Dave Mullington, Chain of Office: Biographical Sketches of Early Mayors of Ottawa (1847-1948), General Store Publishing House, 2005.
The early mayors were a diverse lot of men: lawyers, butchers, blacksmiths, doctors and pharmacists, mostly English-speaking and a few Francophones. This book tells the story of these early municipal politicians in a way that outlines many details of their lives while revealing the sometimes slanted opinions conveyed by the local newspapers.
In 1847, when Bytown was incorporated, Lowertown was Ottawa and until the city was declared the capital and the federal government established, much of the mayoral business focused on this area. John Scott, the first duly elected mayor, took office in 1847 for a one-year term and oversaw the town’s business from his law office at Rideau and Sussex. The second mayor, John Bower Lewis, focused on cleaning up the George Street sewage mess and settling a permanent site for the ByWard Market. Robert Hervey, the third mayor, took over the Stoney Monday meeting on York Street and ordered the arrest of the rioters, most of whom were Catholic Reformers, whom he opposed as a Protestant Tory. Charles Sparrow entered the mayoralty in 1851 with extensive real-estate holdings in Lowertown, but by the late 1850s, his finances suffered a major setback.
Our Lowertown Francophone mayors were few and far between. Joseph-Balsora Turgeon, elected in 1853, was the first and last one in Bytown. He was credited with promoting the idea of changing the city’s name to Ottawa. It was not until 1872 that another Francophone–Eugene Martineau–wore the chain of office, an idea that he initiated and had approved by council. Others included Dr. Pierre St Jean, (1882-83), Olivier Durocher (1892-93), Thomas Payment (1899-1900). Although Napoleon Champagne served as mayor on two occasions, in both 1908 and 1924, he was simply completing the terms of two mayors who had vacated the office before their terms were complete.
This book puts a human touch on the men who served Lowertown and other parts of the city. Some of our Lowertown mayors are remembered in the names of public places or buildings or streets, for example, Bingham Park and Champagne Bath and Friel Street. But as this book demonstrates, they all merit remembering for doing a civic duty that provided bylaws, infrastructure and public bureaucracies that led to the community we enjoy today.