Research Resources ~ The Frontenac 1816
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The Frontenac: A Reappraisal
by
Walter LewisThis article appears on the 'net essentially as it originally appeared in FreshWater, vol. 2, no. 1 (Summer 1987): 28-39. A few of the notes have been altered to reflect the change of name of the National Archives of Canada (NAC) from the Public Archives of Canada (PAC), and the subsequent publication of articles. According on the capability of your browser the symbol for Pounds Halifax Currency is rendered as £ [an HTML+ standard].Author's Note:
To paraphrase Dickens, few steamboats in the history of the Great Lakes have been as well known, and as little known, as the Frontenac. While the debate occasionally resurfaces as to whether she was the first steamboat or merely the first Canadian steamboat on the Lakes, most histories devote the obligatory paragraph to the Frontenac and then move on to other interests.
Particularly disturbing is the extent to which these brief accounts mangle what little original research has been done on the vessel. A complete historiographical analysis of the Frontenac would be pedantic, but credit should be given to those few authors who have contributed something to our knowledge of the vessel. These include Canniff (1869), Scadding (1873), Van Cleve (1877), Robertson (1896), Cruikshank (1926), Horsey (1942) and Preston (1954). [1] While his research was confined to fleshing out Van Cleve, H.A. Musham's 1943 article does draw together the various strands of the Frontenac's career and compares and contrasts it with that of her American rival, the Ontario. [2]
Most of this research focuses on three stages of the Frontenac's career--the circumstances of her construction, launch and first sailing. Those in search of additional colour draw into this mix an advertised set of rules for passengers and her destruction at Niagara. Nevertheless, while the Frontenac played a critical role in the introduction of steam technology to the region, most writers have been preoccupied with the nationalistic question of "who was first?"
Although we will return briefly to the question of precedence, the broader question of technological innovation raises a whole range of issues which need to be addressed. The navigation of open water by steam was a new phenomenon. Was this what the promoters intended to do? To what precedents did those responsible for her design turn? Where did they recruit people to build and operate her? How did they organize their business affairs? How profitable were these affairs? How did they seek to protect themselves from the risks associated with such a pioneer venture? How successful was the new technology in competing with existing transportation services?
ORIGINS
Talk of an Upper Canadian steamboat began in the summer of 1815, only a few short months after the news of the end of the War of 1812 reached Kingston. A "respectable person" of that town, it was later recalled, was "earnestly soliciting" his fellow merchants to form an association to build a steamboat. His vision was greeted with laughter and the strong suspicion that he was "possessed of ... the great spirit." [3]
However, there was interest in building a steamboat on the American side of the Lake. By the fall of 1815, some Kingstonians learned of negotiations between a group of investors and the Fulton and Livingston estates. [4] The frantic shipbuilding rivalry between the American fleet at Sacket's Harbor and the Royal Navy in Kingston was too vivid a memory for such news to be taken casually. Decked over in both ports were partially finished ships of the line, mute evidence of the fragility of peace and the delicate balance of naval strength. [5]
By October when Commodore Sir Edward C.R. Owen, the senior British naval officer on the Lakes, began to make public his thinking on the value of steamboats, no one in Kingston was laughing anymore. That spring and summer the Commodore had conducted a detailed investigation of the problems which faced the Navy should war be renewed. His June dispatch to the Admiralty had enclosed his observations regarding the difficulty of transporting goods up the St. Lawrence from Lachine to Kingston. In it, he noted that the passage of freight would be improved if steamers were built which were capable of towing bateaux and Durham boats the length of Lake St. Francis and from Prescott up to Kingston. He then wondered "whether this were better done by Government or by Individuals assisted by Government and making advantage of their passengers..." [6]
In a province of barely 100,000 inhabitants, a few months after a prolonged war, it hardly seems surprising that the military value of steamboat transport first came to the fore. Indeed, any private investment in steamboats would be a gamble in a region where the leading urban centre, Kingston, consisted of about 2250 people. York numbered about 1200 and Niagara and Queenston between them less than 1000. [7] On the other hand, those who had lived in the province before the war had seen its population balloon from a few thousand Loyalist refugees to its present size. They would have expected that rate of growth to resume. And, of course, across the lake the Americans were proposing to build a steamboat where none of their Lake Ontario ports rivalled even Niagara. It was naturally assumed that the Americans could not be given the opportunity to trade on the British side of the border.
By October 1815, Commodore Owen had consulted with Sir Sydney Beckwith, the Quartermaster-general. What did he think of the idea of his stores being carried by privately and operated steamboats? Beckwith confirmed Owen's feeling that steamboats would be a valuable improvement, if they were in the hands of "individuals countenanced by Government." Shortly afterwards they called a meeting of "the principal inhabitants" of Kingston to take up the subject. [8]
After magistrate Thomas Markland took the chair on that late October evening, Beckwith and Owen set the stage. As one critic of the scheme later envisaged the scene: "Sir Sidney [B]eckwith [sic],... after promising them the support of Government and the transportation of their unwieldy machinery free of expence, instantly aroused their ambition, and their laudable spirit of adventurous enterprise burst forth with unrivalled splendour." [9]
It was unlikely, however, that these experienced merchants would venture on a scheme which they knew would cost at least £10,000 on the basis of a Government concession of several hundred. [10] But to men who had made their fortunes selling goods dragged up the unimproved rapids of the St. Lawrence, knowing that the military would take care of this detail would have made the whole proposition more attractive.
Many of the key decisions were made before the gathering broke up. The objective was to improve navigation on the St. Lawrence between Kingston and Lachine. The proprietors formed a joint partnership whose stock, at least to begin, was to be £10,000 in shares of £100. Ten shares were reserved for Niagara and a similar number for York, in case merchants from those communities wanted to participate. Until a response was heard, the Kingston subscribers were limited to five shares each. The only restriction on ownership was emphatic: "No Alien shall hold a Share in the Boat either by Subscription purchase, or transfer." They envisaged the steamboat, not in terms of her dimensions, but as "forty horse power", and the first instalment on the shares was to be used to acquire the necessary engine "from England". The final substantive act was to select a Committee of Management to order the affairs of the association. [11]
In brief, the Committee was composed of John Cumming, Henry Murney, John Kirby, Lawrence Herchmer, and Peter Smith with George H. Markland, secretary and William Mitchell, treasurer. [12] Cumming and Smith had been business partners. George H. was Thomas Markland's only son, and Lawrence Herchmer's nephew. Herchmer in turn, was John Kirby's brother-in-law. Smith and Herchmer had, in succession, operated a small Indian trading post at what would become Port Hope. Virtually all of them were involved in Kingston's first attempt to form a bank in 1817, and with the exception of Murney all of them withdrew before it set out on its own unincorporated and ill-fated course. In short the Frontenac was to be led by a tightly knit group of Kingston's business, social and political elite. [13]
Who else invested? According to one contemporary source, the investors also hailed from Niagara, Queenston, York and Prescott. [14] Subsequent petitions of the vessel's owners included John Macaulay and James G. Bethune (a nephew and brother-in-law of John Kirby) in 1816, and seven years later, Allan MacLean, A. Marshall, Robert Stanton, Hugh Richmond, O. Smyth, William Stennett, James Atkinson, George Hill, W. McLeod, H.W. Wilkinson, and Alexander McLeod, all of Kingston. [15] Other known investors include John Spread Baldwin and John Strachan in York and Alexander Hamilton of Queenston. [16]
The distribution of shares would later draw criticism: "In the expectation of its being a profitable speculation, the shares were principally retained by the Capitalists at Kingston, instead of endeavouring to interest the Inhabitants of Niagara and Toronto and other places around the Lake. This exhibited such a selfishness as to disgust the Merchants and Traders in the upper part of the Province...."[17]
At a glance this seems a rather astute observation, but it doesn't take into account the circumstances of late 1815. Both York and the villages on the Niagara frontier had been devastated during the war. Undoubtedly, most of the available capital for speculations like the Frontenac was concentrated in Kingston. Moreover, when the Kingston merchants were making their decisions in October 1815, they had in mind a vessel to run from Prescott to Kingston. How much interest could they legitimately expect those in the upper towns to have in a river boat?
