Heritage: Shining a light on Valley doctors – Part 1

May 1^st is Doctors’ Day and the Ontario Medical Association asks you to stand at your door or window at 9 p.m. tonight and Shine A Light to show support for our doctors. The Current uses this annual event to shine a light on the very early Valley doctors with information from regular heritage contributors Bob Corrigan and Theresa Prince who, among other things, searched municipal archives, land records, newspaper records, census and church records. Above Dr. John Chanonhouse, Photo Reflections of a Century

Dr. John Chanonhouse

Among the first doctors to serve the early residents of Barry’s Bay was Dr. John Chanonhouse of Eganville. Born in Kingston on August 5, 1840, Dr. Chanonhouse graduated from Queen’s University in 1861. He first set up his practice in Douglas, and then moved to Eganville about 1864. On June 15, 1865, he married Susannah Davis of Wilberforce. Dr. Chanonhouse made trips to the Barry’s Bay area in 1893, to attend to diphtheria cases and to perform disinfections. In the early 1900s, Dr. Chanonhouse established a branch office in Barry’s Bay, which he visited on a monthly basis to see his patients. He travelled to Barry’s Bay by train and stayed at Drohan’s Hotel for a few days at a time on each of his trips. Dr. Chanonhouse died at the age of 66, on one of his visits to Barry’s Bay. He suffered a fatal heart attack and died in his room at Drohan’s Hotel on April 13, 1906.

Dr. T. A. Gourley

Dr. Thomas Albert Gourley was born Sept. 28, 1868, the son of George Gourley and Mary Jane Johnston. He grew up in Eganville in a family of ten children. In 1897 he graduated from McGill University Faculty of Medicine in Montreal. Two years later on July 26, 1899 he married Isabelle Halliday of Kingston. The couple had seven children-six sons and a daughter.

For about the next ten years Dr. Gourlay practised medicine at Killaloe Station. He also took an active interest in political matters. In 1897 he was appointed Medical Health Officer for the United Townships of Hagarty, Sherwood, Jones, Richards and Burns, which included Barry’s Bay, and again in 1900. His last appointment as Health Officer was on January 11, 1909 for a period of three years.

Shortly afterward, he moved his practice to Cayuga a small community near Lake Erie. On Oct. 21, 1918, he died of pneumonia during the Influenza Pandemic at the young age of fifty years. He is buried at Cataraqui Kingston.

Dr. J. P. Quigley

Dr. J. P. Quigley of Killaloe is mentioned as early as 1910, when he attended to a case of smallpox in Sherwood Township. On August 28, 1910, he was summoned to attend to Michael O’Brien of Montreal, an employee at Mohr’s Mill, Barry’s Bay, who was fatally injured by a bullet. A number of workmen at the mill were practicing target shooting when O’Brien was accidently shot by John McHerness of Combermere. The summoning of Dr. Quigley on these incidents would indicate that Barry’s Bay did not yet have a resident doctor. Dr. Quigley was appointed Medical Health Officer of the Townships of Hagarty and Richards in 1911.

Today, perhaps, the overgrown concrete foundation on the shores of Kamaniskeg Lake, near the wharf, serves as the only reminder of the sawmill days on the former Mohr Mill site.

Physician recruitment

Theresa Prince located this reference in the Barry’s Bay Council archives: 

In the fall of 1917 council discussed the possibility of advertising for a doctor to come and reside in the village of Barry’s Bay. At the January 11, 1918 meeting it was recommended that John Omanique, Charles Murray and John McRae be appointed to deal with the lack of a resident doctor.

Bob Corrigan offers these articles from local newspapers. The first, dated 1871, illustrates the lack of doctors in the area and shows that the residents of Combermere had to send for Dr. Chanonhouse from Eganville to provide treatment.

Corrigan also unearthed this article from the same newspaper twenty-two years later showing that Dr. Chanonhouse was appealing for government help to attract doctors to the area to assist with a diptheria breakout in Sherwood Township.

