9. Ship of the Month - cont'd. son in 1908 as its Hull 118, and the MAPLETON, built in 1909 at Sunderland. The first mention of BEAVERTON in "The Railway and Marine World" came in its issue of February 1908. "The Merchants Steamship Co., recently incorporated, is having built at Hebburn-on-Tyne, Eng., a lake steamer to be named BEAVER TON. The principal dimensions will be: length, 256 ft. (overall -Ed. ); breadth, 42 1/2 ft.; depth, 23 1/2 ft., with a carrying capacity of about 3, 300 tons. She will be provided with triple expansion engines, with cylinders 17, 28 and 46 ins. diam., by 33 ins. stroke, supplied with steam from two Scotch boilers, each 12 by 11 ft., at 185 lbs. pressure. The vessel is being spe cially built for the lake trade of grain and package freight, with 'tween decks, electric lighting, steam heating, and all the most modern and up-to- date appliances for the expeditious handling of cargo. It is expected that delivery will be made by April 15, and on arrival on the lakes, she will be placed on the Montreal - Fort William route carrying package freight up and grain down, under management of J. T. Mathews of the Mathews Steamship Line (sic), Toronto. " The next mention of the new ship came in the same magazine's April 1908 is sue, which gave appointments for three vessels under the name of the Mathews Steamship Co., Toronto. Captains and chief engineers designated were: BEA VERTON, J. Delaney and H. R. Welch; EDMONTON, H. Maitland and J. G. Fisher; HADDINGTON, G. J. Motley and R. J. Mutchmore. BEAVERTON again made "The Railway and Marine World" in its August 1908 issue which reported: "The Merchants Steamship Co. 's s. s. BEAVERTON arrived in To ronto (Tuesday) July 14, from Great Britain, with a cargo of scoria (slag) blocks for W. H. Knowlton, Toronto. She will be operated on the Montreal - Fort William route, under the management of the Mathews Steamship Line (sic), Toronto. " As with EDMONTON, we do not know BEAVERTON's launch date. We do know that the steamer was registered at Newcastle under British official number 125440. To give dimensions properly comparable with those we used for EDMONTON, we take our figures from the 1922 Great Lakes Register which, by then, was published by the American Bureau of Shipping. It showed BEAVERTON to be 249. 0 feet in length between perpendiculars, 42. 0 feet in the beam, and 24. 0 feet in depth, with tonnage of 2012 Gross and 1357 Net. Like EDMONTON, she had three compartments, a 'tween deck, and six hatches spaced on 24-foot centres. "The Railway and Marine World" reported correctly the details of BEAVERTON'S machinery, failing only to note that her engine developed 1006 Indicated Horsepower at 90 revolutions per minute. The engine and boilers were built for the steamer in 1908 by the North Eastern Marine Engineering Company at Newcastle-on-Tyne. From whence came BEAVERTON'S name? It honoured the town of Beaverton, loca ted on the east shore of Ontario's Lake Simcoe, north of Toronto. For years, Beaverton was a resort town, although today, as with much of the lake's shoreline, it has mostly year-round residents. Back when we featured in these pages the early Toronto double-ended, sharp-nosed, sidewheel ferries THISTLE and SHAMROCK, we noted that mention of those flowers, representing Scotland and Ireland, respectively, was made in the patriotic song "The Maple Leaf Forever", written by Alexander Muir. Along with the rose of Eng land, they were said to entwine Canada's maple leaf. Now seldom performed because of its non-mention of the homelands of other major groups of Canadi an immigrants, "The Maple Leaf Forever" was first performed at Beaverton in 1871. Why did Mathews choose the name for the new ship? We might hazard the guess that the family had a summer home in or near the town. BEAVERTON was very similar in appearance to EDMONTON, so we'll not give a detailed description here. About the only difference of any significance was that her stack was all black and did not sport the usual Mathews silver bands, although the outline was there in the steel for them. As well, her