DESIGN
In the writings on the Frontenac, none have gone beyond a speculative glance at the most familiar contemporary picture, that from Captain Van Cleve's "Reminiscences", reputedly drawn in 1827. It shows a long, low, three-masted, schooner-rigged vessel. Her single funnel belches smoke and hot ash into the sail tightly furled against the main mast. The only concession to steam seems to be the placement of the main mast well aft, while the guards around the paddlewheels are a distinct afterthought. The cabins on her deck are unobtrusive, leaving one with the impression of a naval vessel, her decks ready to be cleared for action. [18] It is a plausible enough conclusion, but it does not fit all the facts.
Two decisions from the inaugural meeting of the Frontenac's proprietors were critical to its design: it should run on the upper river and have a 40 horse power engine imported from England. Every engine brought into the Canadas at that time had been purchased from Boulton and Watt. Peter Smith, to whom had been delegated this responsibility, turned to the English branch of a well-established Montreal firm, Gerrard, Yeoward, Gillespie and Company. [19] Construction of the hull was underway in Upper Canada by the time instructions could have reached Gillespie, Gerrard & Co. in London, so it is clear that whatever decision was made regarding the interior dimensions amidships had been taken by early November.
The Boulton & Watt papers include a "Sketch of the Framing & Boilers for Boat Engine", noted Gillespie Gerrard & Co., 19 January 1816. On the same sketch the name W. Hodgson & Co., Jan 21st 1815, also appears. [20] The finished drawing for the Frontenac, made later that spring, match to the smallest degree those drawn for Hodgson. [21] And for whom was Hodgson buying an engine? One of his drawings is clearly annotated the Car of Commerce, which was launched at Montreal on 7 October 1815. [22] A table on another of Hodgson's drawings notes the dimensions of the hull: Keel 152 feet, Deck 170 feet, Beam 30 feet, Depth 12 feet to ceiling. The calculated draft was five feet unloaded and six when loaded. [23] The Car's registered tonnage was 670 20/94. [24] By comparison the Frontenac was 150 feet keel, 170 deck, 30 beam, and the depth of the hold was 11 1/2 feet. Running as she did above the Lachine rapids she was never registered, but she was expected to be about 700 tons. [25] In effect, the Frontenac's proprietors built a second Car of Commerce and ordered the engine to fit.
CONSTRUCTION
A strong sense of urgency prevaded the inaugural meeting of the Frontenac's proprietors. The race was on. To overhaul the Americans, the steamboat needed to be "into play" the next year. Before the night was out they had authorized the purchase of the engine and were urging Commodore Owen to petition the Admiralty for "a preference with the Manufacturers in preparing the Steam Engine", as well as transport early in the season.[26]
This urgency is also evident in two rival accounts of the letting of the hull contract. According to an apologist for the proprietors, writing in the spring of 1816: "...[E]very effort had been made to procure Canadian shipwrights, but that unfortunately ... had proved unavailing. ...[W]hile engaged in this fruitless search after a person among our fellow subjects competent to conduct an enterprise of such importance, two Americans, on whom the greatest reliance could be placed, presented themselves before the committee, and offered to contract for the immediate construction of this large vessel on moderate terms. It is needless to add, that, as this was a business which would admit of no delay, their proposals were accepted." [27]
From the distance of some years, a business associate of the two Americans, Henry Finkle, recalled the story much differently. In his account there were the successful American contractors, Teabout and Chapman, and a rival party, "a Scotchman, by the name of Bruce, from Montreal". Bruce was in Kingston several days before Teabout, in response to an advertisement for tenders. Hooker and Crane, two merchants of Sacket's Harbor later involved in the Ontario, contacted Finkle and his partner, Solomon Johns, and asked them to assist Teabout in his application. These being the only two tenders, the committee met to decide between them. The Scots voted for Bruce and the rest for Teabout, with the conclusion being slightly in the latter's favour. The proprietors then hired the disappointed Bruce to inspect the ship's timber where he became a thorn in the side of Teabout. [28]
As the man who posted performance bonds for Teabout and his partners, Finkle should be a reasonably reliable source, but there are a couple of problems with his story. No advertising for tenders appears in the local newspapers. Nor were there more than two native Scots on the seven-man Committee of Management. On the other hand, John Bruce would have been a likely candidate for contractor. Bruce's experience with steam went back to the construction of the Accommodation and Swiftsure for the Molsons, and he had assisted in the work on the Malsham. Near the end of the war he had also had a contract for work in the Kingston naval shipyard and may well have known some of the proprietors.[29] Certainly, there is a ring of authority in Finkle's exasperation with the "constant contest" between Bruce and Teabout.[30]
But who the successful contractors were, was less important to some critics than the fact they were Americans. Moreover, these particular Americans, less than a year before, had been in Sacket's Harbor helping build a naval force intended to crush that in Kingston. Henry Teabout, the senior partner, was a young man born in New York City and trained by Henry Eckford, one of the best shipwrights of the period. Teabout's partners included William Smith, another Eckford alumnus, and James Chapman, a block turner. After the war the three had teamed up to build the Kingston Packet which spent the rest of the season in service between Sacket's Harbor and Kingston.[31]
With a contract for £7000 in his pocket, Teabout spent a couple of days with Henry Finkle searching for a suitable place to begin construction. Not surprisingly, he settled on Finkle's Point, a gravelly piece of land on the edge of the village of Ernesttown (now Bath) owned by Finkle's mother. [32] Having established a site for the work, Teabout immediately left for New York to recruit forty to fifty ship carpenters and to buy the necessary supplies. [33] It would have been December at the earliest before they could have gotten into the woods of Ernesttown township to begin hauling out timber. By mid-February, they had "timber sufficient to build a 74 gun ship" gathered on Finkle's Point, and the keel had been laid. [34]
That summer was one of the coldest on record, with the shipwrights working through a snowstorm in June. But by September, less than a year after the whole project had gotten under way, the vessel was ready to launch. The account of this event is perhaps the most widely quoted passage in Great Lakes history. "A numerous concourse of people assembled on the occasion. But by consequence of some accidental delay, and the appearance of an approaching shower, a part of the spectators withdrew before the launch actually took place. The Boat moved slowly from her place and descended with majestic sweep into her proper elements." [35]
On reading that the machinery imported from England was "an excellent structure", some have concluded that the Frontenac was launched with her engines on board.[36] Obviously these writers have not examined the next issue of the Gazette where the steamboat was observed sailing down from Ernesttown to wait for her machinery. [37] The delay in getting the Frontenac into operation in 1816 was largely due to the subsequent problems in getting the machinery installed and working.
