2-982-495 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway: Opening Ceremonies at Goderich, Canada West, 1858. 'This railway, which is largely held by English capitalists, connects that inland sea, Lake Huron, through Buffalo, in the United States, with New York, Boston, and Portland harbours, and, through the Grand Trunk and Great Western of Canada, with Halifax and Quebec; thus connecting the western garden of the province by direct railway communication with the whole Atlantic seaboard of the North American continent, and thereby with, the harbours and markets of the world...Goderich, the subject of the present Sketch, is the first town which was founded in the original "Huron Tract," a large unexplored district purchased thirty-four years ago from the Crown by the Canada Company...It was computed that 5000 people were present [at the opening], chiefly conveyed by rail, and upwards of 600 sat down to the banquet in the temporary pavilion annexed to the Courthouse, which forms the chief object in Mr. Cresswell's Sketch'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.