A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River

by Barlow Cumberland

Whatever meat, flour, or vegetable foods the people ate had to be carried up to them from the Ontario ports. Westwards the decks were filled with cattle, hogs, and all kinds of merchandise, but there was little freight to bring back east except fish and some small quantities of highly concentrated ores from the mines.

The business had not developed as had been expected, and the "Chicora" was found to be too good for the Lake Superior route as it then existed. Her freight-carrying capacity was light, cabin accommodation in excess of requirements, and her speed and expenses far beyond what was there needed. So the boat had to be withdrawn from service, dismantled, and laid up alongside the docks at Collingwood in the season of 1873.

One splendid and closing charter there had been in the season of 1874, when the "Chicora" was chartered for the months of July and August to be a special yacht for the progress of the Governor-General, Lord Dufferin, and his suite, through what were then the northern districts of Ontario and through the Upper Lakes.

Col. F. W. Cumberland, M.P., General Manager of the Northern Railway, was also Provincial Aide-de-Camp to the Governor-General and thus in general charge of the arrangements for the tour, particularly on the Northern Railway, through whose districts the party was then travelling. The further portions of the tour were through the district of Algoma, comprising all the country along the north shores of Lakes Huron and Superior, which Col. Cumberland then represented in the Provincial Parliament, being the first Member for Algoma.

Washago, at the first crossing of the Severn River, was then the "head of the track" of the "Muskoka Branch," which was under construction from Barrie. Beyond this point the party were to proceed through the byways and villages of Muskoka by mixed conveyance of boats on the lakes and carriages over the bush roads to Parry Sound, where they were to join the "Chicora."

Every minute of the way had been carefully planned out to satisfactorily arrange for the reception en route, stopping places for meals and rest, stays over night, and allowance for all possible contingencies, for the Governor-General insisted that he should make his arrival, at each place on the way, with royal precision.

There was therefore no room for the insertion of the many special demands for additional functions and time, which increasingly arose as the days drew near, for the fervor of the welcome became tumultuous.

The Presbyterian clergyman at Washago had been particularly insistent and had called to his aid every local influence of shipper and politician to obtain consent that the Governor-General should lay the corner-stone of the new church which the adherents of the "Auld Kirk" were erecting at the village. The ceremony was whittled down until it was at last agreed that it should be sandwiched into the arrangements on condition that everything should be in readiness, and that the proceedings should not exceed fifteen minutes, for there was a long and rocky drive ahead of fourteen miles to Gravenhurst, where an important afternoon gathering from all the countryside and a reception by His Excellency and the Countess of Dufferin had been arranged.

The Municipal and the local Society receptions at the Washage station had been safely got through when the Governor and party walked over the granite knolls to where the church was to be erected. The location of the village, which is situated between two arms of the Muskoka River, is on the unrelieved outcrop of the Muskoka granite, which, scarred and rounded by the glacier action of geological ages, is everywhere in evidence.

On the knoll, more level than the others, was the church party expectant. At their feet, perched upon a little cemented foundation about a foot and a half in diameter, built on the solid granite, was the "corner stone," a cube of granite some three inches square. A miniature silver trowel, little larger than a teaspoon, was handed to the Governor, who, holding it in his fingers smoothed down the morsel of mortar and the corner stone was duly laid.