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

Ship of the Month - cont'd. 8. heavily to help pay the shipyard accounts. When revenues fell, these out­ standing accounts could not be paid. Despite the addition of new directors, the company was unable to get its act together and was forced into receivership. On February 10, 1931, the Mathews Steamship Company Ltd. was adjudged bankrupt by the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Ontario in Bankruptcy, upon petition of the Toronto Dry Dock Compa­ ny, which had not been paid for repair work it had done for Mathews, and the fleet finally was sold off by late in 1933. A. E. Mathews himself was physi­ cally removed from the company's offices in the Canadian Pacific Railway Building at King and Yonge Streets, Toronto, partially as a result of the transfer of ownership of the big yacht CONDOR from Mathews personally to the company shortly before the bankruptcy, and also because of enquiry into the fact that Mathews himself owed the firm a considerable amount of money that never was paid. G. T. Clarkson, of the Toronto firm of E. R. C. Clarkson & Sons, was the re­ ceiver and manager of the Mathews Steamship Company, appointed by the court in February, 1931. Clarkson in turn appointed another member of his firm, A. B. Buckworth, to be general manager of the fleet. Buckworth retained H. B. Clark, the former secretary of the Mathews company, to assist him in operating the fleet. These operators put as many of the Mathews boats as possible into service in 1931, although operations were limited due to the worsening effects of the Great Depression, and they continued fleet opera­ tions as best they could through the 1932 and 1933 seasons. ARLINGTON, how­ ever, was not one of the ships that saw much service. She laid up at Toronto on November 10, 1931, and remained at the wall there until June 2, 1933, when she was steamed over to Port Dalhousie, where she again was laid up. Two meetings of Mathews Steamship Company bondholders were called by the Montreal Trust Company during the autumn of 1933 to consider offers from the Norris Grain Company and Sarnia Steamships Ltd. to purchase the remaining thirteen steamers owned by Mathews (other ships having been repossessed by their builders). The thirteen were ARLINGTON, BAYTON, BERRYTON, BROOKTON, EASTON, LAKETON, MALTON, MATHEWSTON, NORTHTON, RIVERTON, ROYALTON, WIARTON and YORKTON. On November 28, 1933, the offer from Sarnia Steamships was ac­ cepted and this firm, operated by Capt. Robert Scott Misener and John 0. Mc­ Kellar, with the financial backing of John J. Boland, Sr. and Jr., of Buffalo, formed Colonial Steamships Ltd. to take over the operation of these steamers. Colonial Steamships took over ARLINGTON in 1934, but she saw little service for her new owner. The Misener fleet had a number of boats that it consi­ dered better suited to its purposes, including many canallers built in the late 1920s at British yards. Accordingly, when an offer to purchase was re­ ceived from the Burke Towing & Salvage Company Limited, it was accepted, and ARLINGTON was transferred to Burke ownership on March 24th, 1936. The Burkes kept ARLINGTON'S name, and her hull remained black under their ownership. Her entire forecastle, however, was painted white. The cabins re­ mained white, while the stack was black, with the letters 'BTS' in white over the white letter 'C ' which enclosed a smaller 'O'. Two small cargo booms were fitted on the ARLINGTON'S foremast, but as they were right forward on the spar deck and had a very limited reach, we are not sure what purpose they served. Large wooden "cages" were built over her deck winches to permit their safe operation when she had a high deckload of pulpwood, as often was the case. ARLINGTON frequently carried pulpwood on the upper lakes, and she also car­ ried grain to the Bayports and loads of coal when available. One of our photos shows ARLINGTON towing the Burke barge SALVUS, which was as big as ARLINGTON, herself, and it was said that ARLINGTON'S machinery was powerful enough that she could still manage nine miles an hour when towing the barge!