What do you know about IN THE BEGINNING?

The City of Pembroke stands at the joining of the Ottawa and Muskrat rivers in the beautiful Ottawa Valley. The settlement was started by the cutting of the first tree by Peter White, a lumbering prospector, in May 1828. He moved his family to a home he built on this homestead, and began his lumbering operations which prospered.

White collected around him the workmen necessary for lumbering operations and soon a blacksmith shop, a sleigh maker, shoemaker, harness maker and other mechanics were providing him with the works necessary to establish a lumbering centre.

Attracted by the magnificent forest of virgin pine, other lumbermen joined Peter White and a store was established west of his homestead at the mouth of the Muskrat River in 1836, and the site was named Campbelltown. Across the Muskrat River, a small community called Miramichi sprang up. This hamlet was later called Moffat, then Sydenham, and finally, in 1856, the whole area was joined together as a police village and renamed Pembroke. In 1858, Pembroke was established as a proper village, then 1877 saw the incorporation of Pembroke as a town, and in 1971 the municipality was granted city status.

The history of Pembroke is linked with the advancement of the lumber industry in the Ottawa Valley. With a natural harbour on the Ottawa River, it was the base for boats which brought passengers and freight from Cobden Lake to Des Joachims, thus opening up great stretches of the Ottawa River. The trip from Ottawa to Portage du Fort by boat, then overland to Cobden Lake, setting out from there, again by boat, to Pembroke could be made in one day. In 1865, Pembroke shipbuilders launched the first boat and the routes were travelled later by Captains Overman and Cowley, who were to obtain Samuel de Champlain’s Astrolabe from its discoverer at Green Lake east of Cobden.

The village became the county seat for the County of Renfrew in 1866 and the County Court House was built in that year of freestone. It remains one of Pembroke’s finest buildings today. The Municipal Building was erected in 1870 of red sandstone and stands at the junction of the Muskrat and Ottawa Rivers.

Pembroke was the first town in Canada in which electric power was generated for commercial use. On October 8, 1884 the very first street lights in Canada cast their glow down Pembroke Street. A small building on Pembroke Street east of the Muskrat River provided electricity for street lighting as well as for the factories in the town.

With settlement came the first school in 1838, the first church in 1839, and a high school in 1895. In 1905 the Mackay Street Arena was built and hockey greats Frank Nighbor, Hugh Lehman, and Harry Cameron played there before going on to the NHL.

In the early 1900s Camp Petawawa was built ten miles west of Pembroke. Then as today, Pembroke has provided a home base for the servicemen, servicewomen, and their families.