As has already been noted, Gillespie, Gerrard & Co. had approached the firm of Boulton & Watt as early as January 1816. Boulton & Watt was the most important engine building firm in the world, controlling as they did Watt's father's patents. Fulton had used one of their engines for his first steamer, and all of the boats currently running between Montreal and Quebec used Boulton & Watt engines. [38] The company's detailed drawings are dated 15 April 1816 while the final accounting was submitted on May 20. This totalled £3354 Stg. for "Metal Materials of a 50 Horse Power Steam Boat Engine with Paddle Wheel Machinery, Duplicates of sundry parts, and an assortment of Tools & Raw Materials for the erection and repairs of the Engine, delivered at Liverpool". It was exactly the same price charged Hodgson for the Car of Commerce. At the same time, the Frontenac's agents arranged for an employee of Boulton & Watt to come out to Canada to set up and run the engine.[39]
The ship bearing the engine sailed from Liverpool about June 10 a month before the Admiralty finally responded to Commodore Owen's request for its transport. "Their Lordships are ignorant of the state of the Steam Engine preparing for the Company in this Country but are of opinion that every assistance should be given for conveying it to Canada." Somehow they had missed the pressing tone in Owen's request--but at least they authorized his successor to buy two shares in the vessel. [40]
The description of the launch implies that the machinery had already been imported, and the expectation was that all would be in working order in a few weeks.[41] In December the proprietors and Robert Hall, Owen's successor as senior naval officer on the lakes, petitioned the Lieutenant Governor for the remittance of £94.4.1 in customs duties which had been levied on the engine at Quebec. [42] If the engine had arrived earlier in the season and they had wished to protest the duties, the presumption is that they would have done it sooner. In any case, it was May 23, 1817 before the steamer made her first passage across Kingston harbour. "She moved with majestic grandeur against a strong head wind" and then broke part of her machinery. [43]
Before moving discussing the operation of the vessel, a final word should be said about the total cost of the Frontenac. Several estimates exist with varying degrees of authority. The costs of the two principal components can be precisely established. Teabout and Chapman were paid £7000 for the woodwork on the vessel, and if Finkle is to be believed, made very little by it. [44] The Boulton & Watt engine cost £3354 Stg. or about £4192 H.Cy. The costs of shipping across the Atlantic and up the St. Lawrence probably brought this figure up to nearly £5000. In August 1817, John Spread Baldwin, one of the York shareholders, claimed that the vessel had cost £14,500. A little of a year later, in a petition to the Legislative Assembly, the proprietors claimed they had spent nearly £16,000 on her construction and outfitting. [45]
Did the Frontenac's owners pay too much for her? Nine years later, one authority claimed that "she was built at a time when materials were very high."[46] Certainly, the evidence of capital invested in the next few Upper Canadian steamers indicates that the Frontenac's price was nearly three times that of the next most expensive steamer. But they were much smaller vessels, almost all of them with cheaper engines built by Ward of Montreal. A glance at Table I indicates that if anything, the price per ton paid Teabout and Chapman was very competitive. The critical factors affecting its cost were the decisions to build a vessel on the scale of those running between Montreal and Quebec, and to equip it with an expensive English engine.
MANAGEMENT
During the eight years that the Frontenac sailed for her original proprietors there was very little change in the personnel of the management committee. George Markland continued to be secretary for some years, and the late William Mitchell was replaced as treasurer by Peter Smith's son, David John. [47] In the absence of financial reports and minute books we can only assess the effectiveness of their management and leadership by the comments of contemporaries and by their political success.
The proprietors of the Frontenac attempted to parlay the novelty of their venture into a variety of legislative and executive concessions. Most notorious was their first petition to the Legislative Assembly, dated 31 January 1816, asking that foreign steamboats and other craft be excluded from the ports of Upper Canada. At the same time they requested that "for a short term of years they may be favored with an exclusive privilege to navigate by steam the waters from Prescott to Queenston within the Province." The first appeal was intended to protect their "territory" from American competition, the second looked over their shoulders at potential Canadian competition.[48]
The request for a monopoly of local trade was hardly a novel one. Almost simultaneously those financing the Ontario were petitioning the New York State legislature for incorporation and a monopoly of steam navigation on Lake Ontario.[49] They were turned down. The Molsons had begged for a monopoly of navigation on the lower St. Lawrence--without success.[50] In fact the only established monopoly was that in New York state held jointly by the Fulton and Livingston estates, and this arrangement was under constant assault. [51] In consequence it hardly seems surprising that the Frontenac bill was dropped after first reading.
The next legislative target was the lighthouse tonnage duty of three pennies a ton, due every time a vessel entered certain ports. After a year of operation, the managers realized just how hard that duty hit a steamer of considerable burden. They proved unable to persuade the Assembly to exempt steamers. However, they did secure a reduction in the calculated tonnage proportional to the amount of space occupied by the machinery and fuel.[52] After a second attempt in 1821 prompted a pitched battle on the floor of the Assembly, the tonnage duties were lifted on all Upper Canadian vessels. [53] Once again, the management committee had proven unable to extract any meaningful concessions based on owning the first steamboat built in the province.
