maritime interests opposed Booth’s application for improvement and expansion funds, and in 1904 he sold his stake to the Grand Trunk Railway, which later became part of the Canadian National Railway system. He collected a reported $14,000,000 for his interest.6 When his sawmill burned in the great Hull- Ottawa fire of 1900, he was one of the few to rebuild.7 In 1904, when he was seventy-seven years old, JR added to his empire by building a state-ofthe- art pulp processing mill near his lumber mill, and soon added a paper mill and cardboard-producing plant.

His rise from construction carpenter to tycoon demanded both drive and common sense. In addition, he persistently turned setbacks into advantages, and developed and honed an outstanding business sense.

Anecdotes and stories about his dealings with family, employees, business contacts and outside interests provide another dimension to his story. He always preferred outdoor work and physical labour to desk work. A modest and rather uncommunicative man, JR had a reputation for fairness and good judgement in business. In financial matters, he could be unduly cautious in a simple deal or a comfortable risk-taker where others feared to proceed. He relied on family members in his businesses, but allowed them little latitude in decision-making. Personally innovative and creative, he discouraged these qualities in subordinates.

In dealing with employees or with the business, JR was a “hands-on” person who liked to supervise and even take part in the operations of his mill, but who never forgot that he was the boss. When he introduced 8-hour mill shifts, replacing a 12-hour day, he kept the total wage package at the same rate, reasoning that the men needed that amount to live on. In 1910 a railway strike closed his lumber mill for a week, yet he continued to pay his men their regular wages. In the same paternalistic and protective vein, The Ottawa Evening Journal noted a time when he visited a sick employee with a remedy which his own mother had used. He tried persuasion with employees when he felt a threat to his business life. To urge their cooperation in voting to defeat the proposed Taft-Fielding reciprocity agreement of 1911 and the Liberal government sponsoring it, he called together his employees and addressed them from the top of a woodpile in his lumber yard. (Both the measure and the Liberals were defeated). He also faced down potential strikes within his own mill, telling the workers that he would shut his mill before paying wages that the business did not warrant, the threat softened by a promise to raise wages when he could afford to do so.8 The employees must have believed in his determination, his promised good faith, or both: they did not strike.

JR was a small, wiry man with bright blue eyes. He dressed “for comfort rather than style,” and enjoyed participating in a very personal way in the work of his business. In one case, a businessman who asked at the office for Booth was told he would find him somewhere on the premises. In his search for a man who might measure up to his conception of the great lumber manufacturer, he asked directions from a little man who was mixing mortar in a pit. The little man straightened up and introduced himself: he was, of course, JR.

Graham Greig was a young employee at the E. B. Eddy Company in Hull when he met the late Winston A. Ogilvie, former office manager of the Booth firm. When the E. B. Eddy Company purchased the J. R. Booth company in 1947, Ogilvie transferred to Eddy’s, and shared anecdotes from his own experiences with JR. Greig recalls:

on the Ottawa River at the Chaudiére Falls, had arranged to receive a lumber buyer who was coming to discuSs a purchase of sawn lumber. The man, from the U. S., was due to arrive in Hull, since the train from Montreal stopped there first before it proceeded across the Alexandra (Interprovincial) Bridge to Ottawa. Accordingly, JR proceeded to the Hull station, then located off St. Rédempteur Street, at about the location of the present Robert Guertin Arena. A few passengers left the train there, and soon all others had proceeded on their way except for two left on the station platform: a welldressed businessman with two large bags, and Booth. JR approached the stranger, asking if he could be of any help; the businessman replied that he was new lo the area and wanted directions to the J. R. Booth offices. JR replied that he knew the way and would walk along with him. As the two walked up St Rédempteur Street, JR offered to help carry one of the heavy bags, which was obviously giving the uvisitor some difficulty. They proceeded along Main Street9 to Eddy, and across the Chaudiére Bridge, finally stopping in front of the Booth office at 6 Booth Street.10 At this point JR told his friend that this was the Booth office, and handed back the bag that he had carried from the Hull station. The visitor thanked JR profusely and proceeded into the office, only to turn around to find that the person who had carried his bag was indeed the owner of the company. Booth was about 75 years old at the time and still very active in the day-to-day operations of his company. The two immediately began to discuss the sale of lumber.

