xx Barrie's Sidewheeler

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