Their petitions to the Lieutenant Governor were marginally more successful. An August 1816 request for permission to take wood from the Thousand Islands led to the granting of one island. [54] In December of that year, as has been mentioned, they requested the remittance of their Customs duty for the importing of the engine. [55] There is no evidence that this was granted. Finally, in 1823 they demanded that the Governor delay the work on the Burlington Bay canal until there were funds to build one large enough to accommodate the Frontenac. [56]
Most of the surviving criticism of the management committee comes from two sources: two York observers, and a series of letters containing some of the most vicious vituperation ever printed about a Canadian shipping venture. The Kingston Gazette letters begin in the February 3rd issue when TRUE BRITON remarked that the petition for a monopoly of Lake Ontario would "not reflect much honor on the generosity of the petitioners." Next week's reply took the high ground of clarifying and defending the petition and then exposed TRUE BRITON as "nothing but an ass--cloathed in the skin of the lion."[57] By the time the editor called the bickering to a halt in April six pseudonymous writers had climbed into the ring. On the one hand were the "ravings of a splenetic and distempered imagination", while the other wearied of the "declamation, invective, scurrilous personalities and false and malicious insinuations" leveled against him. [58] The substance of the debate was the seeking of special privileges for the Frontenac and the hiring of Americans.
While the newspaper debate occurred even before the vessel was launched, later critics included the shareholders. John Strachan, a highly influential member of the Executive Council and a minor shareholder in the Frontenac, complained bitterly of the "want of consistency" in the managers. "...[I]f the speculation has been bad, I will venture to say & I will undertake to prove, that it has been in a great measure owing to the management." [59] Another York critic later claimed that "the management of the Steam Boat Frontenac was so miserable, that, instead of a successful, it became a losing concern...." [60]
But before looking more closely at the nagging question of profitability, the second level of management needs closer examination--the Frontenac's officers. Unfortunately, apart from the captain, engineer and purser, the only description of the crew is that "the captain and a few others were Scotch and the bulk of the crew Irishmen."[61] Nevertheless, the officer's credentials are important indicators of the kinds of skills deemed necessary to operate a 700 ton pioneer steamer on the uncharted waters of Lake Ontario.
At 33 Captain James McKenzie had been bred to the sea, serving in the British merchant marine before joining the Royal Navy and rising to the rank of master. McKenzie first encountered Upper Canada as part of the naval contingent assigned in the spring of 1813 to the defence of the Lakes. A veteran of gunboat raids, the dockyard and the decks of the Wolfe and Prince Regent, McKenzie earned a glowing commendation from Commodore Sir James Yeo. Shipped back to England on half-pay, McKenzie developed an interest in steam engines and their marine applications. Certainly he was aware of the progress of the Frontenac and arrived back in Kingston in time to assist in her outfitting. To those who would offer the Frontenac contracts for the transport of troops and stores, McKenzie's naval status was precisely the reassurance they would need that their interests were in the proper hands.[62]
Like McKenzie, engineer John Leys was a Scot. But here the similarity appears to have ended. Leys was raised in Aberdeen but had turned his back on the sea and chosen to learn the art of engine building from Boulton and Watt. Like many of the other marine engineers of the era, Leys was enticed from his employers by the steamboat's agents. He took full advantage of their haste, demanding £160 a year for the next two years. When no one else was immediately forthcoming, an agreement was struck and the 25 year old engineer raced off on the next stage for Liverpool. [63]
Henry Scadding summed up the relationship between Leys and McKenzie, in the following terms: "At the outset of steam navigation, men competent to superintend the working of the machinery were, of course, not numerous, and Captains were obliged in some degree to humour their chief engineer when they had secured the services of one. Capt. McKenzie, it would be said, was somewhat tyrannized over by Mr. Leys, who was a Scot, not very tractable; and the Frontenac's movements, times of sailing, and so on, were very much governed by a will in the hold, independent of that of the ostensible Commander. Mr. Leys, familiarly spoken of as Jock Leys, was long well known in York."[64]
One York stockholder assessed the two men from a very different perspective. "The Capn & Engineer", he complained, "have an immense salary..." [65] It is not clear how long Leys stayed with the vessel after his initial contract expired. By 1827, the Frontenac's last season, Leys had formed and dissolved an onshore partnership with his brother, and left to sail on the Canada. [66]
In a similar fashion, the tenure of purser Alexander O. Petrie is unclear. Petrie never spoke directly of his experience on the Frontenac with historian William Canniff, although he claimed to have settled in the Belleville area about 1809. During the War of 1812 Petrie was a clerk in the Assistant Quarter Master General's office in Kingston, a duty which would have brought his talents to the attention of the Frontenac's backers. [67] In 1816 and the spring of 1817 he was the master of the schooner General Brock, on whose decks he was last seen in mid-June 1817. [68] By 1825 he may have left the Frontenac, for at that date he applied for a ferry license to run across the Bay of Quinte from Belleville. [69] Like McKenzie, Petrie was a sailor who was familiar with local waters, and who had useful contacts in a key military department.
In general, the management committee of the Frontenac had nothing to show for their political quest for special privileges and had done little to conciliate the ill-feeling between senior officers. Indeed, after the death of the capable William Mitchell, one is left with the sense that the committee offices were sinecures for the magistrates' sons. The ship's officers, by contrast were a competent group of men, even if they displayed little sense of teamwork. To the public, in fact, Captain McKenzie, rather than the owners, came to represent the whole enterprise.
OPERATION
The employment of experienced sailors like McKenzie and Petrie was important to the Frontenac, for it was not long after the original decisions had been made about steamboat design, that the proprietors started having second thoughts about her route. In their first petition to the legislature of 31 January 1816 they described the steamboat as "transporting stores and merchandise from Prescott to Kingston, or any other place on the borders of Lake Ontario within this Province." Venturing onto the Lake appears as an afterthought--at least for the next two paragraphs. The request for "an exclusive privilege to navigate by steam the waters from Prescott to Queenston" seems a much more forthright declaration of intent. [70]
The Frontenac, however, never did visit Prescott. The second schedule of departures, published in the Kingston Gazette, did not even mention Prescott except in terms of rates and she would not venture onto the St. Lawrence until early in August. [71]
On 7 August 1817 they set out for Prescott with the Chief Justice, William Dummer Powell, and the other members of the circuit court. Thirty miles downstream the Frontenac was making a good speed in a swift current when she suddenly grounded on a "large shoal of rocks". The only chart at their disposal made no reference to the shoal, which in "honour" of their "discovery" has been known as Frontenac Shoal to this day. McKenzie, however, was less interested in filling in the gaps on his chart than he was in being free of the embrace of his discovery. Reversing the wheels and shifting the weight in the hold failed to produce the desired results, so men had to be sent back to Kingston. Two groups of soldiers of the 37th Regiment were dispatched before they shifted her off the rocks. To their considerable relief, eight days after her departure she arrived back in Kingston with the only damage being the loss of a piece of the keel.[72]
There are those who have suggested that the Frontenac ran aground "not unwittingly", and that her owners were more interested in maintaining the point of transhipment at Kingston. [73] Somehow the absurdity does not seem to have struck them of deliberately running a £15,000, 700 ton steamer on a rocky shoal in the Thousand Islands just to justify a change in route! If additional explanation is needed it may be drawn from Van Cleve's sketch of the Frontenac, with the captain standing atop a cabin amidships, the engineer in the hold below and the hands at the tiller awaiting their instructions. The pattern of communication from captain to crew was simply too primitive for the semi-charted waters of the Thousand Islands.
