Canada 150 - The Richelieu & Ontario Navigation Co

During our country's 150th anniversary celebration of confederation I will write posts titled Canada 150 with a link to a publication or website I find that may help you tell the story of your Canadian ancestors.
Click on the Canada 150 label on the right or at the bottom to see all the posts.

Today I have for you...

The Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Co 

"In 1857 the Royal Mail Line became the Canadian Navigation Company. This joined with others in 1875 to form the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company. With Sir Hugh Allan of Montreal as Chairman, the R&0 was pre-eminent along the 800-mile route from Toronto to the Saguenay. The R&0 prospered as such until 1913, when it absorbed four competitors and a number of subsidiaries to become the Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) group."

-Fundy Stamp Collectors Club

Relevant Links

From Niagara to the sea, Official Guide 1906

Report of the directors and list of shareholders of the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Co., 1st February, 1880,83,86

Hotels & steamers of Canada : R & O Navigation Co. 1906

Niagara to the sea : Fleet steamers for tourist traffic 1913

Excursion Routes and Rates Via Grand Trunk R'y and Richelieu

Great photos at McCord Museum Collections

Crew and Civilians on Ships Hit by U-boats in WWII

I came across this website this past week - uboat is a site where you will find all the German u-boats of both wars with their officers and other information.

German U-boat UB14 with crew

What is interesting for us also is that it has a list of the crew of all the ships that were hit by a u-boat during WWII. You can do a name search, or browse by name, ship or country.

The above is only a partial list of services and countries. It is not just navy on the list. There are army personnel that were passengers on a ship, as well as nurses and civilian passengers.

A lot of work has gone into developing this site and it is well worth a look. Check out the tabs at the top and links on the left side... try the On this Day link. At the bottom of the page hit the Glossary button for a list of abbreviations and definitions.

Clicking on the person's name will give you more information...

For some military personnel there is also the link to where they are buried.

Update: 
The British ship City of Benares was carrying 90 children evacuated from Great Britian and being sent to safety in Canada when it was torpedoed. Here is the story and near the end is a link to all the names of those lost. Click on the names to find out more about them. 




Relevant Links

Crew lists from Ships hit by U-boats in WWII

City of Benares

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

Ancestors in the British Navy

I recently started delving into my Frost ancestors from Moretonhampstead. According to Silvester Treleaven's Diary for the year 1800 -  Monday July 7th...

"An account was recv’d of the Death of Gilbert Frost, son of Mr. Gilbert Frost of this place, he died on board the Edgar 74 Guns off the coast of France."

I was trying to find out if he died during a battle, or from sickness, or what.  I don't know how long it took at that time to get the news.  According to the Medicina Nautica of 1803, in February and March of 1800 there was sickness aboard the Edgar.

In 1800 the Edgar was part of the Channel Fleet, blockading the French port of Brest.

I still haven't found any mention of Gilbert Frost.

Relevant Links

Navy Lists - 1800's

Navy Lists - 1900's 

Naval Chronicle

Medicina Nautica Vol 1, 1797

Medicina Nautica Vol 2, 1799

Medicina Nautica Vol 3, 1803

Naval chronology; or, An historical summary of naval & maritime events, from the time of the Romans, to the Treaty of Peace, 1802

Publications of the Naval Record Society

Navy Estimates and notes on ships of the Channel Fleet

Related Posts:  Navy

Serendipity Sunday - Remarkable Shipwrecks and Naval Disasters

This week I have been taking a new direction in my research. I am looking into the descendants of my 9th great grandfather, Ambrose Frost born 1610 in Moretonhampstead (sometimes written Moreton Hampstead), Devon, England.

In so doing I came across a Gilbert Frost in this publication...

Remarkable shipwrecks; collection of interesting accounts of naval disasters, 1813

Fortunately Gilbert was not shipwrecked, but rather a name on the subscribers list for New York.  This gives me another avenue to follow.  Gilbert is a common name in the Frost Family and it looks like one of them immigrated to America. 

I do have a 5th great uncle Gilbert Frost that was in the Royal Navy.  According to Silvester Treleavens Diary, word was received in Moretonhampstead on July 7th 1800 that Gilbert died aboard the HMS Edgar (74 Guns) off the coast of France.

