by Jean Turnbull Elford writing in Canada West’s Last Frontier
(1982) With Lake Huron on the north side and the St. Clair River along its western border, Lambton County owes its early development and ensuing prosperity in large measure to its position on these waters. The first settlers came into the county by way of the river and depended on it for transportation. With the opening up of the western part of the continent, goods and immigrants were transferred from Lambton railway terminals to ships that carried them to the Lakehead. In recent times, the river had attracted big industries to its banks because ships can bring in raw materials, take on fuel, and deliver products to any port in the world.
The first ship on the river was the Griffon, the sailing vessel that carried LaSalle and his party on a fur trading expedition from which the ship never returned. She sailed up the river on August 12, 1679, and Father Hennepin, who was aboard, named the lake and river after Sainte Claire as that is the day the Roman Catholic Church honours that saint.
One hundred and fifty years later when steamer service was established between Detroit and Port Huron, Michigan, Lambton was beginning to get British settlers. These people often came from British ports on returning lumber vessels and spent from five to ten weeks on the Atlantic Ocean, landed at Quebec, sailed from Montreal and from there travelled by stage coach to Kingston. From Kingston they sailed to Toronto where they had a choice of going by stage coach over corduroy roads to London and from there on foot. Or they could take a ship by way of the Niagara River, Welland Canal, Lake Erie and on to Detroit.
Those who took passage to New York fared better. They sailed up the Hudson River, came by barge from Albany to Buffalo on the Erie Canal, and from Buffalo to Detroit by ship. The final leg in either case was by one of the Detroit steamers that ran to Port Huron. This service was with the Argo in 1830.
The General Gratiot was also running in 1830, for the family of Henry Jones, pioneer of Bright’s Grove, came in on her that year. Julia Jones, just out from England, described the ship as “the smallest” she ever saw and said that it took two stints with a night in an American hotel between them to come from Detroit to Sarnia, though other settlers reported that the trip could be made in 12 hours.
In 1835 Captain William Wright arrived at his farm, lot 57 on the river below Corunna, on the Gratiot. He and his family disembarked on planks laid from the ship to a large stone on the beach before his house, which he had had built before his arrival. While it was under construction, his wife died of cholera inn Amherstburg, and he arrived with his sister, seven children, household goods, and a servant. They brought along a dog, a cat, a cow and heifer, a boar and sow, a rooster and five hens.
Larger steamers, generally American, were handling most of the passenger traffic by the 1840s. Smith, in his gazetteer of 1846 in his account of Sarnia, wrote:
“The American steamboats, Hercules, Samson, Princeton and St. Louis stop regularly on their passage to and from Buffalo and Chicago and the Huron and Red Jacket leave here every morning alternately for Detroit. Steamboat fare to Detroit $1.75. 5 schooners owned here.”
Early steamers had an advantage over the sailing vessels in being easier to manoeuvre in the river, but they could not carry as big cargoes as it took most of their capacity to carry their own cordwood fuel. Furthermore, they were more expensive to build and operate, and generally enough slower that the sailing ships were the ones commonly used for freight.
To Captain Richard Vidal goes the distinction of building the first sailing vessel in Sarnia. It was with a view towards establishing a shipyard that he settled on the shores of Sarnia Bay. He intended to have his oldest son, Aymerick, whom he left in Quebec City to learn the trade, take charge of the enterprise, but Aymerick drowned in 1842 and plans for the shipyard were abandoned. Meanwhile, with Aymerick’s help Vidal had built a small schooner in 1835, which he used to go to Detroit for supplies. As there was no customs officer at Sarnia, Vudal paid no duty. When an officer named Crampton was appointed in 1840, Vidal refused to pay and ordered Crampton off his ship. Within the year, Vidal got the office for himself.
When Malcolm Cameron, a contemporary of Vidal, came to Sarnia, he acquired a fleet of sailing ships to run on the Lakes. He built the Olive Branch, John Malcom and Elizabeth and had the Christina, C.C. Sinbad and Globe built in Sarnia. He related in a political speech that he had used these ships to carry 70,000 feet of timber, 30,000 staves and large quantities of grain out of Lambton between 1846 and 1850.
Cameron employed his ships not only to carry cargoes but to give passenger service as well. William McGregor of Sarnia Township left an account of a trip on one of them in his diary.