Other observers commented on the sluggish way in which the Frontenac answered the helm. [74] Much of the explanation for this may lie in the observation of one of her later owners, that her engine was "an excellent machine but far too small for a boat of the size of the Frontenac. She did tolerably well in smooth water but she could not make headway against a strong wind. We were, on one occasion, more than a week making the trip from Kingston to Toronto." [75] One traveller even commented that she was not as fast as the Ontario, a steamer with chronic engine problems. [76]
The same caution which subsequently restricted her route to Lake Ontario was evident in a description of the Frontenac docking at York. According to one source, the Frontenac, and the William IV after her, would stop their engines while still some distance out in the harbour. Boats would be lowered with heavy hawsers aboard. When the boats landed at the wharf the hands on shore would manhandle the steamer into her berth. Somehow the operation always seemed to draw a crowd.[77]
Crowds of course, were what the Frontenac's proprietors had in mind when they talked about the passenger trade. A couple of surviving travel accounts describe her endowments from a passenger's point of view. "Her state-rooms contain four births [sic] each, and the beds and pillows have no other inconvenience, except a scarcity of feathers. If one of our passengers tells a correct story, he took the trouble to count and found the pillow under his head to contain only nineteen feathers and a half. ...The table spread before us, was certainly very fairly supplied; which is generally one of the greatest comforts, on board of these floating hotels."[78]
John Howison, a relatively good sailor, found his passage on the Frontenac delightful. After describing the dimensions of the craft, he explained that she was designed to "cover three seas, and thus be prevented from pitching violently in boisterous weather."[79] This information was of little comfort to his fellow passengers, who after a stormy night on the lake arrived at breakfast "wan, dejected, and sea-sick" [80]
COMPETITION AND PROFITABILITY
In discussions of the Frontenac's rivals, the only name which usually surfaces is the Ontario. This is hardly surprising when most accounts focus on the race to be the first steamer on the Great Lakes. They ignore the fact that, by and large, the steamers worked different sides of the lake and served different ports. There was little need to compete directly, except for the passenger traffic bound from Niagara Falls to Montreal. And for this largely American traffic, the Ontario, which ran through to Ogdensburg, held the advantage.
Some have seen the Charlotte as a sister ship to the Frontenac, owned by the same merchants, and built in the same yard by one of the same shipwrights, Henry Gildersleeve. [81] Moreover, the Charlotte ran on a complementary route--up the Bay of Quinte and down the St. Lawrence to Prescott. This, however, seriously distorts the relationship between the two vessels.
The controversy in the Kingston Gazette in the winter of 1816 has already been touched upon. This debate provides valuable insight into the earliest stages of the Charlotte's history. After being hard pressed by his critics, the Frontenac's lone defender charged them with supporting "a band of aliens in conjunction with a few individuals in this Province, unworthy of the name Britons, [who] have it in contemplation to build [a steamboat] on the Canadian shore, with the express design of evading the duties which they expect to see imposed on American shipping..."[82] A subsequent rebuttal described the promotion as the work of a few men of "scanty means", who planned a small steamboat, albeit with an American engine. [83]
The Charlotte was indeed supplied with an American engine. She was owned, not by rich magistrates like Kirby, Markland or Smith, but by small merchants with Ernesttown and Bay of Quinte connections--men like Finkle and his partner, Solomon Johns, Daniel Washburn and Smith Bartlett. [84]
When the Charlotte appeared, she began pioneering the "Bay and River" route, as it became known. Despite this, the following winter, the Frontenac's proprietors concocted an ill-conceived scheme to compete with the Charlotte on the river. They engaged a line of Durham boats to forward freight from Kingston to Montreal. One of these was fitted up as "an elegant Passage Boat" which was to leave Kingston on the arrival of the steamer. Given that the Charlotte also attempted to co-ordinate its departures with the Frontenac's advertised schedule, the plan did not have much of a chance. [85]
After their first legislative rebuff, the proprietors of the Frontenac seemed most concerned with improving their competitive position relative to the schooners on the lake. Tonnage being a measure of freight carrying capacity, they argued that the duties were particularly onerous for steamboats, much of whose interiors were occupied by the machinery, fuel and passenger cabins. This was weakly buttressed by a plea that the cost of fuel meant that the Frontenac's operating expenses were also much higher than those of schooners. [86] Their protest that a shallow Burlington Bay Canal would promote "a monopoly of the increasing freight of that extensive and fertile country ... in favor of small Vessels" is especially hypocritical.[87]
Many of these complaints were prompted by very disappointing financial returns. Lamentations were frequently voiced about the Frontenac's financial failure. In a petition to the Legislature after the second season, the management committee defended their case by highlighting the benefits accruing to the province as a whole, while "the prospects which Your Petitioners have of deriving individual advantage therefrom are distant and precarious." [88]
Nevertheless, there were operating profits. Stockholder, Alexander Hamilton made a couple of attempts to secure his dividends for the years 1820 to 1824. His claim amounted to £67.9.10, which would indicate a dividend of just under 17% on a share nominally worth £100. [89] But steamboats were capital which depreciated relatively quickly, and the profits had to repay both the value of the original share and a reasonable rate of return. To clear 10%, the average earnings over ten years had to be 20%. Hamilton's claims were for the years after Upper Canada had weathered the unusual summer storms, the bad harvests and the post-war depression, and therefore probably represent her most profitable years.
