THE CANADIAN BEGINNINGS
Portage Roads--Projects of the Forties--The St Lawrence and
Atlantic--The Great Western--The State and the Railway
From the beginning in Canada, to a much greater degree than in Great
Britain or in the United States, the railway was designed to serve
through traffic. But it was regarded at first as only a very minor
link in the chain. River and canal were still considered the great
highways of through traffic. Only where there were gaps to be bridged
between the more important waterways was the railway at first thought
profitable. In the phrase of one of the most distinguished of Canadian
engineers, Thomas C. Keefer, the early roads were portage roads.
In 1832, two years after the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, a charter was granted by the legislature of Lower Canada to
the Company of the Proprietors of the Champlain and St Lawrence
Railroad, for a line from Laprairie on the St Lawrence to St Johns,
sixteen miles distant {37} on the Richelieu river, just above the
rapids. From St Johns transportation to New York was easily effected,
through the Richelieu to Lake Champlain and thence to the Hudson. This
portage road promised to shorten materially the journey from Montreal
to New York.
Construction was begun in 1835, and the road opened for traffic in July
1836. The rails were of wood, with thin flat bars of iron spiked on.
These were apt to curl up on the least provocation, whence came their
popular name of 'snake-rails.' At first horse power was used, but in
1837 the proprietors imported an engine and an engineer from England.
Some premonition of trouble made the management decide to make the
trial run by moonlight. In spite of all the efforts of engineer and
officials, the _Kitten_ would not budge an inch. Finally an engineer,
borrowed from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, reported that all that
was needed was 'more wood and water,' and given these the _Kitten_
gambolled along at twenty miles an hour.
The Champlain and St Lawrence was at first operated only in the summer,
when its services as a portage route were most needed. After a decade
of moderately successful working, it was decided, significantly, to
lengthen {38} the rail and shorten the water section of the route. By
1852 the rails had been extended northward to St Lambert, opposite
Montreal, and southward to Rouse's Point, on Lake Champlain. Twenty
years later this pioneer road, after a period of leasing, was
completely absorbed by the Grand Trunk Railway.
[Illustration: The first railway engine in Canada. Champlain and St
Lawrence Railroad, 1837. From a print in the Chateau de Ramezay.]
For ten years the sixteen-mile Champlain and St Lawrence was the sole
steam railway in British North America, while by 1846 the United
Kingdom had built over twenty-eight hundred miles, and the United
States nearly five thousand. Political unrest, commercial depression,
absorption of public funds in canals, hindered development in Canada.
Many projects were formed and charters secured--for roads in the
western peninsula of Upper Canada, between Cobourg and Rice Lake, on
the Upper Ottawa, in the Eastern Townships, and elsewhere--but they all
came to nothing. It was not until the railway mania broke out in
England in the middle forties--when 'King' Hudson, first of the great
promoters and speculators, turned all to gold; when ninety schemes were
floated in a single week, calling for eighty million pounds; when
companies capitalized at over seven hundred millions scrambled for
charters {39} and all England fought for their shares--that Canadian
promoters found interest awakened and capitalists keen to listen. At
the same time, the active competition of United States roads for the
western traffic and the approaching completion of the St Lawrence canal
system prompted further steps. A second stage in Canadian railway
building had begun.
