John Rudolphus Booth
Encyclopedia
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
lumber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
and railway baron. He controlled logging rights for large tracts of forest land in central Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, and built a railway (the Canada Atlantic Railway
Canada Atlantic Railway
The Canada Atlantic Railway Company , the creation of lumber baron John Rudolphus Booth, was for a short period an important participant in the development of trans-Canada railway systems at the end of the 19th century...
from Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
through to Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay is a large bay of Lake Huron, located entirely within Ontario, Canada...
) to extract his logs; and from Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
through to Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
to export lumber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
and grain
GRAIN
GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and...
to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Early life
J. R. Booth was born on a farm at Lowes near WaterlooWaterloo, Quebec
Waterloo is a city in Quebec, included in La Haute-Yamaska Regional County Municipality, in the administrative area of Montérégie. The population as of the Canada 2006 Census was 4,054...
(Shefford County
Shefford County, Quebec
Shefford County is an historical county in southern Québec, Canada. It is named after Shefford, a small town in Bedfordshire county, England of the same name and is in the Eastern Townships region of Québec....
) in the Eastern Townships
Eastern Townships
The Eastern Townships is a tourist region and a former administrative region in south-eastern Quebec, lying between the former seigneuries south of the Saint Lawrence River and the United States border. Its northern boundary roughly followed Logan's Line, the geologic boundary between the flat,...
of Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. His parents, John and Eleanor Rowley Booth
Booth (surname)
Booth is a surname of English origin. At the time of the British Census of 1881 , its relative frequency was highest in Cheshire , followed by Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Aberdeenshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Westmorland. In all other British counties, its relative...
, Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
immigrants, had a number of children (variously reported as 5, 6 and 8). J. R. Booth left the family farm at the age of 21 and got a job as a carpenter
Carpenter
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
with the Central Vermont Railroad.
In 1852 he married Rosalinda Cook and moved to the Ottawa
Ottawa River
The Ottawa River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. For most of its length, it now defines the border between these two provinces.-Geography:...
valley. His first business venture was a machine shop in Hull, Quebec which later burned down. He then opened a successful shingle factory. Later he accumulated enough money to lease (then buy) a small sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
near the Chaudière Falls
Chaudière Falls
The Chaudière Falls are a set of cascades and waterfall in the centre of the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area in Canada where the Ottawa River narrows between a rocky escarpment on both sides of the river. The location is just west of the Chaudière Bridge, northwest of the Canadian War Museum at...
. He established his own lumber company and won the contract to supply wood for the Parliament buildings
Parliament Hill
Parliament Hill , colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildingsthe parliament buildings serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural...
at the new Canadian capital in Ottawa, Ontario, selected by Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
in 1858.
Harvesting timber from the upper Ottawa River and its tributaries, Booth expanded his timber limits into the Lake Nipissing
Lake Nipissing
Lake Nipissing is a lake in the Canadian province of Ontario. It has a surface area of , a mean elevation of above sea level, and is located between the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay. Excluding the Great Lakes, Lake Nipissing is the fifth-largest lake in Ontario. It is relatively shallow for a...
region in 1881. In order to reach his Ottawa mills, Booth constructed a five and a half mile railway to carry sawlogs over the portage from Lake Nipissing to the headwaters of the Mattawa
Mattawa River
The Mattawa River is a river in central Ontario, Canada. It flows east from Trout Lake east of North Bay and enters the Ottawa River at the town of Mattawa. Counting from the head of Trout Lake, it is 76 km in length...
.
In 1867, he purchased, at a very reasonable price, the timber rights of John Egan
John Egan (Canadian politician)
John Egan was an Irish-Canadian businessman and political figure in the Ottawa region.He was born near Aughrim, Ireland, in 1811. He came to Aylmer, Lower Canada, Canada, in 1830. After working with a lumber company on the upper Ottawa River, he entered the business himself near Bytown...
's 250 square miles (647.5 km²) of pine on the Madawaska River in what is now Algonquin Park. For the next 50 years Booth harvested this land as well as other extensive tracts in northern and central Ontario. Often going there in his own private Railcar, and working beside his men during the day and on business affairs most of the night, seldom sleeping for more than a few hours.
