L-R: Romaine Honey, Librarian, Local History and Genealogy, Ottawa Public Library; Lauren Cox, Collections Registrar, and Darren Levstek, Curator of Collections, City of Ottawa Museums; Bruce Elliott, Professor of History, Carleton University
On Monday, October 16, 2017, Prof. Bruce Elliott spoke about the Bellows & Stacy’s store at a public lecture at the Ottawa Public Library, Centrepointe Branch.
Before there was Bytown, there was the Town of Sherwood, dating from 1822 and located at Chaudière Falls. One of the stores that flourished there was Bellows & Stacy, from 1824 – 1828, when the townsite vanished. Earlier this year the account book of Bellows & Stacy’s store was discovered in a museum in Vermont. It has much to tell us about the local economy of the region and about the earliest settlers on both sides of the Ottawa River, from Quyon to Cumberland and south to North Gower. And it’s coming home.
Bruce S. Elliott, Professor of History at Carleton University and author of The City Beyond: A History of Nepean, Birthplace of Canada’s Capital, told the story of this newly-discovered piece of Ottawa’s history. To learn more, check out his interview on CBC News – Ottawa Morning from October 17, 2017.