John Rudolphus Booth (1826-1925) dominated the timber trade of the Ottawa Valley from the 1850's to early 1900's. His activities included the cutting, milling, transporting, and marketing of square timber, sawn lumber, and pulp and paper. For nearly seventy years he managed his timber enterprise as a personal business. The completion of the first railway into Ottawa (the Ottawa and Prescott, 1855) and the harnessing of the ChaudiΦre by Government assiste private companies coincided with the demand for sawn lumber. Once it was cut, the sawn lumber had to be stored or dried for a year to prevent warping. This presented a great storage problem for companies operating near the ChaudiΦre. The 1859 Ottawa lumber output was 20-25 million board feet, and by 1868 it had reached 100 million board feet.
