Fondos F 150 - Gillies Brothers Company fonds

Gillies Brothers Company was a lumber company which functioned from the mid nineteenth century to 1978, primarily in eastern Ontario.

In the summer of 1821, James Gillies and his wife Helen Stark arrived in Canada from Stirlingshire, Scotland, with their children. James was fifty-five years of age and his wife, forty- three. Five of their six children accompanied them: Janet, 21; John, 10; George, 8; Helen, 4; and Isabel, 1. The family settled on the west half of Lot ten, Concession five in Lanark Township.

The eldest son, John Gillies married Mary Cullen Bain in 1839, and in the following year received a patent to Lot nine Concession three of Lanark. Shortly thereafter, he built a saw mill on the land and began cutting lumber in 1842. This marks the origins of Gillies Bros. and Co. John Gillies kept the sawmill at Lanark operational for many years, shipping square timber down the Ottawa River to Montreal and Quebec for shipment overseas, and also sold sawn lumber locally and in the Kingston area. In addition to the sawmill, John Gillies expanded on the site and operated as well a grist mill, an oatmeal mill and a carding mill.

In 1853, Peter MacLaren became a partner of John Gillies and the firm became known as the Gillies and MacLaren Company. In 1862, the second timber limit was acquired by the company, the Gilmour Limit on the Mississippi River. To cut the timber for this second limit, a second mill was opened in 1866 at Carleton Place.

In the meantime, John Gillies eldest four sons had entered into the lumbering market. All four, James, William, John Jr. and David, entered into a partnership and bought the Steam Saw Mill, at Braeside, Renfrew County, along with the rights to the Coulonge Limit, in Quebec, on February 22, 1873. They formed a partnership, under the name style of "Gillies Brothers". The oldest brother, James, remained at Carleton Place and became senior partner and president of the new company, taking charge of sales, finances and general policy. Most of the other activities of the company were managed from the office at Braeside. In 1874, John Gillies decided to retire from the lumbering business. He sold his share of the partnership to Peter McLaren and used part of the proceeds to help his four sons, who were able to purchase from him the Braeside mill and holdings, and the Coulonge Usborne timber limits.

After a difficult beginning during the 1873 Depression, the new company grew steadily. Between 1887 and 1906, it acquired additional limits on both sides of the Ottawa River, on the Madawasca, Coulonge, Montreal and Schyan Rivers, and in Algonquin Park. In 1893, the Gillies Brothers Company Limited had been established under a Canada Letters Patent. The name was changed to Gillies Brothers, Limited in 1900, but the company remained a partnership between the four founders.

At the death of James Gillies in 1909, the company's office at Carleton Place was closed and all its functions transferred to Braeside. A few years later, in 1913, the company expanded its operation outside Ontario and Quebec by contracting for timber rights in British Columbia. Gillies did not itself exploit these new limits, but negotiated agreements to that effect with local lumbermen and lumber companies. The Braeside mill was destroyed in a fire in 1919, but was replaced two years later by a more modern facility.

Between 1914 and the 1929 Depression, the company acquired additional timber limits in the Coulonge, Petawawa and Temagami areas. After a temporary closure during the Depression, small acquisitions were made during the 1940's.

In 1945, the organization of the company was changed when Gillies Brothers, Limited ceased to exist and was replaced by a new, federally incorporated company, Gillies Bros. & Co. The exclusive ownership of the company by the Gillies family ended, with the distribution of shares to members of senior management.

Gillies Bros. and Co. was sold in 1963 to Consolidated Paper Corporation Ltd. (which later became Consolidated- Bathurst Inc. and still later Stone- Consolidated Inc.). Gillies continued to exist as a separate company within Consolidated-Bathurst for many years following, with the president's position remaining in the Gillies family until 1967. Gillies Bros. & Co. ceased to exist in 1978, when all the company's assets were officially passed to Consolidated-Bathurst Inc. However, the "Gillies" trademark continued to exist, and was assigned to a new company under the name of Gillies Inc. Lumber bearing the Gillies trademark continued to be produced at Braeside, but also in other mills located in Quebec.

Finally, however, the Braeside office that had formerly been maintained by Gillies was closed on July 15, 1990. The mill at Braeside was closed on May 1, 1992, following the imposition of new lumber tariffs by the United States.