The Royal William – Glory Bound

No one imagined that she was destined for greatness. Built in Quebec in 1831, she was a strange vessel, a mongrel that at first glance looked like a schooner, but amidships stood a smoke stack. This was not a sailing vessel but a steamship! It is August 1833 and this small vessel, only 176 feet long, and displacing less the 500 tons is leaving Pictou Landing, Nova Scotia, and is about to secure her destiny by becoming the first vessel to steam all the way across the Atlantic, (and in less then a mouth). In doing so she ushered in a whole new era of seafaring. And the young Halifax businessman who invested in her and subsequently made a fortune because of her was Sam Cunard.