[2] Prior to the Rideau Canal being built (1826 – 1832), the Cataraqui River had its headwaters in Dog and Loughborough lakes.
Colonel John By, used a slackwater construction technique, building dams to drown rapids.
In the area of the Cataraqui Creek from Upper Brewers to Kingston Mills he had the forests cut down to form a straight channel (this work is visible in the Burrowes paintings of Brewer's Lower Mill shown below).
This changed in the early 1800s with the building of a mill dam by Lemuel Haskins at White Fish Falls, near today's village of Morton.
These two dams made the Cataraqui Flood Plain navigable for the first time.