at £100,000 ($487,000 U.S.) with a proviso that it could be increased to £200,000 ($975,000 U.S.) in the event of extending the works to the Thames River or Lake Huron. Construction was to be commenced within two years of passage of the act and was to be completed between London and Burlington Bay within ten years and from London to the Thames River and Lake Huron within twelve years of passage of the act (Upper Canada Statutes, 4 William IV, chapter 29, assent date March 6, 1834).
Promoters of the new company immediately set to work, with the Montreal Gazette (May 3, 1834) reporting:
We perceive by the True Patriot that the first meeting of the friends of the London and Gore Railroad was held in London on Monday, April 7 [1834]; and we rejoice to find that stock on the amount of four or five hundred shares [£10,000–12,500] was taken up before the meeting adjourned…. When it is considered that every landholder within ten miles of the intended road must be greatly benefitted by its completion, and that the produce of the finest and most fertile country in America must in a few years be of little value, unless some such improvement is effected, we are not at all surprised to hear that the farmers are coming forward to take up stock….
Unfortunately, the promoters found themselves unable to attract necessary capital, despite a modest objective of £100,000. Despite a lack of capital, enthusiasm continued unabated. In 1836 Elisha Johnson, civil engineer, was engaged to conduct a preliminary survey of the route and report to the directors.
In his “Report of the Engineer upon the Preliminary Surveys for the London and Gore Rail Road,” dated 1836, Johnson gushed with some of the most eloquent prose ever to grace the pages of an engineer’s report. He not only assured the directors that the proposed route was remarkably straight and level, with no serious physical barriers to overcome, but predicted that “the rude features of an unfrequented wilderness” would be transformed “as if by enchantment” into a “diversified and profitable cultivation … with thickening throngs of active, useful, and intelligent families.”
The eloquent engineer concluded his report with a plea that the directors pursue what he considered their divine mission:
The Creator of the world has stretched out between Canada and the United States the most magnificent series of internal waters that anywhere adorn His footstool. From these waters he has, for ages, sent forth his dews, and his rains to clothe the vast interior with lavish fertility…. Can you doubt or hesitate as to the task assigned you? Were the richest bounties of the physical world designed to go forever unimproved and unenjoyed by him to whom dominion is given over all the world?
A variety of newspapers extolled the merits of the proposed route, as did travellers and visitors to Upper Canada. One of the most famous examples of the latter, Anna Jameson, considered this railway
One of the grandest and most useful undertakings in the world — in this world I mean. The want of a line of road, of an accessible market for agricultural produce, keeps this magnificent country poor and ignorant. Here all grain, all fruits which flourish in the south of Europe might be cultivated with success — the finest wheat and rice, and hemp and tobacco…. If there were but a railroad … there is no calculating the advantages that must arise from it.
The pressing need was for money, not enthusiasm. For this reason, the company approached the government for financial assistance. In 1837, with the aggressive support of Allan MacNab, and convinced that the colony, as a whole, would benefit from its construction, the legislature approved a loan of £200,000 ($975,000 U.S.) (Upper Canadian Statutes, 7 William IV, chapter 61, assent date March 4, 1837).
The money was never received nor was any attempt made to begin construction. The unsettled political and economic conditions in Upper Canada occasioned by the Rebellion of 1837 and the financial crisis (panic) of that year, combined with a continued interest in canals, brought any progress on the railway to an abrupt stop. With neither public nor private funds available, promoters of the London and Gore, and other railways in the colony, had no choice but to temporarily abandon the project. In the near term, prospects for the railway were bleak indeed. However, the dreams of those behind it lingered on.
In 1845 the London and Gore Railroad Company was revived with the incorporation of the Great Western Rail Road Company, which had an extended route (from some point on the Niagara River through Hamilton and London to Point Edward at the foot of Lake Huron and to the Detroit River). This was done in order to avoid a lapse in the act of 1834. Capital stock was increased to £1.5 million ($7.31 million U.S.) maximum. Construction had to begin within four years of passage of this act and had to be completed within twenty years of the passage (Province of Canada Statutes, 8 Victoria, chapter 86, assent date March 29, 1845).
The reasons for the reinvigorated enthusiasm and more ambitious plan embodied in the 1845 act was closely related to significant developments in Britain and the U.S. during this period.
The changing trade policy of the mother country between 1846 and 1849 had profound effects upon railway development in Canada West (Ontario). Colonial produce, formerly sheltered by Britain’s preferential tariff structure, became exposed to the competition of foreign traders as Britain removed the tariff structure. In addition, exports from the U.S. Midwest, which had used the St. Lawrence route in order to gain freer access to British markets, would now enjoy equal treatment even if exports left from U.S. ports on the east coast. Bitter resentment boiled up in Canada, especially among Montreal merchants and St. Lawrence shipping interests, due to the major disaster of the loss of British preferential tariffs. This resentment culminated in the famous “Annexation Manifesto.” However, farmers in Canada West continued to be prosperous as they increasingly looked southward, rather than overseas, for trading opportunities.
The reason for this southward “gaze” is readily apparent. In 1845 the U.S. government enacted legislation that allowed Canadian produce to be exported in bond (i.e., in sealed freight cars) to U.S. ports without paying U.S. import duties. As a result, by 1850 the volume of wheat from Canada West exported via U.S. east-coast ports was more than fifteen-fold that exported via the St. Lawrence route. Thus, with the removal of the British preference, both farmers of the U.S. Midwest and Canada West began to depend on American transportation facilities to move their produce to eastern seaports.
Between 1831 and 1842 a maze of short railways had been built in New York State between Buffalo and the eastern seaboard. Although originally built to serve only local interests, by 1843 these lines collectively provided a through route from Buffalo to Albany, from which additional lines were built to access Boston and New York City. This railway network was hampered by disunity of management and restrictions arbitrarily imposed by the state of New York. For example, one component road, a potential competitor for the state-owned Erie Canal, could not carry any freight! The others were required to pay the equivalent of canal tolls on all freight handled. Pressure was obviously being exerted upon the state legislature to lift these restrictions.
In 1846 a group of eastern-U.S. investors headed by John M. Forbes of Boston bought the partially completed Michigan Central Railroad from the state of Michigan. Running from Chicago to Detroit, this line was expected to capture a major share of traffic to/from the U.S. Midwest. The Forbes group realized that it shared a common problem with the New York system ending at Buffalo. It needed a linking railway running through Canada West from the Niagara River to the Detroit River, a route much shorter and more economical than any line south of Lake Erie.
This is the point at which the London and Gore Railroad, originally projected as a portage road and a road for local transportation needs, emerged as a vital link in a great railway chain stretching from Chicago to Boston.
A few weeks following passage of the 1845 Great Western Railroad Act, Sir Allan MacNab, the line’s first president, and James Belle Ewart sailed for England in high hopes of attracting the capital needed to start construction.
The new purpose
