1804—Richard Trevithick experimented in England with the earliest type of steam locomotive and it is said that his son F. H. Trevithick, was the first locomotive superintendent of the Grand Trunk Railway.
1807—Fulton introduced the use of a steam propelled vessel on the Hudson River, which proved a practical success in handling passengers and goods between Albany and New York.
1809—Period of the first steamboat operated between Quebec and Montreal on the St. Lawrence River.
1814, July 25—George Stephenson, Father of Railways, successfully operated his steam locomotive “Blucher” in the coal country of the Tyne, at four miles per hour, which was the first real inception of steam engines as a commercial possibility.
1816—S.S. “Frontenac” was the earliest Lake Ontario steamer.
1825—Stockton & Darlington Railway opened to traffic in England.
1828—Saw the first steam driven train in America, operated by the South Carolina Railway, South Carolina.
1830—The Baltimore & Ohio Railway engine “Tom Thumb” was used.
1831—Witnessed the launching, according to Doctor Sandford Fleming, of S.S. “Royal William” which completed a passage from Quebec to London, England, in 1833, consuming 25 days from Pictou, N.S. One of the owners was Samuel Cunard, born in Halifax, N.S., who, with his brothers, created the nucleus of the now famous Cunard Line. In June, 1894, a brass tablet commemorating the event was unveiled in the Parliamentary Library at Ottawa, by Lord Aberdeen.
1832, July 31—First American Railway train on the Mohawk & Hudson Ry. which ran between Albany and Schenectady, N.Y. The train was pulled by engine “John Bull” which came from England in S.S. “Mary Howland”. It heads this chronology. Among other passengers in the last coach was Thurlow Weed, Esq., Editor Albany Evening Journal and ex-Governor Yates. The footnote states that in the second coach traveled Jacob Hays, a celebrated New York thief catcher.