36 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
The first steamboat constructed in Canada was the “Accommoda- 
tion,” which was placed in 1809 between Quebec and Montreal by Mr. 
John Molson, whose name recalls a family long associated with the 
commercial enterprise of Montreal. The first steamer that plied on 
Lake Ontario was the “Frontenac,” built in 1816 at Earnestown, one of 
the Loyalist townships of the St. Lawrence. The first vessel to cross 
the Atlantic by steam was the “Royal William,” which was built in Que- 
bec, and made the voyage in the summer of 1833. The first regular 
steamship between Europe and America was established in 1840 by 
Mr., afterwards Sir, Samuel Cunard of Halifax, in connection with 
English capitalists, and the “Britannia” was the pioneer ship of a line 
which has continued with extraordinary success on the same great route 
of travel to the present time. The first railway in British North 
America was constructed in 1837 by the enterprise of Montreal capi- 
talists from Laprairie on the other side of the River St. Lawrence, as 
far as St. Johns—a distance of sixteen miles. The only railway in 
Upper Canada for years was a horse tramway opened in 1839 between 
Queenstown and Chippewa by the old portage route around the Falls 
of Niagara. | 
The ambition of the people of Upper Canada was always to obtain 
a continuous and secure system of water navigation from the lakes and 
Montreal. The Welland Canal between lakes Erie and Ontario was 
commenced as early as 1824, through the enterprise of Mr. William 
Hamilton Merritt, and the first vessel passed its locks in 1829, but it 
was very badly managed, and the legislature, who had from year to 
year aided the undertaking, was obliged eventually to acquire it as a 
provincial work. The Cornwall Canal was also undertaken but work 
was stopped when it was certain that Lower Canada would not respond 
to the aspirations of the west and improve that portion of the St. Law- 
rence within its direct control. Governor Haldimand had first con- 
structed a simple system of canals to overcome the rapids of the Cas- 
cades, Cedars and Coteau, and some slight improvements were made in 
these primitive works from time to time. The Lachine Canal was com- 
pleted in 1828, but nothing was done to give a continuous river naviga- 
tion between Montreal and the west until 1845, when the Beauharnois 
Canal was first opened. The Rideau Canal originated in the experience 
of the war of 1812-14, which showed the necessity of a secure inland 
communication between Montreal and the country on Lake Ontario ; 
but though first constructed for defensive purposes and following a 
circuitous route for defensive purposes it had for years decided com- 
mercial advantages for the people of Upper Canada, especially of the 
