Part 4 (1/2)
There was, at that time, no railroad around the head of Lake Ontario so a Freight Route by steamer across the lake was opened to Lewiston, from where rail connection could be made to the Atlantic.
In January, 1855, large s.h.i.+pments of flour made from Upper Canada mills along the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario began to be collected. The enterprising agent of the _Peerless_ (Mr. L. B. Gordon) wrote to the Central that he hoped to ”make the consignment up to 10,000 barrels before the ca.n.a.l and river opens.” This being a reference to the competing all-water route via the Erie Ca.n.a.l and Hudson River.
The first winter s.h.i.+pment of a consignment of 3,400 barrels was begun by the _Chief Justice Robinson_ from the Queen's Wharf on 17th January.
The through rates of freight, as recorded in Mr. Gordon's books, are in these modern days of low rates, remarkable. Not the less interesting are the proportions accepted by each of the carriers concerned for their portion of the service, which were as follows:
Flour, per barrel, Toronto to New York--
Steamer--Queen's Wharf to Lewiston 12-1/2c Wharf.a.ge and teaming (Cornell) 6 New York Central, Lewiston to Albany 60 Ferry at Albany 3 Hudson River Railroad to New York 37-1/2 ----- Through to New York $1.19
What would the Railway Commissioners and the public of the present think of such rates!
The s.h.i.+pments were largely from the products of the mills at the _Credit_, _Oakville_, _Brampton_, _Esquesing_, and _Georgetown_, being teamed to the docks at _Oakville_ and _Port Credit_, from where they were brought by the steamers _Queen City_ and _Chief Justice Robinson_ at 5c per bbl. to the Queen's Wharf, Toronto, and from there taken across the lake by the _Chief Justice Robinson_ and the _Peerless_.
The propeller _St. Nicholas_ took a direct load of 3,000 barrels from Port Credit to Lewiston on Feb. 2nd. s.h.i.+pments were also sent to Boston at $1,24-1/2 per bbl., on which the proportion of the ”New York Central” was 68c, and the ”Western Railroad” received 35c per bbl. as their share.
Nearly the whole consignment expected was obtained.
Another novel route was also opened. Consignments of flour for local use were sent to Montreal during this winter by the _New York Central_, Lewiston to Albany, and thence by the ”_Albany Northern Railroad_” to the south side of the St. Lawrence River, whence they were most probably teamed across the ice to the main city.
Northbound s.h.i.+pments were also worked up and received at Lewiston for Toronto--princ.i.p.ally teas and tobaccos--consignments of ”English Bonded Goods” were rated at ”second-cla.s.s, same as domestic sheetings” and carried at 63c per 100 pounds from New York to Lewiston.
It was a winter of unexampled activity, but it was the closing effort of the steamers against the entrance of the railways into their all-the-year-round trade.
Immediately upon the opening of the Great Western Railway from Niagara Falls to Hamilton in 1855 and to Toronto in 1856, and of the Grand Trunk Railway from Montreal in 1856, the steamboating interests suffered still further and great decay. In the financial crisis of 1857 many steamers were laid up. In 1858 all the American Line steamers were in bankruptcy, and in 1860 the _Zimmerman_ abandoned the Niagara River to the _Peerless_, the one steamer being sufficient.
The opening of the American Civil War in 1860 opened a new career for the Lake Ontario steamers, as the Northern Government were short of steamers with which to blockade the Southern ports.
The ”Peerless” was purchased by the American Government in 1861 and left for New York under command of Captain Robert Kerr, and by 1863 all the American Line steamers had been sold in the same direction and gone down the rapids to Montreal, and thence to the Atlantic. A general clearance had been affected.
