Wright's Town, Lower Canada

Wright's Town, also known as Wrightstown, Wright's Village, and Columbia Falls Village, was the first permanent colonial settlement in the Ottawa Valley, located at the north edge of the Chaudière Falls on the Ottawa River, on the southern part of what is now known as Hull Island, in present-day Gatineau, Quebec, Canada.

[2] Thomas Wright died in the first year of the settlement but within two years, the number of associates grew to twelve: Wright's sons Philemon and Tiberius; Harvey Parker; Daniel Wyman; Ephraim and Edmond Chamberlin; Luther Colton; James and William McConnell; and Isaac Remic.

[4] The town was originally created to support the agricultural settlement that Philemon and his brother Thomas had planned to build, but with the 1806 launching of the Columbo, the first square timber raft floated on the Ottawa River, Wright's Town became the birthplace and centre of the Ottawa River timber trade.

For its first 26 years of existence, Wright's Town was the centre of commerce, industry, and agriculture in the Ottawa Valley.

[11][12] The Upper Village was the site of the town's hotel, mills, foundry, bakehouse, tannery, and several shops.

The Lower Village was closer to the steamboat wharf downriver, and it would only be laid out just before construction of the Rideau Canal, in 1826.