SALE
By the fall of 1824 rumours were circulating that the Frontenac would for the first time face direct competition for traffic from another Canadian steamer. Alexander Hamilton's older brother Robert, it was reported, was building a new lake steamer at Queenston. [90] At the same time, a group of York investors were promoting a small steamer to provide daily service on the crossing to Niagara. [91]
A general meeting of the Frontenac's proprietors was called in late November 1824 and the decision was made to put her up for auction. [92] Captain Hugh Richardson, commenting the following summer on this plan of action, was utterly contemptuous. "I cannot conceive" he wrote, "what occasion there can ever be to sell a steam-vessel wholesale, (except to advantage). The stock being transferable, let every one dispose of his share as he pleases. And when the vessel comes to be worn out, the most valuable part of the stock remains, the Machinery, Anchors and Cables." Richardson estimated the engine was still worth £2500 and the other recoverable parts another £1500. His solution would have been to appraise the value of the remaining equipment and raise sufficient capital to replace the hull.[93] But after eight seasons the original stockholders were prepared to walk away from their problems and advertised her for sale without reserve. [94]
It is unclear just how many serious bidders gathered on the King's wharf on the wintry afternoon appointed for the auction. By the time the auctioneer brought down his hammer the bidding had crept up to a paltry £1550. [95] The high bidder was 22 years old--John, the youngest brother of Alexander and Robert Hamilton. Hardly without means, on his 21st birthday John had shared in the final division of his father's estate. Despite splitting his patrimony with six brothers, John found himself a very wealthy young man. The Frontenac would be his contribution to a partnership with his brother Robert. [96]
While rumours first made the rounds that the Hamiltons were going to break up the Frontenac that summer, in fact they fixed her up and ran her for another two seasons. [97] When the end finally came in the summer of 1827, they offered her for sale in Kingston. After receiving no serious offers, she was taken up to Niagara where men began the work of stripping her of everything useful. [98]Early on the morning of September 15, as the steamer Niagara made the crossing from York to Niagara, Joseph Pickering and his fellow travellers "discovered a fire a-head, which we all supposed to be the lighthouse of Fort Niagara, but found it the large steam-boat Frontinac [sic], set adrift after being fire by some incendiary.... Our Captain ordered a hawser to be fastened to her bows, which as yet had not taken fire, and we towed her into her old station on the beach, so that but little of her iron will be lost." [99] The boilers were still on board but were so damaged that they could not be transferred to the new vessel Robert Hamilton was having built. A reward of £100 was offered for the capture and conviction of the arsonists. [100]
The engine of the Frontenac lived on. The Ward brothers of Montreal were paid £1100 to supply new boilers, shafts and paddle wheels and to transfer the engine into Robert Hamilton's new steamer Alciope. [101] As Richardson had recommended, the Alciope was about half the size of her predecessor. Five years later, when the Alciope was re-engined, the old Boulton & Watt engine was taken up the Niagara portage and installed in the Adelaide, a steamer Robert Hamilton and some associates were building at Chippewa. Again the engines would have the distinction of powering the first British steamer on one of the lakes. [102] By contrast, the burned out hull of the Frontenac still lies abandoned off the Niagara beach. [103]
CONCLUSIONS
The broad range of the Frontenac's experience is important to an understanding of the early history of steam on the Great Lakes. As with the Ontario, the navy had played a critical role at an early stage in the promotion of the Frontenac--participation closely related to lingering concerns about the durability of peace. Like the Ontario, the Frontenac was modelled on an existing steamboat. In both cases, the same engine builder supplied machinery for both model and copy.
The Frontenac was the sole property of a large joint stock partnership or association run by a closed clique of wealthy Kingston merchants. Neither they nor their sons provided effective leadership, and much of the management of the concern was left in the hands of professional employees like McKenzie, Leys and Petrie. The result was bickering among the employees and poor management of her business affairs. Doing business in a province whose largest urban centre contained fewer than 5000 people, and launched during an economic downturn, the Frontenac was a losing concern.
The steamboat's affairs involved many men who would dominate the Upper Canadian steam trades for years to come: Captain James McKenzie, engineer John Leys, shipwright Henry Gildersleeve, David John Smith and John and Robert Hamilton. Men like Hugh Richardson, busily promoting his own steamer, found the lessons provided by the Frontenac useful tools in planning his own affairs.
While little mention has been made in this paper of the question of "firsts", the issue probably should be dealt with briefly. The laurel of "first steamboat on the Great Lakes" can be awarded according to whatever definition of "first" is preferred. The evidence indicates that the Ontario was the first to be promoted and the first to move on the lakes under the power of steam. However, the Frontenac was the first under construction and consequently, the first launched. Moreover, in her voyage from Ernesttown to Kingston in September 1816 she was the first to "sail".
NOTES
1. Wm. Canniff, History of the Settlement of Upper Canada, (Ontario,) with Special Reference to the Bay Quinte (Toronto: Dudley & Burns, 1869). Henry Scadding, Toronto of Old: Collections and Recollections Illustrative of the Early Settlement and Social Life of the Capital of Ontario (Toronto: Adam, Stevenson & Co., 1873). Capt. James Van Cleve, "Reminiscences of the Early period of Sailing Vessels and Steam Boats on Lake Ontario With a History of the Introduction of the Propeller on the Lakes and other Historical Incidents with Illustrations," (MS, Oswego City Clerk, c1877). J. Ross Robertson, Landmarks of Toronto: A Collection of Historical Sketches of the Old Town of York from 1792 until 1833, and of Toronto from 1834 to [1914] (Toronto: J. Ross Robertson, 1894-1914). E.A. Cruikshank, "Notes of the History of Shipbuilding and Navigation on Lake Ontario up to the time of the Launching of the Steamship Frontenac, at Ernesttown, Ontario, 7th September, 1816," Ontario Historical Society Papers & Records 23(1926): 33-44. Edwin E. Horsey, "The Gildersleeves of Kingston: Their Activities, 1816-1930," (MS, Queen's University Archives, 1942). R.A. Preston, "The History of the Port of Kingston: Growth, 1673-1847," Ontario History, 46(1954): 201-11.
