08/14/2026
55 years ago today — on August 14, 1971 — this statue of our city’s founder, Lt. Colonel John By, erected by the Historical Society of Ottawa, was unveiled in Major’s Hill Park.
Colonel By, born August 7, 1779, died on February 1, 1836 at the age of 56 — his extraordinary engineering achievements unacknowledged — and his reputation in ruin.
Less than four years earlier, in May of 1832, Lt. Colonel John By had triumphantly set out by steamboat to sail the length of his newly finished Rideau Canal — in celebration of its remarkable completion.
It was at about the halfway point of By’s “victory lap”, however, that a memorandum was being issued from England, removing By from command and recalling the Colonel back from Canada.
By had overspent his approved budget by about 19%. Total cost of the canal’s construction had come to £803,774.
Back in England, hearings were held and By was grudgingly exonerated —but his tremendous engineering accomplishment was never duly recognized —and he died in disgrace four years later.
John By’s legacy was all but forgotten until our Society — initially known as the (Women’s Canadian) Historical Society of Ottawa — was established in 1898.
Fortunately for Bytown’s founder, our Society’s early members had an “almost obsessive concern” for resurrecting By’s reputation.
The preservation of Colonel By’s memory became (and remains today) one of the declared “purposes and objectives” of our Society.
With support of Mayor Charlotte Whitton and City Council (but on our own to cover the $32,000+ expense) the HSO finally unveiled the bronze statue in August of 1971, with Governor General Roland Michener presiding.
For more on Colonel By and the story of the Rideau Canal — completed in only six years and considered one of the most remarkable civil engineering projects in the history of the British Empire — we recommend these accounts by James Powell and Ken Watson for further reading:
https://todayinottawashistory.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/the-canal
https://www.rideau-info.com/canal/history/hist-canal.html
Further note:
A great tragedy of the canal’s construction was the loss of life. While accidental fatalities were said to be relatively low for a project of that era, a thousand or more died from disease, including malaria, many of whom were Irish and French-Canadian labourers and their families.
In addition, the establishment of Bytown and completion of the Rideau Canal resulted in increased intrusion on the territory and lives of the Indigenous peoples who had had made this area their home for thousands of years.
Image: Courtesy of Bytown Museum