His financial decisions sometimes baffled observers, but they turned out well for JR. The Ottawa Evening Journal reported a tale from the days when he operated a shingle mill on the Hull side of the Ottawa River. As the story went, he would hitch up a wagon with a load of shingles and take them to Ottawa for sale, then visit the grocers and grist mill to buy provisions. On one occasion, after his shingle and grocery transactions, Booth had only enough ready cash to pay for half a load of feed. The grist mill owner pressed him to take a full load and pay the balance later, and Booth reluctantly agreed and left for home. After a few hours he returned and insisted that the miller take back part of the load: he wanted only what he could pay cash for. Within a few years, Booth outbid many well-established and wealthier lumber dealers for timber rights to the Egan estate limits, with backing obtained from the Bank of British North America. Other dealers criticized his bid of $45,000 as far too high; certainly it was about double the prices being paid for similar-size stands of timber. JR obviously preferred to pay cash in his small dealings, but when he wanted something and was confident of its value, he was willing to take risks. In the case of the Egan limits, he had sent a cousin, Robert Booth, to assess the property’s potential and advise him. His bid to obtain it was based on trusted advice about its value, and good preparation in having prearranged financial support.

John Rudolphus Booth
JR’s house, Metcalfe Street (The Laurentian Club). Drawing: reproduced with kind permission of The Laurentian Club

Late in his career, JR successfully fought a lawsuit over railway rights. In this case, the local papers reported that he had “driven a hard bargain.” When he was seeking a buyer for his railway, an American interest paid $250,000 for an option, but then failed to finalize the deal before the option expired. When JR finally sold the railway in 1904, the Americans sued for recovery of their money (and an additional $2,000,000 in damages) but were unsuccessful. The same sources reported no out-ofcourt settlement or other repayment from the man who had just received $14,000,000 from the sale.11 Perhaps JR simply had less empathy with high-flying, hard-driving business tycoons than he had with ordinary businessmen and workmen.

JR was the first lumberman in the Ottawa Valley to try out horses for hauling logs and supplies in the lumber camps, which had previously used yoked oxen for this work. The result was obviously successful, and became the new norm. His analytical mind recognized that similar skills were needed to fell trees and to handle cargo as a docker, so he brought in longshoremen to work on his timber limits. A willingness to try new things kept his enterprises on the cutting edge, and his vision of linking operations led him to expand and integrate his activities. “Dogmatic, selfopinionated and almost domineering in business affairs, he ruled with an iron hand,” admitted the Ottawa Evening Journal.12 His management style was autocratic and did not soften with time.

His sons, son-in-law and other relatives became involved in his businesses under JR’s firm direction. He was a man whose main interest was his business; accordingly he devoted most of his time to it. He needed little sleep: apparently he survived on about four hours a night, with regular work days of 12 to 14 hours at the office. The long days at the office were not atypical for the time, nor were family enterprises. But Booth’s family who worked in his enterprises becamé managers under the patriarch’s strong direction; they lived with or near him, and they also lived with his idiosyncrasies.

Booth liked horses and preferred a horse-drawn buggy or cutter, even during the early days of automobiles, when he owned several of them. He had the same driver for 40 years, and his personal concessions to advancing age were simply to wear a heavier coat and hold an umbrella against rain or snow. A cloth cap with ear-flaps and heavy woollen mittens provided additional protection on cold days. Graham Greig recalls another anecdote from Winston A. Ogilvie:

A well-hitched team of standard-bred horses with a covered buggy sounds like real luxury to you and me today, as we might want to take an outing in good weather and travel some of the well-packed country roads, or even paved lanes. But let us move back through a window of time to horse-and-buggy travel when the roads were not smooth or dry — to the late 1800s, in the Hull and Ottawa area. The owner of the horses and rig was JR Booth, owner-operator of the J. R. Booth Lumber Company, with offices and mills on Booth Street at the Chaudiére Falls. As were the operating standards of the time, company management never left their offices until 6:00 or 7:00 p.m., and it would certainly be dark at this time during the late fall evenings. Mr. Booth set out for his residence, with his son-in-law Andrew Fleck, a senior official in the company, beside him on a miserable November night. It was raining and the streets were very muddy. The two families lived near each other, and the driver proceeded along up Booth Street, intending to go first to Fleck’s address. The mud was alarmingly deep and, as they neared a corner to turn in that direction, Booth ordered the driver to stop, explaining that this was the end of the ride for him because the streets were in such poor condition that he would not have the horses continue to Fleck’s house. He then ordered the driver to head straight home. Needless to say, the son-in-law had to get out and walk the rest of the way in the deep mud.

The Ottawa Business Directory of 1885 lists J. R. Booth, Lumber Merchant, with a residence on the Richmond Road, and sons J. Fred and C. Jackson as clerks of the company, at the same address.13 Son-in-law Andrew Fleck, in the same directory, is Secretary of the Atlantic Railway Company and also lives on the Richmond Road. JR’s wife died in 1886, and his household included son C. Jackson and his family for the balance of their lives. In fact, both sons lived with JR at 770 Wellington Street until 1894, after which Fred moved to another address. By 1910, JR had built the mansion which still stands at 252 Metcalfe Street, and continued to live there until 1925.

