Kingston records (regionally related)

193

Voyage up Lake Ontario in 1841.

On the 18th of June I left Kingston in the war Steamer Traveller at 12 o clock for Port Dalhousie with a detachment of Royal Marines to relieve those stationed on board the Steamers stationed on the Upper Lake A fog hung over the Ontario so that we could not see a quarter of a mile from the vessel, which I am informed is very frequently the case during the summer season, and continued so during the whole day and night But the rising sun next morning dispersed the fog and we reached port Dalhousie situated near the head of the Lake, at which point the Welland canal enters and conveys vessels to Lake Erie a distance of forty one miles

This canal is not of sufficient dimensions to answer the great and growing commercial communication so absolutely required between these two great Lakes, the Locks being only twenty two feet in width and one hundred in length, the water at the greatest eight feet and a half deep

Population and enterprize between Upper and lower Canada may be judged of from the rapid growth of Prescot a port on the St. Lawrence in the route from Montreal to Kingston and distant 127 miles and from the latter 62 miles In 1815 the largest vessel employed for the transit of merchanize between Kingston