Building an empire
Planing mill
A planing mill is a facility that takes cut and seasoned boards from a sawmill and turns them into finished dimensional lumber. Machines used in the mill include the planer and matcher, the molding machines, and varieties of saws...
and offices in the United States. Fire was a constant threat to his mills, and they burnt down in 1893, 1886, 1900 and 1903. (Much of Booth's personal and business records were lost at these times.) Half of the mills'output was shipped to England; the rest to the United States and throughout Canada. White pine from Booth's lumber yards was used to build the decks on the ocean liners of the Cunard Line.
In 1879 he established the Canada Atlantic Railway (an amalgamation of the Montreal and City of Ottawa Junction Railway and the Coteau and Province Line Railway and Bridge Company) to carry his logs from Central Ontario to Ottawa, and his lumber from Ottawa to the States. In 1890, he completed the Canada Atlantic Railway
Canada Atlantic Railway
The Canada Atlantic Railway Company , the creation of lumber baron John Rudolphus Booth, was for a short period an important participant in the development of trans-Canada railway systems at the end of the 19th century...
connecting Ottawa to the United States. He even built a railway bridge across the St. Lawrence River at Coteau Landing (1888–1890) to move his lumber faster than crossing the river on barges. By 1896, his Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound Railway (later amalgamated into the Canada Atlantic Railway) ran from Depot Harbour on Georgian Bay through southern Algonquin Park to Ottawa.
Booth also operated grain elevators and steamships on the Great Lakes, a cement company and a pulp and paper mill. In 1904, he sold his railway to the Grand Trunk Railway (later incorporated into the Canadian National Railways.
J. R. Booth continued to run his business empire well into his nineties. He died in 1925 at the age of 98 after being ill for several months and was survived by his sons Jackson, John Frederick, daughter Helen Gertrude Fleck and several grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Descendants and legacy
His son John Frederick Booth, who lived in Canada, married ... and had a daughter Lois Frances Booth (born Ottawa, Ontario, 2 August 1897; died Copenhagen, 26 February 1941), who was married in Ottawa, Ontario, on 11 February 1924 to Count Erik of RosenborgCount Erik of Rosenborg
Prince Erik, Count of Rosenborg was a Danish and Icelandic prince. He was born in Copenhagen, a son of Prince Valdemar of Denmark and Princess Marie of Orléans.-Marriage and issue:...
, whom she divorced in 1937; they had two children. She later remarried Thorkild Juelsberg, without issue. Booth's fortune was a subject of much speculative commentary during the latter years of his life, with estimates ranging up to $100 million. At the time of the marriage in 1924 of his granddaughter Lois Frances Booth to Prince Erik Christian Frederik Alexander of Denmark, it was rumoured that Booth contributed half of her $4-million dowry. J.R. issued a formal denial. At his death his estate was officially valued at almost $7.7 million; the property was later re-evaluated upwards. Although succession duties exceeding $4 million were paid in 1927, Ontario Premier Mitchell Frederick Hepburn subsequently claimed more and invoked the legislature to overcome the legal obstacles. J.R's heirs eventually paid another $3 million.
J. R. Booth also had a grandson named after him, J. R. Booth, Jr. J. R. Booth's Jr. children included Asa Booth, a parliamentary guard at Canada's Parliament Building in Ottawa. Asa had one child, a daughter Rita Carmel Mary. Rita married Kenneth George Lough and had 4 children. Thomas Asa, Florence Ella (Suzie), Lorrie Roseann, Kenneth George Jr. Thomas married Sherren Darlene Wasiewicz (Magill) and had four children - Sheana Anne Maureen, Daniel Sean Patrick, Sheelin Carmel Mary and Shannon Loretta Marie. Florence married Ronald Joseph Hector Beaudoin had two sons, Philip Ronald Joseph and Steven Michael Todd. Lorrie married Wayne Joseph Lazar and had three daughters, Tancy Reanne, Chelsey and Casey-Jo. Kenneth George Jr. married Ella Hendrica Bakala. George, was killed in a trucking accident and had no children at the time of his death.
See also
- Lumber industry on the Ottawa River
- Booth House
- Fleck/Paterson House