First may be noted three small lines, which were in their beginnings
chiefly portage roads of the most limited type. The Montreal and
Lachine, begun in 1846 and completed in 1847, was the second complete
road built. Its track of eight miles took the place of the earlier
stage route round the Lachine rapids. Five years later an extension,
the Lake St Louis and Province Line, was built from Caughnawaga, on the
opposite shore of the St Lawrence, to the boundary and beyond to
Mooer's Junction, where it made connection with American roads, and
thus offered a route from Montreal to New York rivalling the older
Champlain and St Lawrence route. A steam ferry, which could carry a
locomotive and three loaded cars, was used for crossing from Lachine to
Caughnawaga. The enlarged line, known as the Montreal and New York
Railroad, did not prosper, and was {40} eventually absorbed by its
rival, the Champlain and St Lawrence. The third completed road, the St
Lawrence and Industry Village, was also built in Lower Canada, running
from Lanoraie on the north bank of the St Lawrence twelve miles to the
village of Industry, later Joliette. It was opened for traffic in
1850, and was a road for use in summer only. Meanwhile, the
desirability of building a road to circumvent Niagara had not escaped
attention. In 1835 the Erie and Ontario Railroad was chartered, and in
1839 the line was opened from Queenston to Chippawa. The grades near
Queenston were too steep for the locomotives of the day, and the road
was operated by horses; even so, it halted a hundred feet above the
level of the river, and failed to make good its promise as an effective
portage route. In 1852 the charter was amended, and two years later
the road was rebuilt from Chippawa to Niagara-on-the-Lake, and operated
by steam. It was later extended to Fort Erie and absorbed by the
Canada Southern.
More ambitious schemes were under way--the planning of the St Lawrence
and Atlantic in Canada East, and of the Great Western and later the
Northern in Canada {41} West. These roads were all designed to secure
for Canadian routes and Canadian ports a share of the through traffic
of the West. They were all links in longer chains; the time of
independent through roads had not yet come. The St Lawrence and
Atlantic was built to secure the supremacy of the upper St Lawrence
route by giving Montreal a winter outlet at Portland. The Northern,
running from Lake Ontario at Toronto to Georgian Bay at Collingwood,
was a magnified portage road, shortening by hundreds of miles the
distance from Chicago and the upper lakes to the St Lawrence ports.
The Great Western, connecting Buffalo and Detroit, was the central link
in the shortest route between New York and Chicago. Not only were
these roads important in themselves, but the experience acquired in the
endeavour to finance and construct them largely determined the policy
of the great era of railway construction which began with the
chartering of the Grand Trunk.
The St Lawrence and Atlantic was the Canadian half of the first
international railway ever built. At the outset much more than half of
the enterprise and activity was centred in the United States, for the
Canadas {42} were still apprentices in railway promotion and
construction. The ambition of an American seaport prompted the
planning of the line, the untiring energy of an American promoter made
it possible, and American contractors built the greater part.
The little city of Portland possessed the most northerly harbour on the
Atlantic coast of the United States. Mr John A. Poor, whose lifetime
was devoted to the extension of railways in northern New England,
dreamed of making it, by a road to Montreal, the outlet of the trade of
the West, at least so far as freight traffic went. Passengers and
mails, he conceived, could best be carried to Europe from Halifax,
nearly six hundred miles nearer than New York to Liverpool, but the
railway connecting Halifax with the large American cities should pass
through Portland, and thus make it an important divisional point, if
not a terminus. His enthusiasm fired his fellow-citizens: the city
subscribed for stock in the proposed road to Montreal, and guaranteed
bonds, while private subscriptions mounted still higher, at least on
paper. More difficulty was experienced in inducing allies in Montreal
to undertake the Canadian half of the road. Before 1845, however,
Montreal {43} business men were convinced that a railway to Portland or
Boston offered them the best means of recovering from the blow
inflicted by the repeal of the British preference on Canadian wheat and
flour. If Montreal could not be the New York of Canada, it might at
least occupy the position which Buffalo was now achieving, gathering
all the trade of the interior to forward it in summer and especially in
winter over the new road. The advantage of such a line in the
development of the Eastern Townships was also evident.
The only question in dispute in Canada was as to the relative merits of
the Boston and the Portland route. The superior energy of the Portland
promoters weighed down the scale in favour of their city. In February
1845 Poor struggled five days through a north-east blizzard, and
reached Montreal just in time to turn the vote of the Board of Trade
against Boston. He organized a spectacular race of express sleighs to
disprove the claim that, though the British packet called at Portland
before going on to Boston, the route by Boston would prove speedier.
