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Lieutenant-Colonel John By (7 August 1779 – 1 February 1836) was an English military engineer, best remembered for supervising the construction of the Rideau Canal and founding Bytown in the process, which would become the Canadian capital, Ottawa.

By was born in Lambeth, Surrey, the second of three sons of George By, of the London Customs House, and Mary Bryan. By studied at the Royal Military Academy. He entered Officer Training in the army when he was 18 years old. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery on 1 August 1799 but transferred to the Royal Engineers on 20 December the same year. During the Napoleonic wars he returned to Europe, where he served in Spain under the Duke of Wellington from 1811 until 1815.

By was married three times, first to Elizabeth Baines in 1801, who died in 1814. He remarried in 1818 to Esther March with whom he had two daughters: Harriet Martha By (1822–1842) and Esther By Ashburnham (1820–1848).

With the end of the war, By retired from the military, but in 1826 in view of his engineering experience in Canada, he was recalled and returned to Canada to supervise the construction of the Rideau Canal.

The canal was completed in six years, and was acclaimed as an engineering triumph. He died in 1836, and is buried in the village of Frant in Sussex.

The original house ("Camp Iroquois") was built in 1875 by James Wallace for himself and his wife, Annie Brough. In the beginning it was a simple dwelling, with a widow's walk and an outdoor stairway leading up to it. The house was subsequently purchased by David Wallace who, in the latter part of the 19th century, added two septagonal towers, plus stain glass windows, in order to make the house more elegant. A windmill pumped water to the house, but plumbing and electricity were non-existant. He also constructed a boat house with a large half-moon window in the front, and an iron frame, complete with wheels, for lifting boats out of the water.

Following the death of David Wallace in 1904, the house passed into the hands of his four nieces, Belle, Edith, Annie, and Jennie Wallace. The sisters travelled each season from Boston to "Camp Iroquois" via Clayton, New York, and then the ferry to Gananoque, Ontario. They would arrive, by skiff, on Bostwisk Island in early May, and not return to Boston until the first snowfall.

As their were no heirs, the Wallace sisters, who had close ties of friendship with the Byers family arranged for the transfer of the house and property to Donald N. Byers. "Camp Iroquois" has been in the Byers family ever since.