Map/Chart > The Great Lakes & Champlain

River Niagara

A hand drawn survey of the river system which connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie

Further Information

This beautifully presented survey of the River Niagara from Lake Ontario down to Lake Erie was the last work in the Great Lakes region attributed to William FitzWilliam Owen, the Senior British Officer in the Great Lakes Region between 1815 and May 1816 (June 1817).

On his arrival in the Lakes region Owen had been commissioned to make a systematic survey of the St. Lawrence River and lower Great Lakes. He had initially completed a number of reconnaissance surveys around the western end of Lake Erie including the Detroit river but by the start of the 1816 season had moved-on to his main task. Owen had started his greater survey on the ice of Lake Ontario on the 1st Feb 1816 just by the British hydrographic base at Kingston.

To give a measure of the enormity of the task and Owen’s personality and dedication to the task he personally led 7 officers and some 50 seamen and marines out onto the ice about the Thousand Islands to measure survey baselines. The following 69 days saw about 300 miles of baseline surveyed in an area 80 by 30 miles, with some 10,000 angles and bearings were recorded. To Owen dedication to accuracy meant that he could not “err two inches in a mile”. The whole process needs of course to be seen in the context of weather that reached -20 degrees Fahrenheit. Even then work was not allowed to stop; “every day successively, except the Sabbath, from Eight o’clock in the morning to six at night” they worked. As a leader of men Owen was exceptional. He did all he could for his men and they were rewarded for their efforts with special pay, extra clothing, and double rum rations. In this way Owen got the results he needed and the naval garrison at Kingston was relieved from the tedium of winter routine. Inevitably the British Admiralty complained at the extra cost but Owen was getting results they could not argue with for long. At the start of the 1817 season, Captain Owen was temporarily diverted from his lake surveys to do a quick exploration up the Trent River in search of a possible “inland” route from Kingston to Lake Huron in the company of native Indian guides. The assistant surveyors, including Lt. Henry Bayfield were assigned the task of surveying the south side of Lake Ontario and both sides of the Niagara River. The plan was for Captain Owen to join the group at Fort Erie the first week of June to begin the major survey of Lake Erie. As fate would have it, when Owen reached Fort Erie, he received orders to return to England immediately, taking all his officers, excepting Bayfield, with him. As of the 24th June 1817, twenty-two-year-old Henry Bayfield and midshipman Collins suddenly found himself in the lofty position of Surveyor-in-Chief of three Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River and Gulf. Effectively responsibility for the production of this beautiful ‘Index’ survey of the River Niagara likely lies with Lt. Henry Bayfield who undoubtedly coordinated the work. That the final chart is attributed to Owen is probably a measure of the esteem with which he was held. Just a casual glance at the Bayfield map of Lake Erie and the inset of the survey of the entrance of the lower part of the River Niagara (A802) and this survey reveals that the information is exactly the same on both. The only difference is that Bayfield’s inset of 1817-18 has soundings recorded in feet rather than the fathoms on ‘Owens’ map Niagara of 1817. In fact the position and track of the soundings are identical, down to the number and position. It is clear that Bayfield’s inset on his finished survey of Lake Erie, undertaken as his first assignment as the new Surveyor-in-Chief, was copied directly from this survey of the River Niagara.