Steamboats - Ships, Captains, Passengers and Disasters

In Eastern Canada steamboats traveled up the St Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and back carrying goods and passengers.

Arrival of Steamboat "Valleyfield" at St Helen's Island, Montreal, c1907

Schedules for steamboats could be found in the newspapers and the Almanac. Here are some of the routes.

On June 25, 1857 the steamboat "Montreal" , running between Quebec and Montreal caught fire and 264 lives were lost. Here is an accounting of this disaster through several newspaper articles.





Relevant Links

Lloyd's steamboat directory, and disaster on the western waters 1856

Maritime History of the Great Lakes - Steamboats

St Lawrence Steamboat Co Passenger Records (The Ships List)

Steamboat disasters and railroad accidents in the United States 1840

Steamboat owners - New York and Long Island Sound: memorial of sundry proprietors and managers of American steam vessels - 1840

New York's awful steamboat horror, with photos and images, 1904

Report of the St. Andrew's Society charitable committee of the receipts and disbursements of the special fund for the relief of the sufferers by the burning of the steamer "Montreal" on the 26th June 1857

Report of steamboat "Montreal" fire in the True Witness and Catholic Cronicle, 1857 (pg8)

Up and down the Thames, from London Bridge... to the sea - Victoria Steamboat Assn

The Atlantic ferry; its ships, men and working 1900

Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, on the History and Causes of Steamboat Explosions, 1839

Oldest Anglican church in Montreal celebrates 185 years, with list of victims of the steamer Shamrock

Northern Prairie Steamboats (Manitoba Historical Society)

Fifty ears on the Mississippi 1889

Old Steamboat days on the Hudson River: tales and reminiscences 1907

History of steamboating on the Minnesota River, 1905

The Clyde passenger steamer, Scotland 1904




Related posts:

Maritime Pilots

Shipwrecks

Remarkable Shipwrecks and Naval Disasters 

Masters and Mates

Serendipity Sunday - Original Lists of Persons of Quality to 1700

This week while researching my ancestors, I came across this publication...

 

 

The Original Lists of Persons of Quality;

Emigrants, religious exiles, political rebels, serving men sold for a term of years, apprentices, children stolen, maidens pressed, and others who went from Great Britain to the American Plantations - 1600-1700: with their ages, the localities where they formerly lived in the Mother Country, the names of the ships in which they embarked, and other interesting particulars. - 1874



Here is a sneak peek...

"13 November.   Grant to James Marquis of Hamilton, Henry, Earl of Holland, and others, all that continent, Island or Region commonly called Newfoundland, bordering upon the Continent of America, to them and their heirs."  (Newfoundland mentioned in a few places throughout)

Includes records for New England, Newfoundland, Bermuda (Sommer Islands) and Barbados. List of Walloons (of Belgium) and French promising to emigrate to Virginia.

Passengers - Part II

This booklet enticed many men in Scotland to bring their families to New Brunswick.

    

Prospectus of New Kincardineshire Colony of New Brunswick

 

In Part I on Passengers I told that I haven't found my 2x great grandfather Mavor on any passenger list coming to Canada from Scotland.  But I do know when his brother immigrated.

Francis Mavor brought his wife Catherine and their ten children to the Mavis Bank Quay in Glasgow early the morning of April 25th, 1873 to be ready to board the steamer Castalia. I can imagine they must have been nervous, maybe having second thoughts, but also excited to start their new life. They set sail, travelling in steerage, and arrived in St John, New Brunswick on May 10th.

 

 

 

 

Quite often when a ship was arriving to port a passenger list would be published in the newspaper. When Francis and his fellow passengers arrived at the port in St John, their names were printed in Saint John's newspaper, The Daily News. A great newspaper that gives passenger lists is the British "The Colonies and India" and you can find copies of issues from 1877 to 1898 online at subscription newspaper sites. Each issue has a section with schedule of ships arriving and sailing and lists of passengers.  Remember the "colonies" were not just in North America but also in the Caribbean, South America, Africa, Australia ... to name a few.  

 

During the Klondike Gold Rush, 1896-1899 many steamers were travelling along the west coast back and forth to Alaska.  Some city newspapers printed names of passengers - try Oregon, Washington and also Vancouver, BC.

 

 

 

I have put together into a PDF a few articles I found from different newspapers that list passengers by name and/or by class. To download the pdf click on the link below. 

To search I used keywords "passenger list", "list of survivors", "Alaska passenger list", etc.

