Chicora

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Chicora

Post by shipstamps » Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:51 pm

The Chicora was built at Liverpool, by Miller, in 1864, and was an iron paddle steamer of 931Gt, 540Nt. her owners in 1897 being the Niagara Navigation Company, of Ontario. Length was 221 ft.. breadth 26ft. and depth 10ft9in. Port of registry was Toronto. She was reboilered in 1890. According to the Canadian Post Office, she was constructed as a blockade runner for the Confederacy as the speedy Let Her B and was so profitable that captains and crews drank to the health of the Confederacy, continuously and often riotously. Although blasted by Union gunboats, Let Her B survived. Renamed Chicora, she was cut in half in 1868 and transferred to the Great Lakes. In 1870 she helped carry the military expedition heading for Manitoba in the aftermath of the Riel affair.
Riel was the leader of a revolt by settlers at Red River to the transfer of the North West Territories from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canadian administration. There were about 10,000 settlers in the area, mainly French-Canadians, who feared that they might lose their language and schools. Riel set up a provisional government without Canadian authority. A compromise settlement was agreed. Riel later led a revolt a second time, among the Indians of the Saskatchewan region, who brooded over their lost freedom, in 1884. The Government crushed this revolt and Riel was executed after surrendering. In 1874, the Chicora accommodated the Governor General on his Upper Lakes tour. However in 1878 it was decided that the vessel had too much passenger capacity for her region and not enough cargo space and was transferred to the Toronto-Niagara River passenger trade. She ended her career as the coal barge Warrenko, in Kingston, Ontario harbour, where she eventually sank in 1942.
Sea Breezes January 1977 E.W.Argyle
Canada SG853
Attachments
SG853
SG853

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