HMS Edgar took part in the Battle of Cap-St-Vincent 1780

Maritime Pilots

A marine pilot is a mariner who is licensed and knows how to guide a ship safely through the local waters. In Canada there are inland pilots like those who work the St Lawrence River, and coastal pilots that help big ships into their berth at ocean ports. Here is a definition and history at wikipedia.

The Marine and Fisheries part of the Sessional Papers of Canada has a section titled "Pilotage Authority".  For the year 1908 it is starting with Appendix 22.

There you will find pilotage rates, names of pilots licensed, pilot earnings, names of apprentices, those paid from the Decayed Pilot Fund including pensioners, widows and children (not all for all cities).

Some also report on the conduct of the pilots...

The Almanak of Montreal and Lower Canada has a list of pilots for the harbour.

Montreal Almanak or Lower Canada Register 1829

Also check the Parliamentary Papers of Great Britain.


Relevant Links

Pilotage Authority Canada 1899

Pilotage Authority Canada 1901

Pilotage Authority Canada 1905

Pilotage Authority Canada 1906

Pilotage Authority Canada 1907

Pilotage Authority Canada 1908

Pilotage Authority Canada 1909

Le pilotage du Saint-Laurent de Québec à Montréal, 1900 w/portraits

Return of receipts of pilotage and number of pilots at Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Londonderry, 1833

Parliamentary Papers of UK - Pilotage 1894

Parliamentary Papers of UK - Pilotage 1889

Info on Pilotage in the United States

South Australia - Pilotage 1883-1884



Relate Posts:  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

Serendipity Sunday - NOAA: Search and Rescue

The other day I happened upon an OpenSource file from 2007 of NOAA employees.

In 2005 my husband left with a friend in his 40' Ketch to sail to Hawaii. He purchased as much safety equipment as he thought necessary before leaving. One thing he bought was an EPIRB. This is an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon used to alert search and rescue services in case of emergency. Before leaving on an offshore voyage, you register the EPIRB with NOAA, the National and Oceanic Atmosphere Administration through their Cospas-Sarsat Program. You can get a device for air and land satellite tracking also. You can see from their website that there are many instances where you would want a registered satellite beacon with you.

"The Cospas-Sarsat Program is an international organization that provides space-based relay of distress signals, or alerts, from emergency beacons that use the 406 megahertz (MHz) frequency.  Cospas-Sarsat provides the alerts to search and rescue (SAR) authorities internationally.

The governments of Canada, France, Russia and the United States (the Parties) have signed an agreement to provide for the long-term operation of the system and to support the objectives of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) concerning search and rescue."

If historical ships had these there would have been more lives saved and less ships lost.
Thank heaven my husband didn't need to activate his beacon, but I felt better knowing he had it out in the middle of the Pacific ocean, with that stormy weather they encountered.

In the link below you can download the excel file I found that lists all the employees of NOAA as of Dec 2007, with their names, job titles, salary, hire date and pay grade. It was found at Internet Archive here.

There are lists of historical shipwrecks in my article of 29 May 2014: Shipwrecks 


Relevant Links:

Excel List of 12,800 employees of NOAA (PFD - 710 pages)

 

 

Serendipity Sunday - Joseph Philippe Lemercier LaRoche

In my article of May 29th titled Shipwrecks I mentioned about going to see the Titanic Exhibit at the Royal Bc Museum. My "Boarding Pass" was in the name of Mme Juliette LaRoche who boarded in France with her husband Joseph and their 2 daughters, travelling to Haiti. Joseph was born to a wealthy family in Haiti, and found it impossible in France to get a job that paid a decent wage, and what his training was worth, because of his colour. 

This past week, while looking for something unrelated to genealogy, I came across this article written last year about the family of Joseph Philippe Lemercier LaRoche keeping his memory alive. It is nice to see what became of the mother I was portraying and her family in the following years.

Maybe nothing was ever published of the family at the time, but I recognized the LaRoche name as soon as I saw it in the article, all because my Boarding Pass was in Juliette's name and I was interested in what happened to "my" family. Joseph.... Titanic the Artifact Exhibition, being shown at Museums around the world, is not ignoring your presence on that ship!

