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Americans in Britain's Backyard: The Railway Era in Upper Canada, 1850–1880*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Peter Baskerville
Peter Baskerville
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, University of Victoria
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Abstract

Canadian lines that were spreading out over what would become the Province of Ontario looked forward, in the years before the American Civil War, to becoming important east-west carriers between the rapidly growing American cities of the eastern seaboard and the still-new cities of the American Midwest. Canada's small population and undeveloped industry would force her railroads to rely heavily on traffic going from one American city to another. Lines like the Grand Trunk and the Great Western struggled desperately therefore, to avoid American financial control. With the help of British capital, they succeeded. But America's contribution to Canadian railroading ran much deeper than money. Dominating the skilled engineers and experienced construction contractors who came from south of the border was more difficult for Canadian directors to manage. In the end, however, it was the early failure of top Canadian management to bury their rivalries, ignore their English creditors, emulate Americans like Vanderbilt, Thomson, and Garrett, and consolidate into an integrated line between New England, the Middle Atlantic seaboard, and the Midwest that doomed their railroads to becoming, as one Canadian put it, “side streets to the trade thoroughfare.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1981 , pp. 314 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1981

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References

1 Detroit Public Library [hereafter DPL] Joy Papers, Forbes to Joy, January 2, 1867.

2 The following contain some information: Wilgus, W.J., The Railway Interrelations of the United States and Canada (Toronto, 1937)Google Scholar; Currie, A.W., The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada (Toronto, 1957)Google Scholar; Taylor, G.R. and Neu, I.D., The American Railroad Network, 1861–90 (Cambridge, Mass., 1956).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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10 The Great Western acquired $800,000; the northern $215,000; and, the Buffalo and Brantford, $70,000.

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16 PAC, John Young Letterbook, 4, Harris to R. S. Atcheson, January 14, 1851. The Niagara and Detroit failed despite the tact that, or perhaps because, the Michigan and New York interests sent “delegates to Toronto, to aid in the struggle then going on in the Canadian Parliament.” DPL, H.H. Emmons Papers, Statement and Correspondence as to Arrangements Between the Great Western and Michigan Central Railway Cos., ND, [hereafter, Arrangements], 1.

17 PAC, Buchanan Papers, 30, Harris to Isaac Buchanan, December 20, 1850; AI, Corning Papers, J.W. Brooks to Corning, May 6, 1851; PAC, J. Young Papers, Young to T.G. Ridout, January 13, 1852; Young to Hincks, February 25, 1852, Private.

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28 PAC, J. Young Papers, Forbes to Young, April 2, 1852, Young to Harris, April 15, 1852; AI, Corning Papers, Forbes to Corning, May 22, June 17, 1852.

29 AI, Corning Papers, Forbes to Corning, July 27, 1852.

30 McCalla, “Peter Buchanan,” 203.

31 AI, Corning Papers, Forbes to Corning, May 21, 27, 1853; James R. Walter to Corning, January 26, 1854.

32 PAC, Baring Papers, C1368, Corning to Baring Brothers, August 14, 28, 1854; Clark to Baring Brothers, September 16, 1854.

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36 The eight were: The Great Western, the Gait to Guelph, the Northern, the Buffalo and Lake Huron, the London & Port Stanley, Port Hope, Linsey & Beaverton, the Cobourg and Peterborough, and the Erie and Ontario. The three were: Grand Trunk Railroad, Brockville and Ottawa, and the Welland Railroad. The fourth was the Ottawa and Prescott Railroad. The fifth was the Hamilton and Toronto Railroad.

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45 P. Baskerville, “Professional vs. Proprietor: Power Distribution in the Railroad World of Upper Canada/Ontario, 1850–,” Historical Papers, 1978, 48–50; Toronto Leader, July 29, 1853.

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48 In particular, he exercised great control over the Niagara area.

49 PAC, Buchanan Papers, 39, Longsdon to Harris, April 17, 1855.

50 PAC, Buchanan Papers, 10, Issac Buchanan to Peter Buchanan, October 15, 1853; AI, Corning Papers, Brydges to Vibbard, October 15, 1853. Toronto Examiner, November 9, 1853. To ballast the road after opening was common practice in the United States and was allowed in Canada until 1857, Hamilton Public Library, Ferrie Papers, Reid & Ridley to W. Powis, September 28, 1857.

51 PAC, Department of Public Works, 134, S. Keefer to Beattie, August 4, December 13, 1858.

52 Hamilton Spencer, December 1855.

53 P. Baskerville, “Professional vs. Proprietor …,” passim.

54 Hamilton Spectator, May 26, 1854.

55 PAO, Shanly Papers, 85, Walter to Francis Shanly, December 1, 1850.

56 Samuel Keefer was one, cf., P.A.C., Department of Public Works, 802, passim.

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60 See, for example, London Railway Times, April 25, 1863; University of Western Ontario; [UWO], Thomas Swinyard Papers, LBI, Pennington to Swinyard, August 20, 1864.

61 DPL, H.H. Emmons Papers, Arrangements, p. 5; AI, Corning Papers, Brydges to Corning, May 13, 1854.

62 Arrangements, 4 ff.

63 Ibid., 10; PAC, Baring Papers, A834, Blackwell to Baring, August 10, 1858 (private and confidential); A835, Blackwell to Baring, December 4, 1858, January 29, September 19, 1859.

64 PAC, Baring Papers, Gzowski to Blackwell, August 31, 1859 [extracts, copy].

65 London Railway Times, September 22, 1860.

66 DPL, Joy Papers, Blue Line Advertisement, June, 1866.

67 London Railway Times, October 30, 1869.

68 Julius Grodinsky, Transcontinental Railway Strategy, Philadelphia, 1962; Currie, Grand Trunk Railway, 225.

69 DPL, Joy Papers, Swinyard to Joy, December 8, 1866; Joy to Brydges, January 4, 1867.

70 London Railway Times, September 20, 1879; UWO, Swinyard Papers, LB 1870 ff, Swinyard to Harris, May 2, 1882.

71 Grand Trunk Meeting, London Railway Times, October 28, 1871, November 30, 1872; Great Western Meeting, Ibid., April 20, 1872, April 24, 1875, November 13, 1875 (quote from November 13, 1875).

72 Grand Trunk Meeting, London Railway Times, November 2, 1878.

73 UWO, Swinyard Papers, LB1870ff, Swinyard to Harris, May 2, 1882.

74 Hamilton Gazette, September 8, 1853; London Railway Times, January 1, 1859.

75 On this see, for example, Wise, S.F. and Brown, R.C., Canada Views the United States (Toronto, 1967)Google Scholar; Smith, Allan, “Old Ontario and the Emergence of a National Frame of Mind,” in Armstrong, F.H.et al., eds., Aspects of Nineteenth Century Ontario (Toronto, 1974), 194–217.Google Scholar

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78 Greenberg, “A Study of Capital Alliances,” 39.

79 Canadian railroads, including the Grand Trunk, and Canadian railroad personnel, like George Stephen of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, continued, it should be noted, to be active in American ventures as well. See, A.W. Currie, Grand Trunk Railway, Martin, Albro, James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; and, Gilbert, Heather, Awakening Continent: The Life of Lord Mount Stephen (Aberdeen, Vol. 1, 1965; Vol. 2, 1977).Google Scholar