Relays of teams were provided all along the rival roads from Boston and
from Portland, five to fifteen miles apart; evergreen bushes {44} were
set up in the snow to mark the road; part of the Montreal mail was
taken off at Portland, and part at Boston, and dispatched by the rival
couriers. The Portland relay covered the distance, nearly three
hundred miles, in twenty hours, and dashed into Montreal, with all
colours flying, twelve hours ahead of the Boston contingent. The
cheers that greeted the victors marked the definite turn of popular
favour toward the Portland route. Two allied companies were
incorporated--the Atlantic and St Lawrence to build the United States
section of the railway, and the St Lawrence and Atlantic to build from
Montreal to the border.
The St Lawrence and Atlantic was a valuable medium of experience, if
not of traffic. In its management were found the leading business men
of Montreal, such as Moffat, M'Gill, Molson, Stayner, and Torrance. At
first all was fair. Subscriptions came in freely from Montreal and the
Eastern Townships. One of the youngest of the directors, Alexander T.
Galt, then commissioner of the British-American Land Company, succeeded
in floating a large quantity of stock in England--the first of
countless railway appeals to the London market--only to have the
subscriptions {45} withdrawn in 1846 when the Hudson bubble burst. The
Canadian stockholders put up what money they could. The city of
Montreal took L125,000 stock. The British-American Land Company and
the Montreal Seminary each lent L25,000. Country subscribers were
permitted to make payments in pork or eggs for the use of the
construction gang, though one director resigned because not allowed to
turn in his farm. The contractors, Black, Wood and Company, as was
customary in the United States at the time, took a large portion of
their payment in stock. Still, funds were lacking. Internal
difficulties developed; directors did not direct; and in 1849 the
finances were found to be in a hopelessly tangled state. Galt then
took charge as president, with John Young--forwarder and born promoter,
active in all transportation schemes, whether for canal, railway, or
bridge--as vice-president. Under their skilful financing the work went
on, but scarcely forty miles could be opened in 1849. To complete the
road to the border, in the depression which prevailed, seemed utterly
beyond the unaided resources of private capitalists, and the directors
turned to the government for aid.
Meanwhile, Upper Canada lagged in action, {46} although schemes were
many. Omitting merely local projects, the roads most in the public eye
were those leading west and north from Lake Ontario. The Great Western
project had been longest under way, and showed a significant evolution.
In 1834 the legislature of Upper Canada had granted a charter to the
London and Gore Railroad Company. This road was designed to carry the
products of the rich western peninsula to the bordering lakes, and
chiefly to Lake Ontario. The main line was to run in the direction of
Governor Simcoe's great highway, Dundas Street, from Burlington Bay to
London, while power was taken to extend the road to Lake Huron and the
navigable waters of the Thames. Nothing was done under this charter.
When it was renewed by an Act of 1845, the name was changed to the
Great Western, and, more important, the route was altered to extend
from the Niagara river via Hamilton to Windsor and Sarnia. For
meanwhile the New York Central had reached Buffalo, and the Michigan
Central was being pushed westward from Detroit toward Chicago. A road
through Canada would provide a shorter link than one south of Lake
Erie, and the Great Western was designed to fill this gap.
{47}
With all the possibilities of through and local traffic, and of
comparatively good grades and few curves, the road was long in
starting. An eminent American engineer, Charles B. Stuart, reported
glowingly on the prospects. Two citizens of Hamilton, Allan MacNab,
fiery politician and calculating lobbyist, and Isaac Buchanan, untiring
advocate of railways, protection, and paper money, threw themselves
into the campaign. Samuel Zimmermann, the best known contractor of the
period, a Pennsylvanian who had come to Canada to take a Welland Canal
contract, and stayed to be the power behind the scenes in the
provincial legislature, was prepared to build the road. Hudson gave
the scheme his approval. All to no immediate purpose. The contracts
were let, ground was broken at London in 1843, but the money to build
was not forthcoming. In consequence the Great Western also turned to
parliament for aid.
