Taken from the roof of the Stormont Cottons buildings on the South canal bank. Note the swing bridge at the bottom of Augustus Street. The long building with the red roof was the Canada Steamship Lines warehouse at the bottom of Pitt Street. The warehouse was built in 1914 and was closed by Canada Steamship Lines employee Vane Silmser, on July 10, 1958 – ten days after the closing of the Cornwall Canal. (The roof was green and later black – never red.) 

For years in the 1960s there was a large poster on the wall of the warehouse, facing Pitt Street featuring policeman Frank Bourdon holding an injured child in his arms with the warning, “This could be your child.” The sign showed the number of road accidents and deaths in the area. There was a matching sign on Vincent Massey (Highway 2) near Archie’s. —Notes: by Thom Racine.

The canal flows past the Customs building, past the tug moored on the north shore, past the other vessel, and then makes an abrupt turn to the SE (right.) This route took the ships into lock #17 then #15 – and out into the lower river–down by where the Cornwall harbour is today. If a ship did not turn right, it continued straight, past the tug and steamer, where the canal split in two again. The first right-hand split would take ships to the dry docks. The left-hand or northern split of the canal was used for power. Water traveled under the Silver Bridge at the foot of Marlborough Street and then over the water wheels of the Dundas Mill (west mill) as well as the Canada Mill. The water powered an electric generator (water turbine) making a sharp right under the mill to discharge out into the river about the end of McConnell Street.

~ Notes: Ray Amell.