Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 28, no. 6 (March 1996), p. 10

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Ship of the Month - cont'd. 10. ships of the Corrigan fleet, which CALEDONIA served for nineteen lake navi gation seasons. * * * Ed. Not e: For assistance with this second instalment of the GALE STAPLES story, we are particularly indebted to the historical and underwater re search of member Pat Labadie, much of which appears in the 1989 paper on the submerged cultural resources of the Pictured Rocks area. For their additional help with this feature, we extend our most sincere thanks to Sterling P. Berry, of Grosse Pointe, Michigan; to Jack Messmer, of Lancaster, New York, and to Capt. Gerry Ouderkirk, of Toronto. If any other members happen to come across any further information concerning this steam er, most particularly in respect of her operations when under Canadian re gistry, we would be pleased to hear from them. One last note before we conclude. The caption of the photo of CALEDONIA in Boland colours that appeared in the November issue indicated that the photo might have been taken circa 1915. From the information now available, we know that CALEDONIA only ran for Boland from 1908 until 1912, so the Pesha picture must have been taken during that period, and no later. * * * * * WIARTON BELLE - ONE LAST TRIP? Our Ship of the Month No. 223, back in the October, 1995, issue, was the little passenger steamer CHICAGO BELLE, (b) WIARTON BELLE, which was built in 1871 at Chicago. She ran out of Chicago until her owner was burned out in the Chicago Fire of the autumn of 1871, then was taken to the Upper St. Lawrence River, then to Buffalo, and back to Chicago. By 1879, she was in the passenger and freight trade between Owen Sound and Wiarton, which she ran until 1882. She then was sold for use in the fishing business, and the BELLE appears to have passed out of existence about 1887. We made some comment about the fact that the engine of WIARTON BELLE may have outlived the steamer and served elsewhere after her demise, and perhaps in the tug SAUCY JIM. A confirmation of the fact that this probably was the case comes from historian John Mills, via T. M. H. S. members Gordon Shaw and Gerry Ouderkirk. SAUCY JIM was, as we noted, a fishing tug built by Alfred Morrell (or Morril, as some sources would have it), and in 1887 she belonged to J. Gidley, as also did WIARTON BELLE. The latter was, according to the Steam boat Inspection Reports, running in 1884, "laid up" in 1885, 1886 and 1887, and then disappears from the records. Interestingly, the engine shown for both WIARTON BELLE and for SAUCY JIM is identical, a 14" x 14" single expan sion engine which was built in 1864 by the firm of Bell, at Buffalo. Thus, the August 4, 1887, report in the "Collingwood Bulletin" would appear to have been correct. It stated: "Mr. Gidley, of Penetang, brought his new tug here last week to have her cabin fitted out. She is a very large tug and is built for heavy work, for which she is well adapted. Her engines are the old ones of the WIARTON BELLE. " The report, unfortunately, did not name the tug. We do know that SAUCY JIM (C.92305) was built in 1887 at Meaford, and was registered at Collingwood, according to the Dominion List. (The "Mills List" shows her built at Pene tang. ) She was 93 Gross Tons, 632 Net, and she lasted until November of 1910, when she reportedly burned at Christian Island, in Georgian Bay. We rather suspect that this is the last follow-up we will be able to provide concerning WIARTON BELLE, but one never knows what our avid readers will uncover! * * * * *

Powered by / Alimenté par VITA Toolkit
Privacy Policy