"I agree with you," said Mr. MacKay. "Mr. Redpath, Mr. McTaggart and myself were discussing the matter this morning, and decided to suggest to you, sir, that the corner-stone should be laid with some ceremony, and the work is sufficiently advanced to have it done to-morrow."
It was finally decided that the ceremony should take place the following day, August 16th, 1827, at 4 p.m.
Upon that corner-stone so "well and truly laid" was built a city which, in thirty-one short years, became the capital of a domain nearly three and a half million square miles larger in extent than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, nearly five hundred thousand square miles larger than the United States, and almost as large as the combined countries of Europe.
With the laying of the foundation of the city of Ottawa will ever be associated the names of Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin, who afterwards laid down his life in the frozen North in the cause of his country; of Lieut.-Colonel John By, who filled so important a place in the public works of Canada in the construction of two canals, the building of two Martello towers on the Plains of Abraham, and whose recommendations to the Duke of Wellington resulted in the building of the present fortifications at Quebec; of Thomas MacKay, the contractor for the locks, who afterwards built Rideau Hall; of John Redpath, who later settled in Montreal, and built up one of the largest commercial enterprises in Canada; of John McTaggart, clerk of the works, to whose able pen we are indebted for much of the history of the time, and who returned to Scotland on the completion of the work; and last, but not least, of the White Chief of the Ottawa, the pioneer "Lumber King."
CHAPTER XX.
FOUND OUT.
1833.
A solemn stillness pervaded the once happy home on the hill, a stillness broken only by the sighing of the wind through the poplar trees.
The stately, noble form of the queen of the household, who held sway over so many hearts, lay sleeping beneath the daisies in the cemetery not far distant. She had never been well after the shock occasioned by the sudden death of her eldest son.
One by one the young people went forth to homes of their own. Abbie, having awakened at last to a realization of the truth of her father's prediction regarding Thomas Brigham, had long since married that wealthy lumberman.