Perth

Perth was founded in 1816 as a military settlement, taking discharged soldiers and Scottish immigrants after the Napoleonic wars, and the stonemasons among them built in local limestone; the result is one of the best preserved nineteenth-century stone streetscapes in Ontario, with Gore Street and the Tay basin at its centre. In 1833 two law students, Robert Lyon and John Wilson, fought a duel over remarks about a schoolteacher; Lyon was killed, and it is generally recorded as the last fatal duel in what is now Ontario. Wilson later became a judge. The Perth Museum occupies an 1840 stone house.

History

Settlement of Lanark County began in 1815, and Perth was surveyed in 1816 as the headquarters of a military settlement, named after Perthshire, the ancestral home of the acting Governor-General Sir Gordon Drummond; many first settlers were veterans on half pay, from France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Scotland or Ireland, and the Scots who came from 1816 included many stonemasons. Military rule lasted until 1824, and for years Perth was the judicial and social capital of the Ottawa Valley, where even Bytown had to come for its law courts, until the Rideau Canal and the lumber trade made Bytown, today's Ottawa, the larger town (Wikipedia, Perth, Ontario).

The main sights

• The stone streetscape - limestone commercial buildings from the 1800s.
• The Tay basin - a canal basin cut into the middle of the town.
• The duel site - the ground of the last fatal duel in Ontario, marked.
• The Perth Museum - local history in an 1840 stone house.

When to go

May to October; the town is quiet year-round and works as a half-day stop. The Stewart Park Festival brings music in July. Autumn colour in the surrounding country is good.

Good to know

The town is small and mostly seen from the street. Museum hours are limited. There is little beyond the architecture and a few shops.

Nearby

Merrickville lies east; Ottawa is northeast.

Key facts