author
William Pittman Lett
1819–1892
An early Ottawa voice who helped record a city in the making, he balanced civic duty with a poet’s eye for local life. His work preserves the feel of rough-and-ready Bytown as it grew into Canada’s capital.
1 Audiobook
Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants
by William Pittman Lett
About the author
Born in Duncannon, County Wexford, Ireland, in 1819, he came to Upper Canada as an infant with his family and grew up in the Bytown-Richmond area. He became known as an Irish Canadian journalist, poet, and public servant, and is often remembered as a chronicler of early Ottawa life.
He worked in journalism before taking on the role for which he is best known: Ottawa’s first city clerk, a post he held for decades after 1855. Alongside his civic work, he wrote poems and verses about local characters, politics, and everyday scenes, helping preserve the personality of Bytown and the young capital in a lively, often humorous way.
His reputation rests not only on public service but on the way he captured a community in transition. For listeners interested in Canadian history, local color, and 19th-century literary life, his writing offers a vivid window into the world of early Ottawa.