About the same time the Americans had built a steamboat at Sackett’s Harbour, N. Y., named the _Ontario_, a vessel 110 feet long, 24 feet wide, and 8½ feet in depth, measuring 240 tons. The _Ontario_ made her first trip in April, 1817, thus establishing her claim of precedence in sailing on the lakes. She was built under a grant from the heirs of Robert Fulton. On her first trip she encountered considerable sea, which lifted the paddle-wheels, throwing the shaft from its bearings and destroying the paddle-boxes. This defect in her construction having been remedied, she was afterwards successful, it is said, but her career is not recorded.[40] The Americans built another steamer at Sackett’s Harbour in 1818, the _Sophia_, of 70 tons, to run as a packet between that port and Kingston. In that year also the Canadians built their second lake steamer, the _Queen Charlotte_. She was built at the same place as the _Frontenac_, and largely from material which had not been used in the construction of that vessel. She was launched on the 22nd of April, 1818, and was soon ready to take her place as the pioneer steamer on the Bay of Quinte.[41] The _Queen Charlotte_ was a much smaller boat than the _Frontenac_. Her machinery was made by the brothers Ward, of Montreal, and she seems to have plied very successfully for twenty years from Prescott to the “Carrying Place” at the head of the Bay of Quinte, where passengers took stage to Cobourg and thence proceeded to York by steamer. She was commanded at first by old Captain Richardson, then for a short time by young Captain Mosier, and afterwards, to the end of her career, by Captain Gildersleeve, of Kingston. She was finally broken up in Cataraqui Bay; but in the meantime upwards of thirty steamers were plying on Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence, to some of which particular reference will be made later on. [Illustration: “WALK-IN-THE-WATER.” First steamer on Lake Erie, 1818.] [Illustration: THE “VANDALIA.” From _Scriber’s Magazine_ for March, 1890.]