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The Chaudière Bridge looking toward Hull. This was the bridge that Alfred Bonenfant crossed on his way to Hull and on which Henri Fern captured Bonenfant's runaway horse. The steel truss section, built in 1889, replaced an earlier suspension bridge. The bridge's official name was the Union Bridge but it also continued to be known as the "suspension bridge" long after 1889.

Source:

New Chaudière Bridge, Ottawa, Ontario, Aug., 1892 (Topley Studio Fonds / Library and Archives Canada / PA-033945).

Last Trip: The Death of Alfred Bonenfant / 14

Henri Fern

Dr. Urgèle Archambault** arrived in response to George Duncan's call about ten minutes after the accident and quickly realized that Alfred Bonenfant was seriously hurt. He called out for someone to order an ambulance but at that moment a 17-year-old youth named Henri Fern drove up on Bonenfant's cab.

Fern was on the bridge when he saw the driverless cab coming toward him. The horse had slowed down enough for him to capture it and he immediately drove back to Hull to find the owner.

By now about ten onlookers were gathered around Bonenfant and some seemed to know him by name. Archambault therefore assumed that Bonenfant was among friends and when Fern drove up the doctor thought that somebody had ordered a cab to take the injured man to hospital.