Local History

The municipality of Waltham was named after a village near Grimsby in England. Incorporated as a municipality in 1859, Waltham's first mayor was John T. Coghlan. By 1859, the Township of Bryson, named after George Bryson, amalgamated with Waltham. The town of Waltham was the terminus of the PPJ railway line and later the Canadian Pacific railway. Built in 1887, the railway offered a direct means of travel between the Upper Pontiac and Ottawa. The train would arrive in Waltham in the evening, and leave the next morning for Ottawa. The railway was vital for the region.

Rapides des Joachims was originally a mission post on the Upper Ottawa River, where an early Hudson's Bay Post was established at the foot of the long rapids. By 1871 it had become a small village doing considerable lumber business. The river steamers called there because it was, at that time, the head of navigation on the Ottawa.

The magnificent stands of white pine located in Bristol township attracted the first settlers in the early 1800's. The municipality of Bristol - located in the south-east corner of Pontiac - was incorporated in 1846, with William Craig as its first mayor. The iron ore deposits, here, where first mined from 1872 to 1894. In 1956, the owners of Hilton Mines constructed the new open pit mining and processing facilities.

The municipalities of Alleyn and Cawood boast of many beautiful lakes and rivers. Fishing and hunting are excellent, and there are very good snowmobile trails. Danford Lake, located at the intersection of Hwy. 301 and the Harrison/Cawood Road in the north-east end of Pontiac, is the main village. The municipality was erected in 1877. Its first mayor was Robert J.Bradnor. The original settlers, who were mostly of Irish descent, worked in the lumber industry.

Sheen, Esher, Malakoff & Aberdeen
Irish people who emigrated to Canada in the 1830's to escape the potato famine and religious persecution were for the most part the settlers of Sheenboro. Some set up homes in the area of McGillvery Lake because there were washouts caused by the spring floods near the Ottawa River.

Before the first European settler arrived, the first nations peoples, the Algonquins and the Iroquois, fought each other for control of the river. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Hudson's Bay Company set up a trading post in the region. The first Europeans settlers established themselves on the south shore of the River Island. In 1840, a church was built at Rapides Paquet, which later became a ferry stop.

In 1611, Nicolas Vignau, a white scout, landed at what is now Portage du Fort with a party of Algonquins. On their way to tribal headquarters at Allumettes Island, they had to portage overland for the first of a series of five difficult cataracts.

In 1694, the famous military engineer Louis d'Ailleboust, Sieur de Coulonge, established a fur trading post hear the mouth of the Coulonge River. The stretch of cataracts that led to Fort Coulonge became known as "le portage du fort" and this is how the settlement at the foot of the rapids got its name.

Nicholas d'Ailleboust, Sieur de Coulonge, spent the winter of 1694-95 near the mouth of the Coulonge River and so established one of the first settlements on the Ottawa River.

The first trading post was called Fort-Coulonge. In 1760, the Northwest Company took over its management and in 1821, the Fort became the property of the Hudson's Bay Company. Until 1828, it served as the head post on the Ottawa River. The post's 655 acre farm was sold in 1844 and the buildings in 1855. The trading post became the village of Fort-Coulonge situated several kilometres down river.

One of the original five municipalities in Pontiac, Litchfield was erected on November 20, 1846, with Alfred Lancaster as its first mayor. In December of the following year, the first meeting of the district of the 3rd Division of Ottawa County was held at the home of Samuel Morehead on Highway 148. Today the house is the home of Dawson Morehead. In 1964 the Pontiac County Council (now Pontiac MRC) built its headquarters in Litchfield, on Highway 148 at the edge of Campbell's Bay.

The earliest settlers in the Shawville area were Irish Protestants from County Tipperary who came to Canada after the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815. Many had first settled in the Carp Valley on the Upper Canada side of the Ottawa River. Local lore tells us that Thomas Hodgins, John Dale and his wife Elizabeth set out from this colony in the summer of 1821 to search for new land to settle. It is believed they paddled up the river, landing in a small bay some forty miles upriver. The two men then set off northward in search of a suitable place to homestead.