Juliette (b 1889), Joseph (b 1886), Simonne (b 1909), Louise (b 1910)

Story in Ocean County Register

Juliettte Marie Louise Lafargue

Simonne Marie Anne Andrée Laroche 

Louise LaRoche 

Masters and Mates

"Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea,

              because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up."
                         ~ Henry David Thoreau

My husband always loved the sea and decided he wanted to learn to sail. He took lessons, read lots of books on everything from navigation to offshore sailing, and went sailing every chance he got.  He learned about all the rigging, the motor, the sails and got the latest charts on CDs. He loved that he could see many beautiful spots only seen from the water. He sailed all the local waters in all kinds of weather until he earned his certificate and decided he was ready.  Time to sail to Hawaii.  So he set out with a friend the beginning of May. Once around the Cape they were following the coast line about 200 km offshore, with pretty rough seas. When they left the coast and angled away for Hawaii, they ran into 3 days of terrible storms, leaving them feeling queasy, but no time to rest or stop.  The boat handled as it should and they made it to Hawaii in 27 days. They faced up!

He always thought he should have been a pilot of a big ship, or at least a ferry. If your ancestor piloted a ship after 1850 it was compulsory to get a Masters and Mates certificate. Before 1845 it would be a Seamen and Seamen’s tickets you would be looking for. Most Masters and Mates will have seen service as an apprentice or ordinary seaman before getting his Certificate. The Sessional Papers of Canada, under Marine and Fisheries, have lists of those who earned their certificates. Also search archive.org for crew lists or ship logbook.

Certificate of competency as Extra Master for Edward Smith (of the Titanic)

You will find links to a couple of logbooks below - one being that of the William Baylies (Steam bark), of San Francisco, Calif., mastered by Hartson H. Bodfish, kept by Hartson H. Bodfish, on voyage from 10 Mar. 1906-7 Nov. 1906 The logbook is described as follows:

Log, kept by Hartson H. Bodfish, relating to a whaling voyage to the North Pacific Ocean; 1906 March 10-1906 Nov. 6; Includes descriptions of types of whales (bowhead, finback, killer, sperm, white), seals, and walrus seen or taken, death at sea, shipboard medicine, smoked ship to kill rats, and the arrest of Captain Bodfish for murder; and inventory of whale oil and bone. Other places represented include Dutch Harbor and Nome.

Some of the logbooks or journals of ships have names of the crew. Also search archive.org for crew lists, ship logbook, ship jounal, and slave ships.

Relevant Links:

Sessional Papers, Marine & Fiseries - Masters and Mates Certificates 190

UK Merchant Navy Seamen Records (Family Search)

UK AU NZ etc : 1870-1921 - (not complete)

Royal Museum Greenwich – UK - Order copy of certificates

Reed's seamanship for Masters and Mates Certification 1918

Logbook of the Helen Snow (Bark) of New Bedford, Mass., mastered by George H. Macomber, on voyage 17 Oct. 1871-19 Aug. 1872 (abandoned in Arctic)

Manual of the Examination of Masters and Mates - Canada 1875 (Plus Leading Lights, 

Almanac of stars and tides, and small appendice in french)

Petition of the masters, mates of British Vessels for protection of industry

Masters and Mates Certifiates online at Ancestry UK $

Review blog about certificates on Ancestry with Sample

Master and Mates - Australia

Indexes to Lloyd's Captains Registers (not complete yet)

Greenwich Hospital for Seamen

US Merchant Mariner Records

Log of the Volunteer 1817 (Voyage from Boston to China and back)

Logbook of the Nimrod on voyage from 18 Sept. 1857-14 July 1861

Logbook of the William Baylies mastered by Hartson H. Bodfish 1906

US Merchant Marine Collections

Index of Newfoundlnd Captains

Journal of Captain Cook's last voyage to the Pacific Ocean 1781

8 Real Life Pirates

Royal naval biography, or, Memoirs of the services of all the flag-officers, superannuated rear-admirals, retired-captains, post-captains and commanders [microform] : whose names appeared on the admiralty list of sea-officers at the commencement of the year 1823, or who have since been promoted : illustrated by a series of historical and explanatory notes, which will be found to contain an account of all the naval actions, and other important events, from the commencement of the late reign, in 1760 to the present period : with copious addenda.

Maritime History Archive Canada

A Directory of names, pennant numbers, and addresses of all members ofthe Ship Masters' Association of the Great Lakes - 1920