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The waters of the St. Lawrence River have long served Canada as a great artery of commerce, but after the coming of the railroad, the river also became a barrier to east-west transportation at the river's two principal Quebec ports. Montreal solved the problem in 1859 with the Victoria Bridge, leaving its downriver commercial rival, the city of Quebec, at a severe disadvantage. Quebec eagerly sought a bridge of its own. There were several proposals for great suspension or cantilever bridges, but nothing came of them until formation of the Quebec Bridge Company in 1887. By 1890 the company had contracted with the Phoenix Bridge Company of Pennyslvania to build a cantilever bridge with a main span of 1800 feet that would have eclipsed Scotland's Firth of Forth bridge as the longest cantilever span in the world. By Summer 1907 the structure was well advanced, with the cantilever arms projected out from both shores of the river, when a disastrous failure of the south arm plunged 76 workmen to their deaths. A Royal Commission attributed the failure to defective design and errors in judgment by the engineers. A year later the Canadian government appointed a board of engineers to try again, chief among them the noted American bridge designer Ralph Modjeski. Work began on the new bridge in 1909 and was nearing completion seven years later when disaster struck again. The 5000-ton center span was being lifted into place when a bearing failed, allowing the span to fall into the river. This time, 13 workers were killed. A year later a new span was successfully lifted into place, and in October 1917 the first train crossed the great bridge. The bridge has stood firmly astride the St. Lawrence ever since, helping to link the Maritime Provinces and eastern Quebec with the rest of Canada. The record its builders set in 1917 still stands, for the Quebec Bridge remains the longest railroad cantilever span ever built (overall length 987 metres, width 29 metres, height 103 metres). The Quebec Bridge was declared a historic monument in 1987, by the Canadian & American Society of Civil Engineers and a National Historic Site on January 24, 1996 by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

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Under Rev. John Stuart, father of the Anglican Church in Upper Canada, a small wooden edifice was constructed in 1791. In the beginning, seven families made up the congregation of St. George's Church. In 1825 construction was begun on a stone building that, consecrated three years later, replaced the first St. George's Church. The original building served for some time as a school house. In 1900 it was torn down. When the Diocese of Ontario was formed in 1862, St. George's Church became the Cathedral. In 1870 St. George's Hall was added and a dome erected in 1891. On New Year's day, 1899 the interior of the Cathedral was destroyed by fire. The Cathedral was re-constructed in eighteen months.

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The Treaty of Paris in 1783 established the St. Croix River as the boundary between New Brunswick and the United States, and by the fifth article in Jay's Treaty of 1794, a commission was established to clarify which of two rivers emptying into Passamaquoddy Bay was the St. Croix. Governor Wentworth of Nova Scotia recommended Thomas Barclay as the British Commissioner, and the negotiations ended successfully for the British in 1798 with the most western river, the St. Croix, being established as the boundary. At the end of the War of 1812, the issue of the international boundary between New Brunswick and the United States surfaced again, and it was Thomas Barclay who was appointed once more as the British Commissioner under the terms of the Treaty of Ghent. Ward Chipman served again as the British agent. The Commission dealt with two issues: the ownership of the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, which they agreed upon in 1817, and the extension of the border from the source of the St. Croix River to the St. Lawrence River. When agreement could not be reached, the latter issue was submitted to the King of the Netherlands for arbitration. In 1831, he issued his decision, which was not accepted by either parties, and the final settlement did not come until 1842 with the Webster-Asburton Treaty. Thomas Barclay's participation in the second boundary commission was his last act of public service. Anthony Barclay (1792-1877), son of Thomas Barclay, also participated in the second boundary commission.

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