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Chapter 3
Port Hamilton
Table of Contents

Title Page
Preface
Introduction
1 A place called Hamilton.
2 Public Works and Private Enterprise
3 Port Hamilton
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
4 1837-1839
5 Ericsson Wheels
6 1844-1847
7 Good Times in Port
8 Boom Town Days
9 Depression Years
10 Better Times Ahead
11 1867-1870
12 Prosperity for the Shipbuilders
13 The Second Railway Building Era
14 1884-1888
15 The Electric Era
16 The Iron Age
Table of Illustrations
Index

1831

At Gananoque, during the year 1831, construction was started on a new steamboat for the Lake trade. This vessel had a length of 135 ft. and beam of 25 ft. and was powered by a beam engine having a bore of 55 inches and stroke of 96 inches. It was built by Bennet & Henderson, Engineers and Millwrights, of Montreal, who, on 11 September 1826, advertised that they

"had commenced business in that large house in Wellington Street, St. Ann Suburb, lately occupied as a nail factory".
Christened WILLIAM IV, she was truly an outstanding example of naval architecture, endowed with no less than four tall funnels, placed well forward. She had one rather tall mast ahead of the funnels, a clipper bow and a short bowsprit. For steamboats of her time, she had a fairly long and useful life and for some years, served as a river tug in the fleet of the Calvins of Garden Island.

 

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This volume is copyright The Estate of Ivan S. Brookes and is published with permission of the Estate. The originals are deposited in the Special Collections of the Hamilton Public Library.