Samuel Bingham (184516 June 1905) was the Mayor of

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

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between 1897 and 1898.Dave Mullington "Chain of Office: Biographic Sketches of Ottawa's Mayors (1847-1948)" (Renfrew, Ontario: General Store Publishing House, 2005) He was born in

Bytown Bytown is the former name of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded on September 26, 1826, incorporated as a town on January 1, 1850, and superseded by the incorporation of the City of Ottawa on January 1, 1855. The founding was marked by a sod ...

's Lower Town to Irish

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parents in 1845. As a young man, he worked on the log drives on the

Gatineau River The Gatineau River (, ) is a river in western Quebec, Canada, which rises in lakes north of the Baskatong Reservoir and flows south to join the Ottawa River at the city of Gatineau, Quebec. The river is long and drains an area of . Toponomy Ac ...

. With the Gilmour and Edwards lumber companies, he formed the Gatineau Boom Company, which later became part of the

Canadian International Paper Company The Canadian International Paper Company (CIP) was a Montreal-based forest products company, a former subsidiary of International Paper. It was originally formed as the St. Maurice Lumber Company in 1919 but was renamed in 1925. It was sold to C ...

. He was an

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...

on the Ottawa City Council from 1880 to 1893. Bingham believed that

English speaking English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

citizens of Ottawa should learn

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. In 1905, he drowned in the Gatineau River near

Wakefield, Quebec Wakefield is one of many villages of the municipality of La Pêche, Quebec, La Pêche, with the village centre on the western shore of the Gatineau River, at the confluence of the La Pêche River in the Outaouais (region), Outaouais region of the ...

after he fell asleep while returning in a horse-drawn wagon from clearing a

log jam A log jam is a naturally occurring phenomenon characterized by a dense accumulation of tree trunks and pieces of large wood across a vast section of a river, stream, or lake. ("Large wood" is commonly defined to be pieces of wood more than in di ...

on the river. There is a bust of Bingham by sculptor

Hamilton MacCarthy Hamilton Thomas Carlton Plantagenet MacCarthy (28 July 1846 – 24 October 1939) was one of the earliest masters of monumental bronze sculpture in Canada. He is known for his historical sculptures, in particular his Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons ...

in Notre-Dame Cemetery. In 1893, an attempt to rename the Cummings Bridge over the

Rideau River The Rideau River (, ) is a river in Eastern Ontario, Canada. The river flows north from Upper Rideau Lake and empties into the Ottawa River at the Rideau Falls in Ottawa, Ontario. Its length is . As explained in a writing by Samuel de Champl ...

after the former mayor was thwarted by residents of Sandy Hill.

References

* ''Ottawa - The Capital of Canada'' Shirley E. Woods, Jr. (1980) 19th-century mayors of places in Ontario Mayors of Ottawa Canadian people of Irish descent 1845 births 1905 deaths Deaths by drowning in Canada {{Ontario-mayor-stub