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The Ward brothers George Brush and Montreal' s Eagle Foundry WALTER LEWIS Air Furnace from that o f a partner to a creditor. 9 Nevertheless, Ward was sufficiently intrigued by the offer to plan a trip to Montreal, returning the following summer, partly to collect a debt from Lough. 10 Whatever passed between them has not been ascertained, but that summer Ward became involved in the promotion o f what would becom e the steam ferry Montreal. According to one witness, Ward found an appropriate channel across the St. Lawrence, solicited potential investors and directed its construction. That fall when the engine they had planned to import did not arrive, he was hired to build his own. 11 The previous six years o f work had left John D od Ward with significantly more experience than capital. Yet, in the early years of the engine building trade, skill was the commodity at a premium. T he Eagle Foundry was established on a 70' x 90' lot purchased in October 1819 on Queen Street near the route of the Lachine Canal. 12 Within a month, for a mere $250, a 30' x 32' building with two blacksmith's fires was erected. 13 Two month's after that he had a good turning lathe and a punching machine, and was anticipating delivery o f a set o f boiler tools. Ward claimed, justifiably, that when they arrived he would "have all the machinery for making a boiler as well and as conveniently as it can be done at any place. "14 For the investment o f a few hundred dollars the Eagle Foundry was in business. Although Ward found plenty o f work, he rapidly came to the conclusion that his American origins were a handicap in AngloMontreal and the politics o f business in the town impressed upon him the importance o f "connections. "15 Thus in January 1821 he tried to persuade his cousin, Ezra D od, to take the job o f engineer o f the Telegraph, a St. Lawrence River steam boat, so that he him self could get the contract to repair it; "an American, " he believed, "could never be permitted to do it if it was managed by som eone from over the Seas. "16 In O ctober he complained that he had recently lost out on a large contract partly because "I am not a Scotchman, a circumstance o f no small importance with som e o f the wise ones here. "17 Certainly Ward had nailed his colours to the mast by naming the foundry, the "Eagle". Nor would Ward have any reason to complain about lack o f support from American investors in the Canadian steamboat trades. Am ong the backers o f the ferry M ontreal was Massachusetts-born Horatio Gates, one o f the leading businessmen in Montreal. 18 While still working for Dod, he had installed engines in on e o f Henry Gildersleeve's first steamboats, an association that continued for years. 19 And the Ward's were even closer to the family o f Horace Dickenson, the principal proprietor o f the Upper Canada Stage and Steam Boat Company. Lebbeus B. Ward married Dickenson's daughter and , W ithout question the single most important engine foundry in British North America before the coming o f the rail road was the Eagle Foundry o f Montreal, founded by John Dod Ward in the fall o f 1819. 1 Ward was a native o f N ew Jersey, where he and his brothers, Samuel and Lebbeus, were caught up in the excitement over steam engines and steamboats. 2 In this they followed the lead o f their uncle, Daniel D od. He grew up near the Wards in Mendham, New Jersey, where he learned how to build clocks and mathematical instruments, as well as the business o f land surveying. Like many others in the region, he was fascinated by Robert Fulton's steamboat. In 1811, at the age o f 33, D od took out a patent for the "invention of a new boiler and condenser for use on steam engines as well as for the arrangement and location o f the component parts of the power mechanism for steamboats"3 This patent led Daniel Dod into an ill-fated partnership with Aaron Ogden, the former governor o f N ew Jersey who had purchased the rights to John Fitch's steam boat. The whole clan, Dods and Wards, then moved to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where they began build ing marine engines in earnest. By 1816, Ward was "on the road" supervising the installation o f his uncle's engines in som e o f the most important steamboats outside the Fulton monopoly. H e put D od 's engine in the Ontario, the first American steamer on the Great Lakes. H e was also involved in installing engines on Lake Champlain. During the summer and fall o f 1817 Ward worked on vessels along the eastern seaboard and in New Orleans. 4 H e may even have worked on the engine o f the Savannah, for which D od supplied some machinery.5 The long legal battles over Fulton's New York state monopoly have been described in detail elsewhere. 6 O f particular impor tance to the Dod-Ward connection was that Ogden's embar rassments dragged Daniel D od into financial ruin. Supported by friends and family, including the Wards, D od moved in 1820 to a new plant across the river in New York City where three years later he was killed in the spectacular explosion o f a high pressure boiler.7 In the meantime, in 1818 at the age o f 22 John D od Ward found himself attempting to collect old debts while scouting out new opportunities. Perhaps in an attempt to avoid paying the former by offering the latter, Captain Jahaziel Sherman o f the Champlain Transportation Company, "strongly solicited [Ward] to take a small part o f Capt. Sherman's Montreal fur nace establishment and take the entire management o f it. "8 This was, o f course, rather presumptuous o f Sherman who only a year before had converted his stake in Joseph Lough's Montreal - 29-