In addition to his sons and son-in-law, JR hired other family members. As early as 1857 he had hired his cousin Robert to assess the Egan estate, and Robert R. is later listed as “culler,” then “agent,” in Booth’s employ. He may have felt some obligation to help other relatives and give them jobs, or sought them out as people he could trust; in any event, seven of the eight Booths listed in the 1886 Ottawa City Directory worked for JR. A review of the Ottawa city directories between 1885 and 1900 found the following Booths working for him: Arthur W. (machinist/stationary engineer), Henry (employee), James (foreman), Joseph (foreman), Leander (foreman), Levi (foreman), Norman G. (millhand/filer), Ransford A. (saw filer), Walter S. (clerk/tinsmith/timekeeper).14

John Rudolphus Booth
JR’s grave, Beechwood Cemetery. Photo: Carol Martin

JR lived to be 98, remaining physically active until his last months. He was director of the Canada Cement Company and Present of the Dominion Nickel and Copper Company, in addition to his timber industry businesses. He had few outside interests, but had supported the Ottawa YMCA and the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Association, and was one.of the founders of St. Luke’s Hospital, later President of its Board of Governors. His recreation, when he took any, was consistent with his preference for the outdoors: he spent holidays at his timber limits in Madawaska, and he enjoyed growing flowers. In the 1860s or early 1870s he acquired property in Chelsea; his 100 acres were part of Lot 27 in Range 10. He owned large farm tracts on the Merivale Road and adjacent to the present Experimental Farm, and sold to the government most of the land on which the Farm is located. He left thriving businesses and a fortune at his death on December 8, 1925. In keeping with his personal style, his funeral was preceded by a simple visitation at his house attended by hundreds of workmen from the J. R. Booth Company, and subsequent burial in Beechwood Cemetery.

We remember John Rudolphus Booth as one of Canada’s great businessmen. A dominant figure in the timber trade, he entered into almost all of its aspects: timber, sawn wood, pulp, cardboard and paper manufacture. His vision of an empire encompassed the infrastructure needed to develop sources of materials and markets, so that he invested in railways to link raw materials, processed goods and markets, and incidentally boosted the distribution and sales of other products such as grain. As Canada’s frontier moved west across Ontario, JR was there too, involving himself with plans for exploiting nickel and copper. JR remained involved in lumbering throughout his career, unlike many of his local peers or others in Ontaric such as D. D. Calvin of Kingston and Mossom Boyd of Bobcaygeon, who switched to different business lines or public life. Some of the landmarks that bore his stamp have vanished over time — he had cut and sold the timber used in the first Parliament buildings (all but the library destroyed by fire in February 1916), and supplied the decking for the Cunard ships Lusitania and Mauritania. Other memorials are local to the Ottawa area, such as the Experimental Farm’s chrysanthemum named for JR. The former Division Street, running from the Chaudiére to Dow’s Lake, became Booth Street in his honour, and his mansion stands still, as the Laurentian Club. Less tangible, but more significant to the region today, is Booth’s long-term impact on the growth and development of Ottawa and Hull. His monument in Beechwood Cemetery dominates others around it, just as Booth himself did in life.

Footnotes

  1. The Globe, Toronto, December 8 and 9, 1925, and The Ottawa Evening Journal, December 8 and 9, 1925.
  2. The Globe, Toronto, December 9, 1925, page 1, col. 3.
  3. Ibid., page 33, col. 4.
  4. The Ottawa Evening Journal, December 8, 1925, page 1, col. 1.
  5. John H. Taylor, Ottawa: An Hiustrated History, (Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 1986), pages 50, 79.
  6. The Globe, December 9, 1925, page 33, col. 4.
  7. E. B. Eddy also rebuilt his pulp and paper mills in Hull.
  8. Promenade du Portage in present-day Hull.
  9. The present site of Eddy Forest Products Limited.
  10. The Journal, December 8, 1925, page 12, col. 5.
  11. Ibid., page 12, col. 6.
  12. The Ottawa Directory, (Ottawa: A.S. Woodburn, 1885).
  13. The Ottawa Directory, (Ottawa: A. S. Woodburn) 1885 to 1889-90; The Ottawa Directory, (Ottawa: R.L. Polk & Co. & A.S. Woodburn) 1890-91; The Ottawa & City Directory, (Ottawa: Might's Directory Co.), 1891-92-1900.

Volume 23 table of content.

Return to List of articles