In 1829, the Burrowes family was posted from Bytown to Kingston Mills (on the Cataraqui River, upstream from Kingston). There, Margaret and Thomas Burrowes lived for over 30 years after completion of the Rideau Canal, and there one son and six daughters were born to them. It was one of those daughters who later stored her father’s paintings away in her attic in Detroit, Michigan, thus preserving the collection for posterity.

From 1829 to the year of his retirement in 1846, Burrowes continued his association with the Rideau Canal as Clerk of the Works for the Cataraqui section.

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Kingston Mills; showing home of Captain Thomas Burrowes, 1856
Watercolour
Thomas Burrowes fonds
Reference Code: C 1-0-0-0-75
Archives of Ontario, I0002194

After retiring, he became postmaster in Kingston Mills, a justice of the peace, and he took up farming.

From 1829 to the year of his death, in 1866, Thomas Burrowes lived in a stone house (barely visible on the  far right above, and today, right and below) on a knoll overlooking the canal works at Kingston Mills.His house, Maplehurst, still stands.

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