In 1852, he married Rosalinda Cooke and moved to the Ottawa River valley. He was involved in the construction of a paper mill in Sherbrooke, and a sawmill in Hull. Upon completion of the latter, its owner, Andrew Leamy hired him to manage the mill for a year. He then ventured out on his own, opening a shingle mill in Hull in a mill that he rented from Alonzo Wright, but within months it was destroyed by fire. He established his own lumber company and won the contract to supply wood for the Parliament buildings at the new Canadian capital of Ottawa, selected by Queen Victoria in 1858. In winning the contract, he underbid more established firms by hiring unemployed longshoremen from Montreal.