The Toronto, Simcoe and Huron Union Railroad Company--later known as
the Northern--the first road in Upper Canada on which steam locomotives
were used, was still slower in emerging from the promotion stage. The
idea of building a great portage road between Lake Huron and Lake
Ontario was an obvious {48} one, and proposals for its construction
were frequent. It was not until the scheme was taken up by Frederick
Chase Capreol, a sanguine and ingenious Englishman many years resident
in Toronto, that any real progress was made. Capreol conceived the
brilliant idea of combining the lure of a lottery and the increment of
land values to finance a road from Toronto to Georgian Bay. His
proposal was to raise funds by a lottery for the purchase of 100,000
acres of land along the route of the railroad, and to pay for the road
out of the increase in the value of the land. Objections moral and
financial were urged, and Capreol modified his scheme. In 1849 an Act
was passed granting a charter and permitting the raising of money
either by subscription or by lottery, but it was reserved by the
governor-general for royal assent, on account of the lottery clause.
Capreol, nothing daunted, sailed for England, and in seven weeks was
back with royal assent assured. The lottery, for all its alluring
promises, fell flat. Then the Northern, too, clamoured for public aid.
[Illustration: Railroads and Lotteries. An Early Canadian Prospectus]
With these local roads under way or actively promoted, still larger
projects loomed up. A line from Montreal to Toronto, paralleling the
St Lawrence, and thus for the first {49} time competing with water
transport instead of merely supplementing it, began to be talked of as
possible. The need of bringing the Maritime Provinces into closer
touch with the Canadas lent support to plans of a road from Halifax to
Quebec. But for these extensive schemes public aid was even more
indispensable.
Hitherto the government of British North America had framed no definite
or continuous railway policy. There had been general agreement that
railway building should be left to private enterprise. In 1832, when
the charter of the Champlain and St Lawrence was under discussion in
the legislature of Lower Canada, some members advocated government
ownership, but Papineau, the French-Canadian leader, protested against
the jobbery that would follow. In the forties the government of Canada
was selling its highways to toll-companies, and was not likely to
embark on railway construction. In several later charters provision
was made for state purchase, after a term of years, at cost plus twenty
or twenty-five per cent. Control of private companies in the interest
of the shipper was sometimes sought. In the charter of the Champlain
and St Lawrence a maximum rate was prescribed {50} at 3d. a mile for
passengers and 9 3/4d. a mile per ton of freight, subject to reduction
when profits exceeded twelve per cent. In Upper Canada the earlier
charters set no maximum, though the governor in council was given power
to approve rates. It appeared to be held that different forwarding
companies would make use of the iron way, and afford sufficient
competition to protect shippers and passengers against extortion. New
Brunswick in 1836 revealed the not modest expectations of profit which
prevailed. It provided, in the St Andrews and Quebec charter, that
after ten years tolls, if excessive, might be reduced to yield only
twenty-five per cent profit. The same sanguine expectations were
reflected in the provision made in eight charters issued by Lower
Canada between 1845 and 1850, that half the profits over a minimum
varying from ten to twenty-four per cent were to go to the state.
The prevalent belief in the great profits to be obtained influenced
public opinion against any grant of government aid, except during a
brief period before the Rebellion of 1837, when the lavish policy of
state construction and state bonuses adopted by the neighbouring
republic proved contagious in Upper Canada. {51} Under the influence
of that example the Cobourg Railroad was to be granted a loan of
L10,000 as soon as an equal sum was privately subscribed and one-third
was paid up. The Toronto and Lake Huron was promised L3 for every L1
of private capital expended, up to L100,000, while the London and Gore
was offered a loan of twice that sum; in both these cases the loan was
to be secured not only by a lien on the road, but by the liability of
the communities benefited to a special tax. None of these generous
offers was taken up, and they were not renewed. But a growing
realization of the importance of railways and of the evident difficulty
of building them in Canada solely by private funds compelled the
formation of a new policy of state assistance. This new policy ushered
in the first great period of railway construction.
{52}