2. H.A. Musham, "Early Great Lakes Steamboats: The Ontario and the Frontenac," American Neptune 3(1943): 333-44. [Back]
3. HONESTUS, Kingston Gazette, 13 Apr. 1816. [Back]
4. National Archives of Canada (NAC), Colonial Office Transcripts, MG 11, Q Series, v. 141, pt. 1, Naval Establishments, Survey of the Lakes 1816, 77-79, EWCR Owen to John Wilson Croker, no. 75, 28 Oct. 1815. See also Richard F. Palmer, "Ontario: First Steamboat on the Great Lakes?", FreshWatervol. 2, no. 1 (Summer 1987): 20- 27. [Back]
5. C. Winton-Clare, "A Shipbuilder's War," Mariner's Mirror, 29 (1943): . See also R.A. Preston, "The Fate of Kingston's Warships," Historic Kingston 1 (1952): 3-14. [Back]
6. NAC, MG11, Q Series, v. 141, pt. 1, EW Owen to John Wilson Croker, 30 June 1815, Enclosure "River St. Lawrence and Cataraqui," p. 35. [Back]
7. Robert Gourlay, Statistical Account of Upper Canada, Carleton Library no. 75 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974), 237, 240, 244, 286-90. [Back]
8. NAC, MG11, Q Series, v. 141, pt. 1, pp. 77-79, EWCR Owen to John Wilson Croker, 28 Oct. 1815. [Back]
9. HONESTUS, Kingston Gazette, 13 Apr. 1816. [Back]
10. NAC, MG11, Q Series, v. 141, pt. 1, pp. 80-82, Minutes, Meeting of the Merchants of Kingston. TRUE BRITON, Kingston Gazette, 30 Mar. 1816. All monitary references are to Halifax Currency unless Sterling is specified. Typically, £1 Halifax Currency equalled $4.00 and £1 Sterling equalled $4.44. A.B. McCullough, "Currency Conversion in British North America, 1760-1900," Archivaria, 16(1983): 92. [Back]
11. NAC, MG11, Q Series, v. 141, pt. 1, pp. 80-82, Minutes, Meeting of the Merchants of Kingston. [Back]
13. Kathryn M. Bindon, "Kingston: A social history, 1785-1830," (Ph.D. diss., Queen's University, 1979). W.D. Reid, "Johan Jost Herkimer, U.E., and His Family", Ontario Historical Society Papers & Records, 31(1936): 215-27. Note that for clarity, I have standardized the family name as Herchmer. [Back]
14. Canniff, 601 quoting Henry Finkle. In addition to some of the names I have listed below, Finkle added Joseph Forsyth, Yeomans and Marsh. Forsyth died in 1813. Finkle also comments that the investors included "all the principal men except the Cartwright family." The Cartwrights should be excused, given the fact that the head of the family died in the summer of 1815 and his will wasn't probated until the following spring. His eldest surviving son was 16 that year. "Probated Wills of Persons Prominent in the Public Affairs of Early Upper Canada," Ontario Historical Society Papers & Records, 24(1927): 390-400. Upper Canada Gazette & U.E. Loyalist (York), 10 June 1826. Although if it were true, one would expect Finkle to make note of it, there is no mention of his mother's participation in the ownership of the Frontenac. This "participation" would appear to be an overenthusiastic interpretation of Horsey's "clever businesswoman" who "made arrangements with contractors" (p. 9) by Anna G. Young, Great Lakes Saga: the influence of one family on the development of Canadian Shipping on the Great Lakes, 1816-1931 (Owen Sound: Richardson, Bond & Wright, 1965), 11. [Back]
15. NAC, RG 5, A1, v. 30, pp. 14070-72, Memorial of the Merchants of Kingston, 12 Dec. 1816; pp. 31854-56, Petition of sundry Kingston proprietors of the steamboat Frontenac, 20 May 1823. [Back]
16. Edith G. Firth, The Town of York, 1815-1834: A Further Collection of Documents of Early Toronto, Ontario Series, no. 8) Toronto: Champlain Society for the Government of Ontario, 1966), 39-40. Archives of Ontario (AO), Ms 78 Macaulay Papers, John Strachan to John Macaulay, 29 Nov. 1823. AO, MU 1726, Alexander Hamilton Letterbook, Alexander Hamilton to George H. Markland, 21 Dec. 1827. [Back]
17. HR, Upper Canada Herald (Kingston), 25 April 1837. [Back]
19. Birmingham Reference Library, Archive Department (BRL), Boulton & Watt Collection, Office Letter Books, 39-40, Boulton & Watt to Gillespie Gerrard & Co., January - June 1816. [Back]
20. Ibid., Portfolios 1213-14, KPK Reverse. [Back]
21. Ibid. This is based on a point by point analysis of all seven drawings in portfolios 1213-14. [Back]
22. Ibid., KSC Reverse. George H. Wilson, "The Application of Steam to St. Lawrence Valley Navigation, 1809-1840," ( M.A. Thesis, McGill University, 1961), 50. [Back]
23. BRL, Boulton & Watt Collection, Portfolios 1213-14, KSE Reverse [Back]
25. NAC, RG 5, A1, p. 33677, Jno. Macaulay to ?, 26 Mar. 1824. Kingston Gazette, 24 Sept. 1816. Kingston Chronicle, 10 Dec. 1824. [Back]
26. NAC, MG11, Q Series, v. 141, pt. 1, pp. 77-79, EWCR Owen to John Wilson Croker, 28 Oct. 1815. [Back]
27. CANDIDUS, Kingston Gazette, 6 Apr. 1816. [Back]
29. Wilson, 8, 34. NAC, RG 8, C Series, v. 735, pp. 147-49, Petition of Geo. Record, 31 Aug. 1815. [Back]
31. Ibid., 601-2. Neither Teabout or Smith are listed among Eckford's apprentices in Phyllis Dekay Wheelock, "Henry Eckford (1775-1832): an American Shipbuilder," American Neptune, 8(July 1947): 181. In some accounts, Henry Gildersleeve emerges as the master shipwright for the Frontenac, (Van Cleve, 37) while others give the credit for directing the last phase of the work. (Young, 13) But Gildersleeve's brother-in-law, Henry Finkle, claimed little more than that he had "assisted to finish off the Frontenac." (Canniff, 606) [Back]
33. Ibid. TRUE BRITON, Kingston Gazette, 6 Apr. 1816. [Back]
34. Kingston Gazette, 17 Feb. 1816. [Back]
35. Ibid., 14 Sept. 1816. [Back]
36. Barlow Cumberland, A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River (Toronto: Musson Book Co., 1913), 19. George A. Cuthbertson, Freshwater: A History and a Narrative of the Great Lakes (Toronto: Macmillan, 1931), 216. [Back]
37. Kingston Gazette, 21 Sept. 1816. [Back]
39. BRL, Boulton & Watt Collection, Office Letter Books, Boulton & Watt to Gillespie, Gerrard & Co., 10 June 1816; Bouton & Watt to Wm Hodgson & Co., 16 May 1815. Regarding Leys, see Boulton & Watt to Gillespie, Gerrard & Co., 21 May, 23 May, 30 May, 3 June and 10 June 1816. [Back]
40. NAC, MG11, Q Series, v. 141, pt. 1, p. 4, J.W. Croker to Henry Goulburn, 6 July 1816. [Back]
41. Kingston Gazette, 14 Sept. 1816. [Back]
42. NAC, RG 5, A1, v. 30, pp. 14070-72, Memorial of the Merchants of Kingston, 12 Dec. 1816. NAC, RG 16, A1, v. 133, Kingston 1816, Robt Hall to Governor Gore, 6 Dec. 1816. [Back]
43. Kingston Gazette, 24 May 1817. [Back]
44. TRUE BRITON, Kingston Gazette, 6 Apr. 1816. Canniff, 602. [Back]
45. Firth, 39-40. Tenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario (Toronto: King's Printer, 1914), 47-48. [Back]