Early resident doctors

Dr. J. W. Wheeler

Dr. James Walter Wheeler may have been the first resident doctor in the village of Barry’s Bay. He was an elderly man when he arrived from Cornwall and set up his practice around 1921. At first his office was in the ‘Doyle House’ on Opeongo Line west of St. Lawrence’s Church. Today the house has been renovated and is occupied by Grumblin’ Granny.

Dr. Wheeler lived in the large red brick house built by Frank Palubiskie on Dunn Street. Later he moved his office into his place of residence. Dr. Wheeler served as Medical Health Officer for the Townships of Sherwood Jones and Burns from 1923 to 1929. During his stay in Barry’s Bay, he had become involved in sports and community work. Dr. Wheeler passed away unexpectedly in an Ottawa hospital on May 9, 1930. He had left Barry’s Bay on April 28, 1930 and had gone to Ottawa to undergo an operation.

 Dr. George Samuel Sadler

Dr. George S. Sadler lived and practised in Combermere, but was often called on to attend to patients in the Barry’s Bay area. He was born January 14, 1875 in Pakenham Township, the son of Thomas Sadler and Elizabeth Needham. He graduated from Queen’s University in 1899, and first practiced for some time at Clayton and later in Combermere. In 1917, he married Miss Matilda Maud (Marie) O’Brien, a school teacher and daughter of Paddy J. and Matilda O’Brien, the owners of the O’Brien House in Combermere. During the war Dr. Sadler went overseas to work in hospitals in Italy and Belgium. On his return he resumed his practice at Combermere and set up his office in the hotel known as the O’Brien House. The building still exists today, just southeast of the bridge, and is used by St. Joseph’s Clothing House.

On June 2, 1930, Dr. Sadler was appointed Medical Health Officer for the Townships of Sherwood Jones and Burns, following the sudden death of Dr. Wheeler, until such time that a resident doctor could be found to live in Barry’s Bay. He held that position for three months until Dr. D. A. McGregor took over on August 18, 1930. Dr. Sadler served as coroner for the western part of Renfrew County. He was also secretary for the school board, municipal council, and St. Paul’s Anglican Church. Dr. Sadler died at his home in Combermere on January 10, 1941, of a heart attack at the age of 66. His wife died six years later in 1947. Both Dr. Sadler and his wife are buried in St. Paul’s Anglican Cemetery, Combermere.

In their own words

Once doctors travelled to this part of Canada in the 1800s, what was their life really like? Hear firsthand reports from a young British physician in Dr. Codd’s 1847 Letters. Codd arrived in Montreal in the winter and made his way up through the Ottawa Valley, arriving eventually in a tiny backwoods settlement along its western frontier called Moffatville (now Pembroke).  What he experienced there over the next few years, he put into a set of uniquely vivid letters he sent back to England. Performed by The Opeongo Readers’ Theatre at the Pembroke Public Library on January 25th, 2020, Ailments & Ointments: Dr. Codd’s Life in Pembroke, 1847 Dr. Codd’s letters tell a wild, if personal, story of rough and ready lumberjacks involved in murder and mayhem, as well as humourous mishaps. For instance, Dr. Codd, after building the first sailboat to ever sail around Allumette Island, gets chased by a bear, nearly drowned in the Spring breakup, before ultimately escaping some equally rough and ready ladies hellbent on marriage. But those same letters also tell of a place of bewildering beauty, bountiful nature and beneficent opportunity.  Click HERE to listen to the podcast of Dr. Codd’s 1847 Letters on The Opeongo Line.

Editor’s Note: Part 2 of Shining a light on Valley doctors will look at physicians in the area from the 1930s onwards. We encourage any readers with photos, recollections or memorabilia to submit them to The Current:  madvalleycurrent@gmail.com  We can arrange for scanning of photographs and documents; originals will be returned.