Canadian Transport Sourcebook

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Page 59

On the afternoon of March 12, 1857, there left Toronto for Hamilton the regular passenger train of the Great Western Railway with about one hundred passengers aboard. When within forty yards of the bridge which crossed the Desjardin Canal, uniting the town of Dundas with Burlington, the locomotive appears to have jumped the switch and, followed by tender, baggage car and two passenger cars, toppled into the ice-sheeted waters of the canal sixty feet below. It is estimated that the accident caused the death of fifty-nine persons, few, if any of the passengers escaped injury. The disaster caused a great commotion throughout Canada, and both the Great Western Railway and the canal company were bitterly assailed by the Press. The locomotive, called the Oxford, was raised from the canal less than two weeks after the accident; but it was as late as 1873 that the leading trucks of the engine and the broken axle (supposed to have caused the accident) were recovered.

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Page 79

The steamer Corinthian was a steel plated steamer of 350 tons, built at Kingston, Ont., in 1864. Capt. Crysler commanded her, and she plied between Port Hope, Cobourg, Charlotte, N.Y., and Colborne (Lakeport), Ont., on what was known as the Rochester route. In 1870 she became a unit in the Canadian Navigation Co's Royal Mail Line, plying between Hamilton and Montreal, calling at north shore ports on Lake Ontario on the way. She was then commanded by Capt. Dunlop. In the 1880's she got ashore at the port of Grafton, Ont., through mistaking the headlight of a locomotive for the light at Cobourg whither she was bound. Her passengers were landed safely at Grafton and she was towed off the beach with considerable difficulty and drydocked for repairs at Kingston. After an extensive overhaul she resumed her lake and river run for several seasons. From the John Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library.

Page 81

During the latter half of the nineteenth century celebrations to welcome distinguished visitors and officials included the erection of arches under which the public processions passed. Such arches were generally decorated by evergreen boughs and coloured bunting, were often manned by red-shirted firemen, and bore appropriate and timely mottoes. On Lord Dufferin's visit to British Columbia, in 1876, as Governor-General of Canada, some of these arches carried inscriptions expressing the dissatisfaction of the Province at the terms of its admission to the Confederation, such as that shown in the illustration—"Carnarvon Terms or Separation." The Governor-General declined to pass under these arches until the offending mottoes were amended or removed.

Page 145

The discovery of gold in 1858 in British Columbia, then known as New Caledonia, resulted in a rush of prospectors. Many of these came from California, "Forty-Niners," experienced in the quest in river beds, hillside gullies and mountain canyons. But many also were "Tenderfeet" from New England, Canada and the British Isles, attracted by the world-wide reports of fabulous wealth to be picked up in this Eldorado, reached by the Fraser River route. Only narrow footpaths or packhorse trails penetrated the region known as the Cariboo country, east of the upper reaches of the river. Thousands of prospectors struggled over the Cariboo trail. Many lost their lives, by snowslides, starvation, drowning, or falling over precipices.

In the fall of 1858 arrived a detachment of the Royal Engineers under Colonel Moody, and on November 19th the colony of British Columbia was created by royal proclamation, with James Douglas as Governor. He undertook to build a road into the gold country. In 1862 it was begun under the direction of the Royal Engineers, and before 1865 it was completed to Barkerville in the heart of the mining district. It was eighteen feet wide and over four hundred and eighty miles long; one of the finest roads ever built.

Page 151

The coach operating on Yonge Street between Toronto and Richmond Hill is now on exhibition in the Toronto Coach Terminal. It was in service for more than fifteen years, and was still in use when the electric radial line was completed in 1895. The Toronto Transportation Commission has published a leaflet giving an outline history of road travel in Upper Canada with interesting and valuable details regarding the vehicles used.

Page 153

Globe and Mail, Toronto (February, 1946), article by J. V. McAree: "Ralph S. Williamson, Brantford, says on the authority of J. E. McCoy, assistant chief car equipment, Canadian National Railways, and Brantford Expositor: World's first sleeping car, known in Brantford as the Prince of Wales' Car, was built by Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway Company in its Brantford shops, in 1859, for the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, to travel in when he toured Canada in 1860. This car was designed by Thomas Burnley, shop foreman. George Pullman, at that time engaged in moving and raising small railway depots, was an interested visitor in the Brantford shops. Later in the same year Pullman evolved his first sleeping car. The large carved crest (Prince of Wales' feathers) which adorned one side of the car now hangs in the local Masonic lodge room. This is the only piece of the car known to be still in existence."

Page 158

On May 24, 1881, one hundred and ninety lives were lost by the sinking of the steamboat Victoria in the river Thames about four miles below London, Ontario. The vessel, a stern wheel two-decker, eighty feet in length, with a very shallow draft, ran a ferry service to Springbank picnic park. She had an estimated capacity for four hundred passengers, which seems an excessive number for so small a vessel. On this occasion about five hundred and fifty persons crowded on board in the rush to get home. Shortly after leaving the dock, the vessel began to roll. The crowd rushed to one side, the overloaded upper deck collapsed, the boiler broke loose and the ship rolled over and sank. A monument on the north bank of the Thames marks the spot where the disaster occurred.