xx Barrie's Sidewheeler

BARRIE'S SIDEWHEELER
THE STEAMSHIP IDA BURTON

As a steamer of the 1860s and 1870s on Lakes Simcoe and
Couchiching, the Ida Burton was quite big and quite fast.
Her ties with Barrie were due to her being built there and
her being operated from there.
Her owners were businessmen of Barrie, although they were
an Allandale family (at that time Allandale was still separate
from Barrie).
She lasted only nine years or so and does not have a place in
the "Barrie Hall of Fame", but in her time she was a wellknown
feature of the scene on Lakes Simcoe and
Couchiching,
(Brian Perkins 2016)

Barrie's Sidewheeler
Lake Simcoe and the first Steamship
For the better part of the 19th century Lake Simcoe played a major role in
the development of what became Central Ontario.
In 1832, there was only a handful of settlers among the Indians of "The
Narrows Village" at what became Orillia. With them were some
enterprising half-pay British naval and military officers, who had settled
along the shores of Lake Simcoe. They formed what today would be
called a syndicate, to finance and build the first steamer on lakes not
connected to rivers running to the ocean. They named their 90-foot ship
"The Sir John Colborne" after the lieutenant-governor of the day. She was
slow (just four miles per hour), built on a schooner hull; and was the
ninth steamship built in Canada. The ship was built without the expertise
of marine architects, and only 16 years after the first Canadian-built
steamship, the SS Frontenac, slid into the Bay of Quinte waters off
Kingston.
These men may have settled far from the centres of commerce in Upper
Canada, but they were very much in touch with spirit of the times.
Although "The Sir John Colborne" was a commercial failure she was the
forerunner of the steamships which were to ply Lake Simcoe. The era of
the steamship on Lake Simcoe thus began.
Before the coming of rail and road networks, water provided the quickest,
most comfortable, and most efficient means of transportation in Upper
Canada. Originally the boats plying the lake were canoes, bateaux (large,
flat-bottomed row-boats measuring nearly 50 feet, in length), and sailing
schooners.
Rise of the Steamships
Eventually steamships replaced these earlier modes of travel/ Many of
them were handsome vessels that enjoyed long and successful careers.

In the mid-1800s waterways were the highways until railways and roads
spread across central Ontario. Compared with what had gone before,
travel was economical, quick and relatively comfortable aboard
steamships crossing Lake Simcoe ferrying mail, freight and settlers to
outlying settlements. They were vital to the survival and growth of towns
supplying farm goods and lumber to railheads destined for distant
markets. Not only utilitarian, they also provided an element of romance.
Steamships were relatively easy to build and did not require special drydocks
or slips, so around the lake many communities - some little more
than villages - built them. The Ida Burton was one such steamship.
The Ida Burton
The Ida Burton was only one of many vessels on Lake Simcoe, but she
had the distinction of being the first steamship built in Barrie, and the
last side-wheeler built on either Lakes Simcoe or Couchiching. The Ida
Burton became one of the most successful steamships of the day.
She was a wooden ship, with large paddle wheels midway between stern
and bow, and was built at a time when steamship travel on Lake Simcoe

was nearing its end. The Ida Burton was launched on June 13, 1866, by
George Burton and his partner Llewellyn Oliver.
She was a twin-deck wooden vessel, 82 feet long with a beam of 14 feet.
Steam power came from a single cylinder fed from a single boiler.
George Burton was the son of lumber magnate William Burton. Llrwellyn
Oliver was the county coroner, a distinguished doctor, and a dabbler in
various business interests.
The pride of the Lake Simcoe fleet was named after Ida, the mother of
George Burton's sons James Lindsay (1848 to 1910) and Martin (1852 to
1914). These two men were among the most prominent businessmen in
19th century Barrie. Together they had a hand in most of the large
industries in town and owned nearly half of the nearby village of
Allandale (now a part of Barrie). James Lindsay occupied most of his
time with the Northern Navigation Company, whose fleet steamed across
the waters of Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, and Lake Couchiching,
delivering mail, cargo, and passengers.
Because Barrie wasn’t a major port, or even a particularly notable
community until mid-century, the Ida Burton was the only side-wheeler
the Burton’s (or anyone else) ever built there. Trains had cornered the
shipping market by the time the rails reached Barrie in the early 1850s.
The town accordingly lost its reliance on water transportation, but other
communities not directly served by rail continued to build ships.
For nearly a decade, from 1866 to 1875, the Ida Burton left Barrie with
travelers arriving by train from Toronto bound for luxury hotels on the
Muskoka Lakes. The first stop was at Orillia, then across the length of
Lake Couchiching for connection with the Northern Railway. From this
railhead at Washago, on the Severn River, travellers rode the rails to
Gravenhurst where they boarded another steamer for the final part of their
journey.
The Ida Burton was hired for private functions at a time when the
temperance movement was having some success in reducing alcohol sales

in Ontario. Consuming alcohol was often frowned upon, especially
among the well-heeled “upstanding” citizens. However, private
excursions aboard the Ida Burton were rarely dry, and were used as
opportunities to indulge in alcohol away from prying eyes. Parties,
complete with musical entertainment, were often the highlight of the
summer social season.
George Burton didn't enjoy her success for long. He drowned in Lake
Simcoe on June 10, 1869. He was only 33 years old.
After his death, the Ida Burton was taken over by sons Martin and James
Lindsay.
Though she continued for a time in the passenger trade, the steamship's
fortunes were undermined when the Northern railway was extended to
Gravenhurst. She was increasingly utilized as part of the Burton Brothers'
industrial business by towing logs from timber camps around the lakes to
their sawmill at Barrie.
End of the Ida Burton
In 1875, the Ida Burton was badly damaged in a collision with another
vessel. With their timber fortunes now being made at Byng Inlet on
Georgian Bay, there was no real reason for the Burtons to rebuild their
steamship, so she remained moored along the Barrie docks.
Her end came a year later when her machinery was removed for sale and
she was taken to Orillia and ignominiously sunk at the lakeshore to serve
as the foundation of a wharf. She lies there still,
The steamship’s passing wasn't much of a setback for the Burton
brothers, who went on to help found the Barrie Electric Light Company
and other enterprises. Martin also went into the lumber business in a big
way. With extensive timber rights and a huge mill at Byng Inlet along
Georgian Bay, he became one of the wealthiest lumber barons in Ontario.
James Lindsay devoted much of his later years to local politics, serving
many years as deputy reeve of Barrie and then as reeve from 1889 to
1890.

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The Burton family name lives on in Burton Avenue in Allandale, but their
steamship Ida Burton has been forgotten and what remains of her lies
beneath the waters at the shore of of Lake Couchiching.
Brian Perkins (2016)
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