We do not associate Guelph with paddlewheel steamboats. After all, the Speed River is not the mighty Mississippi. However, almost a century and a half ago, a steam-driven paddle-wheeler called the City of Guelph cruised the waters of Puslinch Lake.
A shallow, spring-fed kettle lake created during the last Ice Age, with a surface area of 1.56 sq. km., Puslinch Lake is Wellington County’s largest natural body of water. It has four tiny islands; Somme, Mussellshell, Summer and St. Helen’s; and a larger one simply called the Big Island. An isthmus separates Puslinch Lake from a smaller body of water called Little Lake.
The area around the lake had been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for millennia. It was possibly visited by the French explorer Etienne Brule and Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century. Part of the territory near the lake was first surveyed by Augustus Jones (for whom Jones Baseline is named) in 1771. European settlers began arriving in the 1830s.
There are many fanciful tales associated with the lake; a story about a Native princess and lost love, another about a vanished monastery, and (of course) a legend of buried treasure. The lake is also said to be haunted by the ghost of a boy named Joseph Lamont who drowned there in 1833. But one story that is factual is that of the steamboat, The City of Guelph.
Due to its proximity to the Royal City, Puslinch Lake has long been a popular recreation site for Guelphites. As far back as the Victorian era, people from the city would head out there to fish, picnic and enjoy the countryside and the water. A man named Alex Parks built a hotel by the lake in 1845, and is credited with being the founder of Wellington County’s tourist industry. Thomas Frame built another hotel in 1848, and operated a sailboat that took people out to the Big Island for picnics.
In the 1860s several other hotels opened on Puslinch Lake, as well as a few taverns. They were summer-trade only establishments, and were generally of a seedy nature, attracting an undesirable clientele. The proprietors sold alcohol without bothering to obtain liquor licences.
Then in the 1870s the lake became a popular place to hold boat races, attracting families and a more respectable class of visitors. Guelph’s militia regiment set up a camp on the lakeshore, and for a while used the lake for an artillery range. They had to put a stop to that when people complained about the danger of stray shells.
In 1879 Guelph brewer and future mayor George Sleeman entered a business partnership with insurance agent and military man John Davidson to develop a resort on Puslinch Lake. They began with an eight-acre (3.2 hectares) property on the north side of the lake. Over the next few years Sleeman purchased an additional 50 acres (20.2 hectares) that included the Big Island and most of the property around Little Lake.
The centrepiece of the resort was a new hotel, with a stable for horses. There was a lawn bowling green on the Big Island, as well as a refreshment booth. People arrived from Guelph and other nearby towns for swimming, boating, dancing and baseball. Picnic facilities included tables and a cookstove with kettles and pots. Firewood was free. There was plenty to keep children occupied, and ladies and gentlemen in their Victorian finery could stroll around the grounds enjoying the sunshine and country air. It was the perfect destination for a day excursion or a weekend getaway.
In the spring of 1880, Sleeman bought the steamer he christened The City of Guelph. Built in Barrie, the vessel was a sidewheeler, 41 feet (12.4 m) from bow to stern and nine feet (2.7 m) in the beam. With her two four-horsepower engines running at full-steam she could make eight knots per hour. Dick Mahoney was the captain and Billy McMillan was the first engineer. The boat could seat 50 passengers comfortably.
Sleeman believed the City of Guelph would be an added attraction that would encourage visitors to come to his hotel. She would ferry people from the hotel’s dock out to the Big Island and take them on trips around the lake.
On Monday, May 31, 1880, the Mercury reported that on Saturday the 29th the City of Guelph had made its maiden voyage on Puslinch Lake and was “working satisfactorily with the exception of a pump which is to be replaced by a larger one. The boat will be running regularly every day after Wednesday.”
Sleeman invited some of Guelph’s leading citizens aboard for the steamer’s first tour of the lake. In an 1899 article the Mercury said, “What a gallant sight it made as it cruised over the lake, paddles lashing the water into foam, as it steamed along, while from the high smokestack billowed clouds of black smoke.”
A ticket to board the City of Guelph cost 50 cents. The boat left the dock daily at one o’clock, but advertised she would leave at any other time to suit parties. On one excursion, she had 104 passengers. Sleeman crowded as many people as he could onto the deck, and then put more into a scow that was towed behind the steamer. It was estimated that the City of Guelph took in as much as $300 a week. That would be the equivalent of about $9,000 today.
The City of Guelph was a popular party boat, and allegedly some of the parties could get pretty wild. Festivities were even known to degenerate into drunken brawls.
Reports differ as to how long the City of Guelph was in operation. One story says that because the steamer needed expensive repairs, she was stripped of her machinery and scuttled somewhere between the hotel and the Big Island in 1884. In another account, the steamer was in business until 1888, when she was scuttled by vandals.
A fleet of rowboats replaced the steamboat, but it seems the City of Guelph was not entirely gone. There were stories about ghostly sounds of laughter, shouting and dancing drifting in the night time darkness above the waters of Puslinch Lake.
