Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1826 as Bytown,…

Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1826 as Bytown, is incorporated as a city on January 1, 1855.

William Pittman Lett, installed as the first city clerk, will guide the city through thirty-six years of development.

Ottawa is approximately midway between Toronto and Kingston (in Canada West) and Montreal and Quebec City (in Canada East).

Additionally, despite Ottawa's regional isolation it has seasonal water transportation access to Montreal over the Ottawa River and to Kingston via the Rideau Waterway.

By 1854 it also had a modern all season Bytown and Prescott Railway that carries passengers, lumber and supplies the eighty-two-kilometers to Prescott on the Saint Lawrence River and beyond.

Ottawa's small size, it is thought, will make it less prone to rampaging politically motivated mobs, as had happened in the previous Canadian capitals.

The government already owns the land that will eventually become Parliament Hill, which is thought to be an ideal location for the Parliament Buildings.

Ottawa is the only settlement of any substantial size that is already directly on the border of French populated former Lower Canada and English populated former Upper Canada, thus additionally making the selection an important political compromise.

Starting in the 1850s, entrepreneurs known as lumber barons begin to build large sawmills, which will become some of the largest mills in the world