I have also included a couple of other interesting links

 

 

Relevant Links:

 

List of provisions for each passenger, Liverpool to New Orleans c1840's

 

Instructions to persons emigrating by ship; domestic articles and provisions - 1832

  

The pdf of Newspaper Passenger Lists includes:

 

• The Nile - Calcutta to England ; 2 Apr 1864 
• The Colonies and India passenger lists ; 24 Aug 1895
• The Kent - Melbourne to London ; 28 Sept 1859
• The Royal Charter - Liverpool - Australia ;13 Nov 1859
• RMS Marama - Australia to Vancouver ; 28 July 1909
• RMS Miowera - Australia to Vancouver ; 6 Jul 1896
• Steamer "Hating" - Skagway Alaska to Vancouver ; 3 Aug 1901
• The Cahors - grounded on rocks - Australia; 13 Jun 1885
• SS Mohegan -  wrecked manacle reef Cornwall ; California, Oct 1898
• SS Mohegan - wrecked on manacle reef - from London Times ; Oct 1898
• Passengers, survivors of the RMS Lusitania ; sunk 1915
• Empress of Japan - Last trans-Pacific voyage - arrived Vancouver ; 2 Oct 1918 (among passengers are Sir Henry May, Governor of Hongkong and WM & WN Birks of Birks & Sons of Montreal)
• Steamer "Lakme" - Alaska to Seattle ; 27 Jul 1899
• Passengers to Vancouver and Murder in Scagway - 1898

 



 

Passengers - Part I

"SS Great Britain by Talbot" by Henry Fox Talbot

I have two great-great-grandfathers who came to Canada with their young families around the same time. I don't know exactly when, just before 1865. Passenger lists are few and far between before 1865, as before that time the master of vessel was not required to keep the manifests. But, even though I do not find my ancestors on a passenger list, there are clues to help me narrow down the time they arrived in Canada.

~ My 2x ggf George King was on the 1851 census for Devonshire, England, working as a miller in Woodleigh.
~ Their marriage banns were read in May 1853 and the wedding took place January 1854 in Woodleigh, Devon.
~ In September of 1856 there was an Auction notice in the Exeter Newspaper for the sale of the property and animals of George King. (There was also a notice in the paper 5 months later for the business of his brother-in-law and sister.) 

~ Their first son was born in nearby Washbourne that December, and baptized January 1857. That was the last I find of them in England.

For some unknown-to-me reason, around the same time 4 of George's siblings went to Australia and George is the only one that came to Canada. Their mother had died 10 years past , but their father was not to die for another 7 years.

My 2x ggf Alexander Mavor came from Ellon, Scotland.

~ He was last on a census in Scotland in 1851, working with his brother Francis as a farm servant 8 miles north of Ellon, in Methlick.
~ His marriage banns were read in Ellon in May of 1853 and he was married in New Deer (home of the bride's family) in August 1853.
~ Their first child is born October 1853. That was the last I find of them in Scotland.
(Alexander's brother followed him to Canada years later, in 1873, with a wife and 10 children in tow.)

Both families had a daughter born in Canada in 1859, one in April and one in October.  So I know My Kings arrived between January 1857 and April 1959, and my Mavors arrived sometime between October 1853 and October 1859. So far that's the best I can do. 

Other places you can look when you don't have a passenger list are immigrant societies and perhaps voyage accounts by passengers.

Some passenger lists have been uploaded to Internet Archive.
*Index to passenger lists to various US ports - some are lists but others are cards with passengers information on them.  Even though they are not in alphabetic order, they are all of one letter in a file (ie opening the file the first name begins with R, they will all be R names).  It may be a chore to go through them, but hey, no one said genealogy was easy!

1 of a batch of cards of passengers arriving at Baltimore 1820-1897.

There are also some websites where volunteers have researched and transcribed passenger lists for us. (Big YAAAY and thank you for the volunteers!!!)

Relevant Links

Olive Tree Genealogy Passengers Lists

The Ship's Lists

Island Register - Ship and Passenger Lists for the Maritimes

A bibliography of ship passengers lists, 1538-1825; being a guide to published lists of early immigrants to North America

Passenger Lists of Vessels arriving at Baltimore - 1820-1897

Passenger Lists of Vessels arriving at Philadelphia

Passenger and crew lists of vessels arriving at New York 1897-1957

More Passenger Lists at Gjenvick-Gjønvik

St John, NB - Daly Telegraph May 14, 1874 - list of passengers on the "Sidonian"

St John, NB - Daily Telegraph May 14 1874 - list of passengers on the "Castalia"

Passengers arriving in the St Albans, Vermont district through Canadian Pacific and Atlantic Ports - 1895-1954

Bristol to Canada: list of first class passengers; CNR Steamship Royal George - 1911

The original lists of persons of quality, emigrants, religious exiles, political rebels, serving men sold for a term of years, apprentices, children stolen, maidens pressed and others, who went from Great Britain to the American plantations; 1600-1700

South Australian Register - Monday 28 August 1865 - The "Cornwallis", ship arrival and full passenger list  27 Aug 1865 

List of emigrants to America from Liverpool, 1697-1707

St Andrew's Society Montreal - Immigrant list 

Links to Harvard Univ - Programs to help Immigrants (bottom of page)

Immigrants to Canada website 

Souvenir of the Anchor Line Agent's Excursion 1872

Ships Sailing from Scotland

List of passengers, R.M.S. Ophir, Orient Line, Australia 1895

SS Labrador passenger list Montreal and Quebec to Liverpool - 1898

"Alsatia" saloon passenger list New York to London 1878

SS Princess Sophia, Vancouver to Skagway and points in between - 1914

Royal Mail Steamer New York to Liverpool May 1880 

Passenger ship "Elizabeth" - Amsterdam to Philadelphia 1819

Society of California Pioneers 24th Anniversary, with list of passengers to San Francisco in the year 1848 (back of book)

CPR Empress of Ireland passenger list - Liverpool to Quebec, October 1911