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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.”

Information

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.

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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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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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