Our city is largely interested in the shipping business, and its trade gives employment to a larger number of side-wheel steamboat lines than any other three cities on the entire chain of lakes. During the last season, the following regular lines of steamers were in successful operation:
- Detroit and Cleveland.
- Detroit and Toledo.
- Detroit and Sandusky.
- Detroit and Saginaw.
- Detroit and New Baltimore.
- Detroit and Maiden.
- Detroit, G. Bay and Buffalo.
- Detroit and Lake Superior.
- Detroit and Port Huron.
- Detroit and Chatham.
- Detroit and Wallaceburg.
- Detroit and Gibraltar.
Two of the above routes sustain opposition lines, and to the list might be added the line of lake steamers to Buffalo, and the line to Goderich, which though not run last year, will probably be in successful operation the coming season, making in all sixteen lines. It is significant that the late financial revulsion, which fell with such crushing weight upon the shipping interest all over the country did not occasion the withdrawal of any of our steamboat lines, save one. As a still more striking fact, we may state that until last season none of the cities located in the vast region between the foot of Lake Michigan and the foot of Lake Erie, has for many years past supported a single line of steamers that did not make Detroit a terminus. Last year a line was put in successful operation between Buffalo and Cleveland, and another between the latter place and Toledo, but it ought to be added that both of these were established by Detroit enterprise.
In addition to the line above enumerated, we have daily lines of propellers to Ogdensburg, Buffalo, Dunkirk and to the Upper Lakes, which do an immense freighting business.
We are indebted to Captain J. H. Hall, the public-spirited proprietor of the Detroit shipping-office for following statement of the number of vessels that passed Detroit in 1859:
Number of Vessels passing Detroit, 1859.
| No. Times. | No. Times. | |||
| Steamers passed up, | 194 | Steamers passed down, | 195 | |
| Propellers," | 492 | Propellers," | 503 | |
| Barks," | 273 | Barks," | 284 | |
| Brigs," | 295 | Brigs," | 314 | |
| Schooners," | 1,811 | Schooners," | 1,825 | |
| ——— | ——— | |||
| Total number up, | 3,065 | Total number down, | 3,121 | |
Greatest number passed up in one day, eighty-five; greatest number down, seventy-three.
The number of entries and clearances reported at the Custom House during the year is as follows:
| Arrived. | Cl'd. | Arrived. | Cl'd. | |||
| Jan. | 48 | 70 | July | 403 | 597 | |
| Feb. | 49 | 71 | Aug. | 461 | 519 | |
| March | 161 | 288 | Sept. | 316 | 481 | |
| April | 334 | 375 | Oct. | 288 | 319 | |
| May | 438 | 586 | Nov. | 294 | 316 | |
| June | 458 | 568 | Dec. | 45 | 71 | |