A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River

by Barlow Cumberland

Starting from Port Colborne, the two parts of the steamer were separated to go down the canal. The bow part was kept in the lead, but both as near one another as possible, so that the crews could take their meals on the after part, on which they also passed the nights. The stern part was taken down the long upper level by a small tug, but teams were employed in towing for all the remaining portions of the canalling. Memories of things as they then existed on the old Welland are in striking contrast to the conditions obtaining at the present day.

The miseries of human slaves on the "middle passage" of the Atlantic have been dilated upon until sympathy with their sufferings has abounded, but it is doubtful if they were in any way worse than those of the miserable beings then struggling on the canal passage between Lakes Erie and Ontario.

The canal bank and tow paths were a sticky mush, which in those autumn months was churned and stamped into a continuous condition of soft red mud and splashing pools. From two to six double teams were employed to haul each passing vessel, dependent upon whether it was light or was loaded, but in either case there was the same dull, heavy, continuous pull against the slow-moving mass, a hopeless constant tug into the collars, bringing raw and calloused shoulders.

Poor beasts, there was every description of horse, pony, or mule forced into the service, but an all-prevailing similarity of lean sides and projecting bones, of staring unkempt coats, gradually approaching similar colour as the red mud dried upon their hides. Rest! they had in their traces when mercifully for a few moments the vessel was in a lock, or when awaiting her turn at night they lay out on the bank where she happened to stop. It was the rest of despair.

The poor devils of "drivers," boys or men, who tramped along the canal bank behind each tottering gang, were little better off than their beasts. Heavy-footed, wearied with lifting their boots out of the sucking slush, they trudged along, staggering and half asleep, until aroused by the sounds of a sagging tow line, with quickened stride and volley of hot-shot expletives, they closed upon their luckless four-footed companions. What an electric wince went through the piteous brutes as the stinging whip left wales upon their sides! A sudden forward motion brought up by the twang of the tow line as it came taut, sweeping them off their legs, until they settled down once more into the sidling crablike movement caused by the angle of the hawser from the bow to the tow path.

The new Welland, with its larger size and tug boats, has done away with this method of torturing human and horse flesh. One wonders whether it is the ghosts of these departed equines, that, revisiting the scenes of their torture, make the moanings along the valley, and the whistlings on the hills, as they sniff and whinny in the winds along the canal.

We had a good deal of difficulty at first in our canalling, especially in meeting and passing vessels. The after-part took every inch of the locks, and was unhandy in shape. However, by dint of rope fenders, long poles and a plentiful and willing crew we got along without hurting anyone else or ourselves.

It was in one of these sudden emergencies which sometimes arise that Captain Manson was thought to have got a strain which developed into trouble later on. He was a splendidly-built fellow, over six feet in height, in the plenitude of youth, handsome, laughing, active, and of uncommon strength, the sort of man who jumps in when there is something to be done, throws in his whole force and saves the situation.

The bow-part, being short and light, went merrily on, its crew chaffing the other for their slower speed, for which there was much excuse.

One day on a course in the canal below Thorold we rounded the corner of the height above the mountain tier of locks. It was a wondrous sight to see laid out before us the wide landscape of tableland and valley spread out below, through which we were to navigate and drop down 340 feet on the next four and one-quarter miles. To the left was the series of locks which circled, in gray stone structures, like a succession of great steps, down the mountain side. These were separated one from the other by small ponds or reservoirs with waste weirs, whose little waterfalls tinkled, foaming and glinting in the sun. Directly in front, and below us, were the houses and factories of Merritton, with trains of the Great Western and the Welland Railways spurting white columns of steam and smoke as the engines panted up the grade to the heights of the Niagara Escarpment from which we were about to descend.