Kingston, Canada - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

KINGSTON, the chief city of Frontenac county, Ontario, Canada, at the north-eastern extremity of Lake Ontario, and the mouth of the Cataraqui River. Pop. (1901), 17,961. It is an important station on the Grand Trunk railway, the terminus of the Kingston & Pembroke railway, and has steamboat communication with other ports on Lake Ontario and the Bay of Quinte, on the St Lawrence and the Rideau canal. It contains a fine stone graving dock, 280 ft. long, loo ft. wide, and with a depth of 16 ft. at low water on the sill. The fortifications, which at one time made it one of the strongest fortresses in Canada, are now out of date. The sterility of the surrounding country, and the growth of railways have lessened its commercial importance, but it still contains a number of small factories, and important locomotive works and ship-building yards. As an educational and residential centre it retains high rank, and is a popular summer resort. It is the seat of an Anglican and of a Roman Catholic bishopric, of the Royal Military College (founded by the Dominion government in 1875), of an artillery school, and of Queen's University, an institution founded in 1839 under the nominal control of the Presbyterian church, now including about 1200 students. In the suburbs are a Dominion penitentiary, and a provincial lunatic asylum. Founded by the French in 1673, under the name of Kateracoui, soon changed to Fort Frontenac, it played an important part in the wars between English and French. Taken and destroyed by the English in 1758, it was refounded in 1782 under its present name, and was from 1841 to 1844 the capital of Canada.