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Ship of the Month - cont'd. Company Ltd. All new ownership. of the Eastern vessels retained their old names under the JUDGE HART went into active service for her new owner, the effects of the Great Depression receding. She retained her black hull and white cabins, but her forecastle became black and only the closed rail forward on the f ore castle head remained white. The stack became green, with a broad white band and a black smokeband at the top. This stack design was carried through the 1936 and 1937 seasons by the HART and her fleetmates, but early in March of 1938, Upper Lakes & St. Lawrence Tra ns po rt at io n acquired the vessels of the Great Lakes Transit Corp. Ltd. and Midland Steamships Ltd., which had been controlled by the late James Playfair. At this time, Upper Lakes & St. L a w rence adopted the Playfair funnel livery (crimson with a black smokeband) for all of its ships, and JUDGE HART soon took on these colours. The HART operated relatively un ev entfully in the grain trade for Upper Lakes & St. Lawrence. She also carried such other cargoes as were available, being pulpwood on some of her up bound voyages, and an occasional load of coal. Like most canallers, she suffered her share of bumps and scrapes in the confines of the canals, but it would not appear that she was involved in many accidents of any consequence. We do know that she once manag ed to strike one of the piers of the Quebec Bridge, but we have no details or date, other than the fact that it did happen in the last few years of the steamer's life. On Friday, September 5th, 1941, JUDGE HART stranded off the Canadia n National Exhibition grounds, just outside Toronto's Weste rn Gap. At the time of the stranding, the HART, inbound loaded for Toronto Elevators, was trying to find the Western Gap in a very dense fog, but lost her way and failed to make the appropriate turn to starboard, as numerous other ships have done before and after the HART's grounding. The ship's predicament was fully visible to the large crowds attending the Exhib it io n at the time, because the ship was so close in to shore. The location of the incident was very close to where the September, 1938, view on our photopage was taken, for in that photo the buildings of Exh ib it io n Park are clearly visible, e s pecially the Prince's Gates which can be seen over the steamer's bow. Fortunately, the sandy bottom of the shoreline caused the HART no serious damage. The tugs GEORGE A. WALLACE and NED HAN LA N were sent to the scene and they had the HART refloated in re latively short order. Nevertheless, JUDGE HART was destined to meet a violent end which overtook her exactly fifty years ago this November. The only fortunate aspect of the incident was that all of the steamer's crew were rescued. In fact, nine of the former Eastern Steamship canallers met untoward ends. Six of them (BAIRD, FIELD, NISBET, POMEROY, HOLLOWA Y and TORIAN) did not return to the lakes after World War Two, four of them having been lost by enemy action and two by the elements. The GRAMMER and HART were lost on the lakes by accident, and the NORMAN P. CLEMENT, much later converted to a sulphuric acid tanker, suffered severe explosion damage in her holds at the C o l l i n g wood Shipyard in 1968, and su bs equently was scuttled in deep water off Ch ristian Island in Georg ia n Bay. Conce rn ing the loss of JUDGE HART, the various reports of the incident seem to be very much at variance, and it is left to the histo ri an of today to pick a fine line through the conflicting data. Late in November of 1942, JUDGE HART, under the command of Captain Frede ri ck M. Burmeister (most press reports spelled the name " B u r m i s t e r "), of C o l l i n g wood, loaded a cargo of some 1 0 1 , 500 bushels (3, 200 tons) of grain, most ly wheat, at Port Arthur, bound for Toronto. (Some press reports indicated that the cargo was loaded at Fort William, but we do not believe that was the c a s e . ) The loading was completed on Tuesday, November 24th, and because of the inclement weather, the ship did not sail immediately, but remained in the shelter of the port whilst her crew went about securing her hatchcovers.