46. Hugh Richardson, Steam Navigation on Lake Ontario (York: J. Carey, 1825), 17. [Back]
47. Subsequent lists of the management committee include: AO, MU 2103 Miscellaneous Collection, 1819, #3 (Virtually the same ad appears in Kingston Chronicle, 5 Feb. 1819). Tenth Report, 47-48. David John Smith appears in the ad calling the meeting to sell the Frontenac, Kingston Chronicle, 26 Nov. 1824. [Back]
48. Ninth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario (Toronto: King's Printer, 1913), 186-87. When on their behalf, Thomas Ridout introduced a bill to exclude foreign steamboats, part of its declared intent was to incorporate the proprietors. [Back]
51. David Whittet Thompson, "The Great Steamboat Monopolies: Part I, The Mississippi, Part II, The Hudson," American Neptune, 16(1956): 28-40, 270-80. [Back]
52. Ninth Report, 486. Tenth Report, 47-48, 90. The calculation of tonnage duties at 3d. per ton on 700 tons works out to approximately £9. On every circuit of the lakes the Frontenac made four entries: Kingston, Niagara and twice at York. This meant that the proprietors spent £36 a round trip in tonnage duties (with wharfage fees on top of that). If the Frontenac made two trips a month in a six month navigation season, she would pay £432 in lighthouse tonnage duties. If she made the same trip every 10 days, she would pay £648. To put this in perspective, the duties had built two lighthouses, at Niagara (burned during the war) and at York. It would be 1828 before another was built on False Ducks for £546! At this rate the Frontenac could have been building one lighthouse a year. It is small wonder that the False Ducks commissioners included two men closely associated with the steamer. Edward F. Bush, "The Canadian Lighthouse," Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History, no. 9 (Ottawa: National Historic parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, 1974), 64. In 1818 the Collector of Customs at York started entering the Frontenac at 150 tons. Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library (MTRL), William Allan Papers, (S123) Account Book, Collector of Customs, 1815-1830. [Back]
53. Tenth Report, 352, 371-72, 416. AO, Macaulay Papers, Christopher Hagerman to John Macaulay, 7 Mar., 11 Mar. 1821. Upper Canada Gazette, 8 Mar., 15 Mar., 22 Mar. 1821. [Back]
54. NAC, RG 5, A1, pp. 13457-58, John Kirby to Francis Gore, 5 Aug. 1816. [Back]
56. NAC, RG 5, A1, pp. 31854-55, Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Kingston Proprietors of the steamboat Frontenac, 20 May 1823. [Back]
57. Kingston Gazette, TRUE BRITON, 3 Feb. 1816; CANDIDUS, 10 Feb. 1816. [Back]
58. Kingston Gazette, CANDIDUS, 6 Apr. 1816; TRUE BRITON, 13 Apr. 1816. Other pseudonyms included TIMOTHY PEASEBOTTOM, HONESTUS, TICKLE, and JOEL CORN-COB. [Back]
59. AO, Macaulay Papers, John Strachan to John Macaulay, 4 Oct. 1821. Also 29 Nov. 1823. [Back]
60. HR, Upper Canada Herald, 25 Apr. 1837. [Back]
61. A Summer Month: or, Recollections of a visit to the falls of Niagara, and the Lakes (Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and Shea, 1823), 91. [Back]
62. Walter Lewis, "James McKenzie," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966- ) 6: 469-71 [Back]
63. Walter Lewis, "John Leys," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966- ) 7: 505-6. [Back]
66. Upper Canada Gazette & U.E. Loyalist, 21 Apr. 1827. Colonial Advocate (York), 2 Aug. 1827. [Back]
68. MTRL, Allan Papers, (S123) Account book, Collector of Customs, 1815-1830. Last entry at York was 16 June 1817. [Back]
69. NAC, RG 5, A1, pp. 38971-73, Petition of AO Petrie, 25 July 1825. Gerald E. Boyce, Historic Hastings (Belleville: Hastings County Council, 1967), 72-73. [Back]
70. Ninth Report, 186-87. [Back]
71. Kingston Gazette, 24 June 1817. [Back]
72. Ibid., 12 Aug., 19 Aug. 1817. Van Cleve, 38. News of this was carried rapidly around the lake by schooner. Upper Canada Gazette, 14 Aug. 1817, with rebuttal in Kingston Gazette, 19 Aug. 1817. [Back]
73. Young, 14 quoting Eighty Years' Progress in British North America (Toronto: L. Stebbins, 1863), 139. [Back]
74. John Howison, Sketches of Upper Canada (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1821), 48. [Back]
75. Kingston Chronicle and Gazette, 22 Nov. 1843. (My thanks to John Mills for pointing out this reference) In justice to the proprietors of the Frontenac, both the Car of Commerce and the Malsham, the available precedents on the lower St. Lawrence, were designed with similiar horse power/tonnage ratios. [Back]
81. Horsey, 10. Young, 16-17. Arthur L. Johnson, The Transportation Revolution on Lake Ontario, 1817-1867: Kingston and Ogdensburg," Ontario History 67(1975): 200. [Back]
82. CANDIDUS, Kingston Gazette, 6 Apr. 1816. [Back]
83. HONESTUS, Ibid., 13 Apr. 1816. [Back]
84. Canniff, 604. Kingston Gazette, 16 Dec. 1817, 28 Apr. 1818. Canniff indicates that the engine was built by Ward at Montreal. John Dod Ward had not yet set up his foundry at Montreal, but it is possible that the engine was built by he or his family in the New York area. [Back]
85. AO, MU 2103, Miscellaneous Collection, 1819, # 3. Kingston Chronicle, 5 Feb. 1819. [Back]
87. NAC, RG 5, A1, pp. 31854-55, Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of Kingston, proprietors of the steamboat Frontenac, 20 May 1823. [Back]
89. AO, Alexander Hamilton Letterbook, Alexander Hamilton to George H. Markland, 21 Dec. 1827. [Back]
90. Colonial Advocate, 5 Aug. 1824. Niagara Gleaner, 21 Aug. 1824. [Back]
91. Walter Lewis, "The Steamer Toronto of 1825," FreshWater, 1 (Autumn 1986): 26-29. [Back]
92. Kingston Chronicle, 26 Nov., 10 Dec. 1824. [Back]
94. Kingston Chronicle, 10 Dec. 1824. [Back]
95. Ibid., 14 Jan. 1825. [Back]
96. This partnership broke up shortly after the wreckers finished with the Frontenac. Colonial Advocate, 8 Nov. 1827. [Back]
97. Ibid., 23 May 1825, 20 Apr. 1826. NAC, MG 24, I26, Alexander Hamilton Papers, v. 4, John Hamilton file, John to Robert Hamilton 19 Jan., 21 Apr. 1825. [Back]
98. Colonial Advocate, 11 June 1827. Niagara Gleaner, 3 Sept. 1827. [Back]
99. Joseph Pickering, Inquiries of an emigrant, new ed. (London: Effingham Wilson, 1831), 99. See also Niagara Gleaner, 17 Sept. 1827. [Back]
100. Upper Canada Gazette & U.E. Loyalist, 29 Sept. 1827. Quoted in Montreal Gazette, 8 Oct. 1827. [Back]
101. Archives nationales du Quebec, Montreal, CN1-187, Henry Griffin, no. 7531, Contract & Agreement between John Dod Ward & Co. and Robert Hamilton Esq., 9 Nov. 1827. [Back]
102. Kingston Chronicle, 20 Aug. 1831 (quoting Montreal Gazette), 22 Oct. 1831 (quoting Boston Traveller). [Back]
