The Brockville and Ottawa Railway (B&O) was an early railway incorporated in 1853 by the Parliament of the Province of Canada with the financial support of English iron-founders, Bolckow and Vaughan, of Middlesbrough, England, who were supplying the iron for the railway. It ran north from the town of Brockville on the Saint Lawrence River to Smiths Falls, Perth, Carleton Place, and Almonte. It was built primarily to serve the timber trade on the Ottawa Valley, short-cutting routes that led into the city of Ottawa, further downstream. The first railway tunnel in Canada, the Brockville Tunnel, was dug in order to allow the B&O to reach the port lands on the south side of the city, which sits on a bluff. In September 1865 the B&O opened for travel to Sand Point near Arnprior on the Ottawa River.