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CHAPTER 2 The Estate of Aeneas D. MacKay Aeneas had decreed that his estate could not be settled until the youngest member of the family reached the age of twenty-one. This placed the operation of the business in the hands of his widow, Elizabeth, and the eldest son, Robert Osborne, now 2b years of age. R. O. attended public school in Hamilton and was then sent to Dr. Tassie's private school in Galt, after which he returned home and business training began in the little office on MacKay's Wharf. During 1877, the Hamilton Street Railway, which had begun operating horse-cars in 1874, extended their lines down James St. North, to MacKay's Wharf. This was sufficient inducement for the operators of the sidewheel steamer PRINCE ARTHUR to seek and obtain, berthing privileges at MacKay's Wharf. The steamer was plying to Oaklands and the Beach. R. O. and Elizabeth did not have an easy time in their first year of managing the business. Although they evidently kept the propeller CELTIC employed, their investment in the Lake & River Steamship Co. was not paying too handsome a dividend. The propellers LAKE MICHIGAN and LAKE ONTARIO were not fitted-out until the end of August, when they were sent up to Detroit. At that port, on the 8 September, they loaded wheat for Montreal at a miserable 9 cents per bushel. In March, when all were more concerned with Aeneas' illness, someone managed to get into the bonded warehouse and steal some merchandise, including a few casks of brandy. Two of the casks were later retrieved from their hiding-place under Myles' Coal dock, but the aggravation of this affair dragged on for most of the season. During the summer of 1878, the steamer PRINCE ARTHUR again used MacKay's Wharf as her point of departure for trips to the Beach and for excursions to Grimsby Beach, Niagara and Queenston. This vessel, managed by R. G. Lunt, of Toronto, was originally the OLIVE, built in 1865 at Carleton, N. B. by George Fleming & Sons, for Enoch Lunt. She measured 161.0 x 23.6 x 8.3; Gross 545; Net 343; and she had two unmatched engines, one condensing 28x72, and one non-condensing 22x72, both built by Geo. Fleming & Sons. She was renamed PRINCE ARTHUR in 1876. When the season ended, the propellers LAKE ERIE, LAKE MICHIGAN, LAKE ONTARIO and CELTIC were laid up at MacKay's Wharf. Of these, the LAKE ERIE was the first one out when she sailed from Hamilton on the 6 May, 1879. The MacKays were successful in their bid for the Lighthouse Supply charter and the CELTIC was advertised to leave from Montreal, on or about the 30 June. Capt. Cavers was in command and the voyage would end at Fort William. Passengers and freight were solicited. In July 1879, R. O. MacKay was involved in some litigation regarding the James St. Slip. The steamers PRINCE ARTHUR and FLORENCE both had berthing privileges at MacKay's Wharf, using the slip, which was only 68 feet wide. The owners of two small steamers, the ECLIPSE and the DENNIS BOWEN operating on the Bay found that their -17-