railway in North America, despite a lack of evidence confirming its existence. Remaining physical evidence has led to the belief that it was used for transporting coal to the Fortress of Louisbourg from mines on the island, during a period when the island was under French control. There is also some speculation that it was used in the construction of the fortress. Several other tramway systems were constructed before the 1830s. The first was a combined wagonway and incline tramway near Niagara Falls along what is now the American side of the Canada–United States border. It was built by the British in 1762 near the end of the French and Indian War. The challenging geography of the Niagara Peninsula meant that until the later construction of canals, there was no navigable water route between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, so transport between the two required the use of a portage. The French had long sought to take control of the portage trail from the Seneca, who had taken control of it from the Neutral Nation in the mid-17th century, amidst the Beaver Wars. The French tried to control this key point with repeated military expeditions and fortifications throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries, including Fort Conti in 1679, Fort Denonville in 1687, and Fort Niagara in 1726. The British gained control of the portage by the 1760s, but their efforts to replace the system of Seneca porters with a tramway met with resistance from the Seneca. The situation erupted in violence with the Battle of Devil's Hole, a part of Pontiac's War. A warband of several hundred Seneca ambushed a British wagon train, massacring many of the teamsters and their soldier escorts. The British ultimately retained control of the portage and continued to use and maintain its tramway until their surrender of the land to the United States following the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Another recorded incline tramway system was in Quebec City and was constructed in the 1820s, possibly as early as 1823. It marked several firsts in Canada: it was the first known double-track railway, the first steam-powered railway, and the first railway system known to have carried passengers regularly. It was built on Cap Diamant to haul stone and other construction materials for the Citadelle of Quebec up from a wharf below. The tramway was powered by a stationary steam engine and was a permanent