“CORONA,” ON NIAGARA RIVER, 1896.
Lake Ontario.—The volume of steam traffic on Lake Ontario at the present time, though not to be compared with that on the Upper Lakes, is by no means inconsiderable. From the official “Report of Trade and Navigation of the Dominion for 1895,” the arrival and departure of steamers at eighteen ports of entry on Lake Ontario, either as coasting vessels or as trading with the United States, was 17,558, and an aggregate of 6,443,443 registered tonnage; to which must be added the large amount of steam shipping that frequents the harbours on the American side of the lake, as at Lewiston, Oswego, Sackett’s Harbour, Cape Vincent, and that descends the St. Lawrence to Ogdensburg. Niagara heads the list on the Canadian side with 3,198 arrivals and departures, and 1,581,643 tonnage. Toronto, with 3,844 arrivals and departures, counts for 1,569,123 steam tonnage; Kingston stands third, with 3,563 vessels, and 882,414 tonnage. Hamilton is represented by 427,100 tonnage. After these come Belleville, Picton, Cobourg, Port Hope, Deseronto and Port Dalhousie, in the order named, and eight other smaller ports, each contributing its quota.
Toronto is largely interested in steam navigation. Not to speak of numerous steam yachts, ferry steamers and tug-boats, it controls a large passenger traffic. The Niagara Navigation Company of Toronto has three very fine steamers running to Niagara and Lewiston—the Chicora, Chippewa and Corona. The Chicora was built in England, as a “blockade runner,” more than thirty years ago, but the civil war was ended before she reached this side of the Atlantic. She is an iron side-wheel vessel of 518 tons, with a rakish, Old-Country look about her. The Chippewa, built at Hamilton, Ont., in 1893, is a very fine paddle-wheel steamer of 850 tons, modelled somewhat after the Hudson River boats, with a conspicuous walking-beam. The latest addition to the fleet is the Corona, launched in May, 1896, from the noted ship-building yard of the Polsons, Toronto, which takes the place of the Cibola, a Clyde-built steel steamer, put together by the Rathbun Company, Deseronto, in 1887, and which was burned at Lewiston in 1895. The Corona is claimed by her owners to be “a model of marine architecture, and one of the finest day-steamers in the world!” Though only 277 feet long, and 32 feet beam (59 feet over the guards), she carries nearly two thousand passengers. The hull is constructed of open hearth steel. The engine is of the inclined compound condensing type, and develops nearly two thousand indicated horse-power. The mechanical fittings are all of the most approved kind, and the internal arrangements highly artistic.
The Hamilton Steamboat Company has two fine powerful screw steamers, the Macassa and Modjeska, plying between Hamilton and Toronto. Both were built on the Clyde, and have been very successful financially, and also as seaworthy, fast sailing vessels. Kingston, which occupies an important position at the foot of the lake and head of the river navigation, owns a fleet of no less than forty-six steamers, and is the headquarters of half a dozen steamboat companies, some of which are largely interested in the Lake Superior trade, while others connect Kingston with ports on the Bay of Quinte, Rochester and Cape Vincent, N. Y., and Gananoque and the Thousand Islands. The James Swift plies between Kingston and Ottawa, via the Rideau Canal. The Passport, the oldest steamer now afloat in Canada, is registered at Kingston, and was built, as already stated, in 1847.
HON. JOHN HAMILTON.
The Hon. John Hamilton, whose name is so intimately associated with the rise and progress of steam navigation in Western Canada, was born at Queenston, Ontario, in 1802—the seventh and youngest son of the Hon. Robert Hamilton, formerly of Edinburgh. One of the sons founded the city of Hamilton, another attained distinction in the medical profession. John devoted the greater part of his life to the development of commerce between Montreal and the cities and towns bordering on Lake Ontario, having his headquarters at Kingston. Mr. Hamilton was a man of fine presence and highly accomplished; was called to the Legislative Council of Upper Canada by Sir John Colborne in 1831, and to the Senate of the new Dominion, by writ of Her Majesty’s sign-manual, in 1867. He was an influential member of the Presbyterian Church, and many years chairman of the Board of Trustees of Queen’s College, Kingston. He died in 1882.