John O'Brien's Ruins - Lot 9, Concession 2, March, Ontario
Posted by: 
elyob
N 45° 20.365 W 075° 56.591
18T E 426102 N 5021089
Use Old Second Line Road to gain access to the trail system of the South March Highlands Conservation Forest.
Waymark Code: WM13GQT
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 12/11/2020
Views: 2
The South March Highlands Conservation Forest is located in north Kanata. The trail system there totals more than 23 kilometres. There are three trailheads along Old Second Line Road. These ruins are a short distance off trail, north of the intersection of the Fast Out trail and Mario's Line. That trail intersection was known as intersection #7. That segment of the Fast Out trail is a surviving remnant of the cart track that once connected these structures with Second Line. The ruins are at the south edge of the unnamed lake/pond/marsh.
The ruins are best visited immediately before the first snowfall or right after the last snowmelt. In spring and summer the vegetation is dense, so dense that the ruins have not yet been mapped by the local orienteering club.
The posted co-ordinates represent the site of a cement feeding trough with hitching rings. There is an open well immediately west of the cement structure. Be careful. West of the well there is a small ditch runnng north to the lake. In addition to the cement structure, visitors will see the upper portion of a collapsed windmill and a collection of metal pails.
In the 1879 Carleton County Atlas, the name Jno O'Brien is attached to a building and the 100 acres of land in the north half of lot 9, concession 2, March township. In the 1867 Carleton County directory material, lot 9 concession 2 March is assigned to Edward O'Brien. The parents of Edward O'Brien and John O'Brien were John and Jane (Monahan) O'Brien. The parents John and Jane were married in 1837.
John and Edward O'Brien were no longer recorded as residents in March township by the time of the 1871 census. Even so, these structures suggest that decades later their land was still being used for livestock if not for a place of residence.