Memories of Fort William (Papers, 1924)
"Memories of Fort William" is a paper by J. McKay Hunt in the 1924 annual of the Thunder Bay Historical Society. He recalls the early roads, municipal boundaries and lake steamers of the Lakehead, some from his time as a Canadian Pacific Railway policeman.[1]
What it covers
Hunt says the road from Prince Arthur's Landing to Fort William was built about 1874 by two gangs, one led by James Conmee and one by Thomas Woodside, and that in 1884 the CPR paid the municipality of Neebing $3,000 to close the riverbank road. He lays out the original municipalities: Shuniah covering McIntyre, McGregor, Pie Island and the Welcome Islands, and Neebing covering Neebing, Paipoonge, Blake, Crooks and Pardee. Shuniah was so large because the Landing needed enough territory to issue $70,000 of bonds to grade seven miles of railway. Thomas Marks lobbied Ottawa for a rail link from Westfort to the Landing, ran a ferry between the two, and became Port Arthur's first mayor in 1884.[1]
He then describes the first CPR steamer, the Algoma under Captain Moore on about 12 May 1884, the Magnet and Spartan that replaced the Alberta, and the grounding of the Spartan in the Kaministiquia, which some alleged was arranged to show the river was unfit as a harbour. Archie McKellar noticed the ship stuck, and the CPR used a mile of track, three locomotives, the steamer Ocean and the tug Salty Jack to pull her free.[1]
Key Thunder Bay facts
- Fort William was incorporated as a town with John McKellar as mayor (Hunt dates it 1893).[1]
- Hunt left Port Arthur in 1892 on the steamer Campana under Captain John McNabb, which turned back to pick up late train passengers.[1]
- Conmee lost his shingle mill at Meaford by fire and is quoted as saying he had nothing left to lose.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 J. McKay Hunt, "Memories of Fort William", Papers of the Thunder Bay Historical Society, 1924 (Thunder Bay Historical Society, Fifteenth Annual Report), pp. 9–10 (scan pp. 75–76). archive.org.