The early history of Canada is filled with individuals whose names, through enterprising spirit or acts of bravery, became associated with entire regions; Colonel John By was one such man. A key figure in the founding of Ottawa, John By was born in Lambeth, England, in 1779, to a family of watermen on the Thames.[1] However, he decided to take a different path and in 1799 joined the Engineers at Plymouth; his career advanced rapidly from then on. He first traveled to Canada in 1802, where he worked on a canal at Les Cèdres in Quebec; he then returned to England in 1810 to serve under Wellington in the Peninsular War.[2] Two decades of unremitting warfare had left the British Treasury diminished and the Army vastly inflated; as a result By, along with hundreds of other officers, was dropped from the payroll following Waterloo.[3] However, his reputation as an engineer remained strong, and his name was at the top of the list when the Rideau Canal began construction in 1826.