“October, Thursday 6, 1842. Left with Olive Branch for Goderich. Got within 12 miles of it that night, came to anchor at eight o’clock – winds S.E. to E. Friday 7th arrived at ½ past 8 o’clock – winds S.W. by W. Saturday 8th Thought very little of Goderich – one or two good buildings, viz the jail, Mrs. Jones’ and Public offices – it is a finely laid out town – too much drink used by people to be of any advantage. Started for Port Sarnia at ½ past 6 – lay on the bar 1-1/2 hour and was within sight of Goderich at 7 next morning. Calm all night – when wind blew a gale from the N.W. arrived at P.S. at 2 o’clock” [in the afternoon of Sunday 9th].
In 1850, Smith in Canada, Past, Present and Future wrote that there were eight vessels owned in Sarnia with a total tonnage of 910. The eight vessels carried goods worth 39,106 pounds sterling out of Sarnia that year. Cargoes consisted of pine and walnut boards and scantlings, shingles, laths, flour, furs, cordwood, maple sugar, pork, cranberries, staves, butter, wool, wheat and potash, with over half the value of the goods in staves and potash.
How dependent the early settlers were on ships may be seen from this advertisement in the Canadian Free Press in 1851:
“The steamers Ruby and Pearl ran to Detroit and are in connection with a daily line of stages running to Hamilton via London. M. Seager and J.B. Swarts, agents. There is a weekly line of Steamers the London and the Northener and propeller the Princeton from Cleveland, Ohio to the copper region. The steamer ferry United under Captain Orin Davenport plies from Sarnia to Port Huron.”
After the St. Lawrence canals opened in 1849 and more work had been done on the Welland Canal, sailing vessels could go directly from Sarnia to European ports. The Sarnia Observer reported in June, 1854, that:
“The brigantine Black Hawk is at the Great Western wharf here and will sail to Liverpool diredt with 40,000 staves freighted by M. Cameron.”
Sailing ships owned locally went out from Sarnia carrying cargoes of crude and refined oil to London and Liverpool during the Oil Springs boom. The first load went over in 1862 in the Chieftain, a sailing vessel 115 feet long, owned by John and Charles Mackenzie of Sarnia. She crossed the Atlantic under Captain Charles McGlashan, who lived on the river below Corunna. The ship, which encountered foul weather coming back was blown 110 miles off course, took 120 days for the return trip. While on the inland waterway, she was towed through the rivers and canals by a tug.
Steam tugs were common by then. They were used to take sailing ships out of harbours to prevent delays such as McGregor experienced at Goderich. They were also used to tow sailing vessels between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. It was a competitive business, and tugs from Sarnia and Port Huron raced out to get their towlines on the vessels as they came out of Lake Huron. One tug could tow as many as eight sailing ships at once. A letter written in 1862 by Charles Wheatley, who lived at Froomefield, relates that he counted nineteen such convoys going by in one day.
Sailing and steam-powered ships were both built in Lambton. Sarnia businessman, George Durand, had two steamers built in 1853-54 to carry lumber to Montreal. At the same time James Porter had a vessel built, and a third man, Alexander Leys, a merchant, had one built somewhat later.
Robert Steed and Hope Mackenzie were the earliest commercial builders in Sarnia and were first employed to make ships for Malcolm Cameron. Steed built a steamer in 1853 but the next two vessels he is known to have built, the Wawanosh of 1873 and the Ida Walker of 1880, were both sailing ships. Other Sarnia builders were James Waddell, C. Curtis and Son, Fisher and Company, and Ambrose Frink. Frink built the sailing vessel Emma in 1864 and the Admiral in 1870.
At Port Franks, Elijah McPherson, a lumberman, had the sailing ship W.B. Robinson built in 1874. In 1879 the steamer Alfred Wilson was also built at Port Franks. The steamer later ran between Sarnia and Port Lambton carrying passengers and freight. At Mooretown, John Clifford built the sailing ship James Leighton in 1875.
A Moore Township man, John Bully, had a had a schooner built on the river at the south end of present day Guthrie Park. Named the Kate Bully she sailed on her maiden voyage in September 1869 under Captain Henry McGlashan, who lived south of Corunna. She was loaded with railway ties and piles for Chicago. On October 4, she sprang a leak, ran into a storm on Lake Michigan, and foundered with the loss of the captain, Bully’s son, and all but four of the rest of the crew. Of the survivors, two were local men, John Stone of Froomefield and William Mitchell of Mooretown.