I strongly suspect that father Belcourt's car was one built in 1861 by Elijah Ware of Bayonne, New Jersey. An article appearing in "Scientific American" in 1913, and of which there is a copy in the Provincial Archives, describes Elijah Ware's car in some detail and concludes with the comment that he sold it to a clergyman in Prince Edward Island. I am inclined to discount the water pumping story without some knowledge of the actual construction of the car. The engine in most steam cars was integrated with the chassis and the driving axle also served as the crankshaft. However, it is possible that the boiler and some other components might have become part of the water pumping equipment.

Father Belcourt is, perhaps, better known for his role in the establishment of the Farmers Bank of Rustico which would be somewhat similar to the credit unions of today. There were no banking facilities available in the Rustico area at the time and so the Farmers Bank provided local residents with a facility for investing their savings and a source of capital for local farmers, fishermen, merchants, etc. In recent years the building which housed the Farmers Bank has been developed into a museum. The museum has a mural with an artist's depiction of Father Belcourt's car. The artist has drawn the machine to somewhat resemble the steam fire engines in use in many cities and towns around 1900. However, it also resembles a steam car built in the United States by a Sylvester Roper sometime prior to 1870 and which has been reported to have been destroyed. We must keep in mind here that, to the best of our knowledge, there are no photographs of Father Belcourt's car and that no one actually knows exactly what it may have looked like.

Steam cars seem to have been particularly prone to accidents. The world's first non-guided, self-propelled, mechanical vehicle is reputed to have been a steam car, or more accurately, an artillery tractor, built by Louis-Joseph Cugnot, a French Army engineer, in 1770. After some experimental runs it crashed into a brick wall in 1771 thus creating the first known automobile accident and ending the French Army's experimentation with self propelled vehicles.

In 1867, the year after Father Belcourt's unfortunate accident, Henry Seth Taylor of Stanstead, Quebec, built what is regarded as the first automobile to be built in Canada. After some minor mishaps with the car in its first year, and following some modifications, Taylor proceeded to drive his car the following year. Apparently all went well until he attempted to descend a steep hill. The car, which had no brakes, went out of control and crashed at the bottom. Taylor managed to escape, but the car was a wreck. Taylor gave up on it, salvaged the boiler for his steam yacht, and devoted his experimental efforts to steam boats. This incident has been described as the first automobile accident in Canada, but this would have been two years after the wreckage of Father Belcourt's car.

It has been reported that many years later Taylor's car was discovered in the United States where it was subsequently restored, this time with brakes, eventually returned to Canada and is now the property of the Ontario Science Centre. As I have noted, Canada did not come into being until 1867, Prince Edward Island did not join Canada until 1873, and so, in that context, Taylor's accident is probably the first in Canada although it was two years later than Belcourt's.