Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 23, no. 3 (December 1990), p. 11

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Ship of the Month - cont'd. on the front side of our photopage, NORTH KING certainly had only one stack at that time, said to have been around the turn of the century. Yet the photo at the top of the back side of the photopage shows a steamer, readily identifiable by name and other details as NORTH KING, but carrying two funnels, set athwartship. It also shows her with an open rail forward on the promenade deck. When was this picture taken and what is with the two stacks? All we can say is that it is extremely unlikely that a closed rail would have been added during the rebuild of 1890-1891 and then removed later. In addition, if ever the ship would have carried two stacks, it seems likely that it would have been when the big locomotive-type boilers were installed. Whether the ship was reboilered again later, or whether the furnaces simply were vented up one stack in later years, we do not know. It seems odd, however, that when NORTH KING had only one stack, it very much resembled the funnel she carried when she was NORSEMAN. What is the real answer? We cannot say at this time but we would be glad of any assistance which our readers might be able to render. In any event, NORTH KING went back into service after the rebuild on May 20, 1891, operating on a run between Cobourg, Port Hope and Charlotte. She left Charlotte at 9: 00 a. m., daily except Sunday, arriving at Cobourg at 1: 15 p. m. and at Port Hope at 2: 15. She turned around quickly, leaving Port Hope again at 2: 30, and arrived back at Charlotte at 7: 00 p. m. On the weekends, NORTH KING sailed from Charlotte each Saturday at 8: 30 p. m., running excursions to Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands. She ran through the Bay of Quinte, with calls at way ports such as Brighton and Kingston. During the season of 1893, she made a special excursion from Kingston to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, Illinois, and this probably was the longest trip NORTH KING ever made. The "Bay of Quinte Line", whose name was carried proudly on NORTH KI NG ' s bows, but which more formally was known as the Lake Ontario & Bay of Quinte Steamboat Company Limited, continued to own and operate NORTH KING as the years passed and the new century grew older. Control of the line had passed to Charles Gildersleeve's son, Henry Herchmer Gildersleeve, and in 1912, the company's letterhead showed that Henry H. Gildersleeve was president, E. E. Horsey was general manager, and J. E. Clark was secretary-treasurer. By the close of the 1912 season, the "Bay of Quinte Line" actually was controlled by the much larger Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company Ltd., Montreal, which had been swallowing up many smaller shipping firms. Then, in June of 1913, the R & O itself was the principal participant in the much larger merger that created Canada Steamship Lines Ltd., Montreal. C. S. L. continued many of the traditional routes of its various antecedents for a few years before it began to rationalize its operations and cast off excess tonnage. The venerable NORTH KING remained in service for her new owners but not for long, as she was retired from service about 1915. (That is the last year for which we have been able to find spring appointments for h e r . ) The Dominion List of Shipping for 1918 still showed Canada Steamship Lines as owner of NORTH KING, but she was not in operation and she was reported broken up about 1922. Due to the general inaccuracy of records in those years, it is not clear when NORTH KING was broken up or where she met her end. As we have indicated, there are many questions concerning NORSEMAN/NORTH KING. We are not certain that we ever will have all the answers, but we have presented what we know of her history here in the hope that our members will be able to come up with the additional information necessary to fill in the gaps. We await your cards and letters...

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