Episode 62: Lumber Kings of the Ottawa Valley - John Egan

ALGONQUIN DEFINING MOMENTS

Episode 62: Ontario Lumber Kings - John Egan

Up until recently, I’d always thought that anyone who cared about Algonquin Park human history was already familiar with J. R. Booth and so never put any energy into building an episode around his life experiences. However, last summer I stumbled upon a 2018 biography by Michael McBane on John Egan.. In so doing, I discovered a whole new aspect of lumbering in the Ottawa Valley that I knew nothing about. The end result is this multi-part series about two of the most well-known of the Ottawa Valley Lumber Kings, namely John Egan and J. R. Booth. In my view both are tightly connected in history because as you all know J.R, Booth made his fortune by buying at auction Egan’s timber limits in 1867. In this episode I’ll focus on the life of John Egan. I think though I have no proof that, though of different generations, Booth may have seen Egan as a role model in the lumber industry

The musical interlude for this episode is called Below a Towering Pine and comes from Dan Gibson’s Solitudes Breaking Through the Mist CD. It is brought to you with the approval of Digital Funding LLC. Solitudes music can be found wherever you get your music streaming.

Key References:

• Michael McBane’s John Egan: Pine & Politics in the Ottawa Valley, published in 2018
• H. T. Douglas’1969 talk to the Gatineau Valley Historical Society called An Irishman in Canada: John Egan
• R. Morgan’s 1926 article in the Ottawa Journal History of the Early Ottawa
• Stephen Banks’ A Polite Exchange of Bullets: The Duel and the English Gentlemen 1750-1850, published in 2010
• Debates of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada 1849
• John McGregor‘s British America published in 1832
• Roderick MacKay’s Sprits of the Little Bonnechere 2nd Edition, published in 2016
• David Lee’s Lumber Kings and Shantymen, published in 2006
• Dictionary for Canadian Biography, - John Egan search term
• Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Ancestors, 2020 discussion
• Robert Grace’s The Irish in Quebec: An Introduction to the Historiography, published in 1993