Circa 1830
From 1826 to 1846, Thomas J. Burrowes worked as a surveyor, an overseer and a clerk on the Rideau Canal project, but his interest in waterways spread beyond the Rideau Canal, along Lake Ontario and up the Trent-Severn system. In his travels, he captured his impressions of local landscapes, landmarks and people in a series of watercolour paintings that provide remarkable insight into early colonial life. A treasure trove of his paintings – 115 in all – was discovered in a daughter’s attic in Detroit, Michigan forty years after his death.
His painting, “Ferry at the Mouth of the River Trent” looks north from Trent Port – what is now known as Trenton. To the left is Mary Bleecker’s Inn with a horsedrawn ferry and a flat-bottomed rowboat moored at the wharf.
John and Mary Bleecker are believed to be among the first colonial settlers to build at the mouth of the Trent. Mary took over her husband’s business on his death in 1807, continuing the ferry service and subsequently opening an inn to travellers.
Sheldon Hawley’s sawmills can be seen in the distance on the east bank of the river. By the mid-1830s Hawley, considered one of Trenton’s founding fathers, would successfully petition for a bridge to replace the ferry service.
