III
CUSTOMS—SHIPPING FEDERATION—THE PILOTAGE AUTHORITY—IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.
I
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PORT OF MONTREAL
Heriot in his travels, thus describes the harbour front about the year 1815: “A natural wharf, very near to the town is formed by the depth of the stream and the sudden declivity of the bank. At the breaking up of the river, the buildings of the town, which are situated nearest the bank, are sometimes subject to damage by the accumulating of ice, impelled by the rapidity of the current.”
A description of three years later is to be found in a rare pamphlet entitled,
THE HARBOUR OF MONTREAL IN 1818 AND IN 1872
By T.S. Brown
I came to Montreal on the 28th day of May, 1818, in a Bateau from La Prairie—no steamer had made the trip at the time—and landed on a sloping, rough beach, exactly where the pier next below the Custom House runs out to the Island wharf and St. Lambert Ferry. What is now the Island wharf was then a rocky Island separated from the main land by a Channel about one hundred feet wide.
On my left was a small brook called the “Creek,” being the discharge of a wide open ditch that ran from the Champ de Mars, through Craig Street, round to Inspector Street and then down Commissioners Street to a stone bridge, crossing at the bottom of St. Francis Xavier Street. From this till near the river it ran between the wall of a rough stone building, on the site of the present Custom House, and another wall that supported Commissioners Street.