The ”Zimmerman” returned from the Hamilton Route to the Niagara River, which had been left vacant by the removal of the ”Peerless,” but, taking fire alongside the dock at Niagara in 1863, became a total loss. During the winter the third ”_City of Toronto_” was built by Captain Duncan Milloy, of Niagara, and began her service on the river in 1864 and thereafter had the route to herself. In 1866 the ”Rothsay Castle” brought up by Captain Thomas Leach from Halifax, ran for one season in compet.i.tion, but the business was not sufficient for two steamers so she was returned to the Atlantic. The ”City” then had the route alone until 1877, when the ”Southern Belle,”
being the reconstructed ”Rothsay Castle,” re-entered upon the scene and again ran from Tinnings Wharf in connection with the Canada Southern Railway to Niagara.
Such had been the courses of navigation and steamboating on the Niagara River from its earliest days--the rise to the zenith of prosperity and then the immeasurable fall due to the encircling of the lakes by the increasing railways. The old time pa.s.senger business had been diverted from the water, the docks had fallen into decay, only one steamer remained on the Niagara River Route, but it was fair to consider that with more vigor and improved equipment a new era might be begun.
The decadence of trade had been so great, and the prospects of the Niagara River presenting so little hope that Captain Thomas d.i.c.k had turned his thoughts and energies into the direction of the North Sh.o.r.e of Lake Huron, where mining and lumbering were beginning, and to Lake Superior, where the construction of the Dawson Road, as a connection through Canadian territory, to Fort Garry was commenced. He had several years previously transferred the second _City of Toronto_ to these Upper Lake waters, and after being reboilered and rebuilt, her name had been changed to _Algoma_, commanded at first by his half brother, Capt. Jas. d.i.c.k, and in 1863 he had obtained the contract for carrying the mails for the Manitoulin Island and Lake Huron Sh.o.r.e to Sault Ste. Marie.
If ever there was a steamer which deserved the name of ”_Pathfinder_,” it was this steamer ”Algoma.” It was said that all the officers, pilots and captains of later days had been trained on her, and that she had found out for them every shoal along her route by actual contact. Being a staunchily built wooden boat with double ”walking beam” engines, working independently, one on each wheel, she always got herself off with little trouble or damage. One trip is personally remembered. Coming out from Bruce Mines the _Algoma_ went over a boulder on a shoal in such way as to open up a plank in the bottom, just in front of the boilers. Looking down the forward hatch the water could be watched as it boiled up into the fire-hold, but as long as the wheels were kept turning the pumps could keep the in-rush from gaining, so the steamer after backing off was continued on her journey.
When calling at docks the engines were never stopped, one going ahead the other reversed, until after Sault Ste. Marie had been reached and the balance of the cargo unloaded, when the steamer, with the men in the fire-hold working up to their ankles in water, set off on her run of 400 miles to Detroit, where was then the only dry dock into which she could be put.
After a long and successful career the brave boat died a quiet death alongside a dock, worn out as a lumber barge.
This transference of Captain d.i.c.k's interests to the Upper Lakes was, strangely enough, the precursor to the events which led to the creation of another era in navigation on the Niagara River. This ”North Sh.o.r.e” route, although for long centuries occupied by the outposts of the Hudson Bay and North West fur companies, was so far as immigration and mercantile interests were concerned, an undeveloped territory. Along its sh.o.r.es was the traditional canoe and batteaux route from French River to Fort William on the Kaministiqua River for trade with the great prairies by the interlacing waterways to Lake Manitoba and the Red River. At intervals, such as at Spanish River, Missa.s.saga, Garden River, Michipicoten and Nepigon River, were the outlets for the canoe and portage routes, north to the Hudson Bay and great interior fur preserves. This ancient rival to the Niagara River route had remained little varied from the era of canoe and sail. The secrets of its natural products, other than fur, being as well kept as were those of the fertility of the soil of the ”great Lone Land,”
under the perennial control of the same adventurers of Charles II.
The creation of the ”Dominion of Canada” and of the ”Province of Ontario”
under Confederation in 1867 and its establishment as the ”District of Algoma” brought it political representation in the Provincial Legislature and a development of its unoccupied possibilities.