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flour awaiting shipment in Lake Ontario ports, but the grain trade in those ports was not so promising. It was believed that farmers were holding their grain, for better prices. Trade in the year 1876 was somewhat disappointing to the vessel-owners but as far as Hamilton was concerned, there was a note of optimism in the air. The Hamilton & Northwestern Railway was under construction and would ultimately reach Allandale and a branch from Beeton to Collingwood was completed in 1878. As successive sections of this line were opened to traffic, farm and forest products were moved southward and created cargoes for shipment out of Hamilton. This new development was something that Aeneas MacKay would not live to see, for as the year's end approached, he was taken ill. In the spring of 1877. navigation opened at Hamilton on the 13 April, when the schooner ORIENTAL, Capt. Campbell, from Kingston, had the honour of being the first vessel to pass the new H. & N. W. Ry. swing bridge over the Burlington Canal. By the end of that month, most harbours were open and those vessels that were lucky enough to secure cargoes were under way. Aeneas MacKay's condition had worsened during the winter and he died on the 14 May 1877, in the presence of his wife and family. The funeral cortege was a lengthy one, and as it moved slowly up James St. and then made its way out York St. to the cemetery on Burlington Heights, the silence was broken only by the horses' hooves and the carriage wheels on the stones of the streets. Later a red granite monument was erected to mark the family plot facing down the harbour toward MacKay's Wharf. -16-