xx Barrie's Sidewheeler

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.