The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

SHIPS THAT GREAT WESTERN - First car ferry on the Great Lakes, NEVER DIE iron hull, measuring 220 x 40, built at Windsor,1866. (#18) Railway car ferry service across the Detroit River dates Batk to 1867. On New Year's Day in that year of Cana- - dian Confederation, the then new car ferry GREAT WESTERN went into g service. The new service formed a link between the Great Western Raal- way of Canada, and the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway at the foot of Brush Street. Launching of this iron mar- vel of the Six- ties, which was seemingly in- destructible be- |. cause of her five eighth inch hull plates, was an event of Sept.6, 1866. Pre- liminary work had been done by a noted construction firm of Glasgow, Scotland, which assembled the hull, thoroughly tested it, then took it to pieces, numbering Penertcets each of ts 10,878 pieces, The Car Ferry GREAT WESTERN sosthatcheyimilene fe) be readily placed again in the proper position. The whole was shipped to Windsor for re-assembling. Her powerful engines came from Dundas, Canada West (now Ontario}, and her boilers from the Great Western shops at Ham- ilton, Canada West. John A.Finnie, 92 year old resident of Windsor, saw that Detroit River Launching of 84 years ago. Thus began the long and honorable car- eer of the car ferry GREAT WESTERN. She operated on her original route until a few years before W,rld War I. Today, her car ferry days long past, her sturdy hull serves the United Towing and Salvage Company as a sand and gravel barge at Port Arthur, Ontario. Neil F.Morrison * eR RR ROK RK KR KR KOK RK OK OR KR KR OR KK ROK KR KK KR KK KK OK KK OK ERIE CANAL Completion of the Erie Canal, first great canal in the 125 ¥RS.OLD United States, in autumn 1825, was an event of tremendous importance particularly for the country between the Nia- gara and St.Mary's Rivers. This canal, connecting Lake Erie with the Hudson River and thus with New York, set the stage for the beginning of development in the middle west. The contemporary press exulted over the "Meeting of the Waters" of the inland seas and the Atlantic, and described the celebrations for the occasion. "Sahutes of artillery were fired in succession from Byffala to the ocean and returned from the Atlantic to Lake Erie." In late October, 1825, a picturegque marine procession, led by Gov. DeWitt Clinton, doughty champion of the Erie Canal, moved along the canal . and down the Hudson to the port of New York. Pouring of a kegful of Lake © ) Erie water into the Atlantic symbolized the final step in a most signi- ficant undertaking.