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11. Ship of the Month - cont'd. $32, 000. Mr. Ryan bought the wreck of the old Canadian propellor NIPIGON, rebuilt her, Americanized her as the S. C. CLARK, sold her for $16, 000 and didn't lose any money by the operation. There are good men who claim he won't lose anything on the RYAN. She was insured for $22, 000. It cannot be denied that vesselmen generally had an unfavourable opinion of her model and general makeup. Now that she is gone, some of these men say 'I told you so. Capt. John Simpson, at whose Owen Sound shipyard the RYAN was drydocked before the commencement of her final trip, called her "an old timer, built by the mile and chopped off in chunks". The propellor NIPIGON (C. 71602), referred to above, had been built by A. Cantin at Montreal in 1874. She was sold to Captain Ryan, rebuilt, and was renamed STEPHEN C. CLARK (U. S. 116161) in 1887. Ryan subsequently sold the vessel to J. Squire, of Marine City, Michigan. The CLARK caught fire on June 20, 1893, in Lake Huron off Port Sanilac, Michigan, and was almost entirely burned before the tug DESMOND extinguished the flames. The burned hull was towed to Marine City for possible rebuilding, but it was never done and the hull lingered at the river port until it finally was removed in 1912. As mentioned, several press reports indicated that when LAKE ONTARIO was re­ built as CHAS. C. RYAN, "the RYAN got one of the HIAWATHA'S old boilers". So what vessel was this HIAWATHA? Was she, perhaps, the passenger steamer (C. 72982), which was built at Dresden, Ontario, in 1874 and best known for her years on the Sarnia-Port Huron ferry service? Featured as our Ship of the Month No 215, she was extensively rebuilt in 1887, and perhaps that re­ building included the replacement of her boiler. But perhaps not. The late John H. Bascom, however, felt that it was more likely that the boi­ ler than went into CHAS. C. RYAN came from the wooden freighter HIAWATHA (U. S. 95600), which was built in 1880 at Gibraltar, Michigan. What makes this ship, perhaps, the most likely source of the RYAN's boiler is the fact that this HIAWATHA is known to have been reboilered herself in 1889. But now, we return to the unfortunate demise of CHAS. C. RYAN. At the end of June, 1890, fishermen on the east shore of Lake Huron picked up a wheelhouse in the lake some 30 miles west of Port Elgin. It bore the name "C. C. RYAN". A portion of the RYAN's cabin and other wreckage drifted ashore at Southamp­ ton, Ontario. This debris was the last ever seen of the ill-fated steamer. * * * Notes from the Author and the Editor: Special thanks are due to Ralph K. Ro­ berts, of Saginaw, Michigan, for providing us with the only known photograph of LAKE ONTARIO. It is not great, and shows only part of her from dead astern, but her name is visible and so is her port of registry - Hamilton. We cannot identify the big freighter moored ahead of her, and although we thought we could identify the port from the bridge and its unusual tender's cabin visible in the background, together with the hill, we have failed to do so. Can any member help? And can ANYBODY produce a picture of the strange steamer CHAS. C. RYAN? Thanks also are extended to Ron Beaupre, Port Elgin; Robert Graham, Bowling Green, Ohio; Pat Labadie, Superior, Wisconsin; Bill McNeil, Toronto; Jack Messmer, Tonawanda, New York; Jerry Metzler, Lakewood, Ohio; David Swayze, Lake Isabella, Michigan; Peter D. A. Warwick, St. Catharines; and to late T. M. H. S. members Ivan S. Brookes, Hamilton, and John H. Bascom, Toronto. Lastly, in respect of vessels like LAKE ONTARIO, we would remind members of a convention we adopted long ago for "Scanner" to avoid reader confusion. We refer to a screw propelling device as a "propeller", and to a vessel propel­ led by such a device as a "propellor". When the press of the 1800s used the word "steamer", the reference often was to a paddlewheeler. * * * * *