Ontario (Propeller), 1850

The propeller ONTARIO, which was rebuilt here last Winter, has arrived at New York, having passed through the Welland Canal and River St. Lawrence.
      Buffalo Daily Republic
      Friday, June 21, 1850

      . . . . .

THE PROPELLER ONTARIO. - This vessel built at this port, is announced in the New York papers, to sail for Chagres direct, on the 2nd. of December.
The life of this craft is rater eventful. She was built at our landing some four years ago, we believe in about forty days. She was designed to run between this city and Chicago, and performed that service for some time. That trade "went to seed' soon however, and she was put to other purposes. She has not afforded large diviends to her owners, and has been the cause of some protracted litigation in consequence of collisions. She was fitted out at Buffalo last spring, for California, and by some hocus pocus, got down the St. Lawrence, and turned up at New York. A few days since she was posted as a regular trader between Charleston, S.C., and New York, but we do not learn that she did much in that trade. Perhaps the fact may have got to the ears of the "chivalry," that her timbers are of the best Genesee oak, grown upon free soil. She would be condemned by the nullifiers is the knowledge of her paternity was known by them. The ONTARIO is a good craft, and we wish her success in every clime where wind and steam may waft her.-----Roch. Adv.
      Buffalo Daily Republic
      Saturday, November 30, 1850




      A Slaver From Lake Ontario.
In noticing the early triumphs of George Steers, who built the propellers GENESEE CHIEF and ONTARIO, at the mouth of the Genesee River, the Rochester Union gives a brief history of the latter named vessel, which was sold to
eastern merchants and transferred from fresh to salt water. That paper says:
"The ONTARIO proved a good ocean steamer, though small and was engaged in the trade between Boston, New Orleans and other ports. She once ran down a vessel in the mouth of the Mississippi - afterwards she went to the coast of Africa and brought a cargo of slaves to Cuba. The Spanish war vessels caught her in close quarters, and her Captain ran her upon an island and deserted her. What was her ultimate fate we have never learned. She may yet be in service, far away from the spot where she was constructed. Our citizens little thought when they saw the ONTARIO launched into the Genesee , that she would ever become a Spanish slaver, nor did such an idea enter the brain of Mr. Perkins, when he gave her colors to the merchants and perhaps still less thought Mr. Steers, that the ship he received his first honors for building would become a piratical craft in distant seas.
      Oswego Daily Times
      Tuesday October 14, 1856