Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 34, no. 4 (January 2002), p. 8

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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 8. contracts had been stopped temporarily pending their rearrangement. Local reports state that complaints have been made regarding the manner in which some of the work done under sub-contracts has been done, and that a number of inspectors acting under the Dominion Government have been dismissed. The Canadian Stewart Co. is reported to have stated that about 20% of the sub­ contracts have been completed, and that the complaints made refer to about 20% of the completed portion. If the sub-contractors failed to make this good, the general contractors will do so. "One of the Toronto Harbour Commissioners is reported to have said that the Government work in connection with the harbour development scheme had not been accomplished to the Government engineer's satisfaction, and the result is that the inspectors had been instructed to cease work until a readjust­ ment can be made. The imperfections were found before they were unrepairable and would be made good by the contractors. "Press reports state that the Government has appointed E. L. Cousins, Engi­ neer, Toronto Harbour Commissioners, Engineer Sweeney, of the Public Works Department at Winnipeg, and Roger Miller, Toronto, to go over the entire work and submit an estimate of the cost of reconstruction. In the meantime, the Canadian Stewart Co. is holding the subcontractors' plants. " The problems were apparently rectified and the Stewart work on the harbour redevelopment went ahead. Over the course of the work, other tugs were added to the Stewart fleet, although not all of them may have worked on the Toronto project. A m o n g them were the 58-foot MARTHA STEWART (C. 137899), built in 1899 at Buffalo and on the Canadian register under Stewart (actual­ ly Osler and Lash) ownership by 1918; the 74-foot MARY STEWART (C. 85415), built in 1882 at St. Catharines and purchased in 1919, and the 56-foot HENRIETTA STEWART (C. 134460), built in 1915 at Collingwood and acquired in 1917. When Canadian Stewart's dredging work was completed, some of the vessels that had been used on the Toronto project were sold. TORNADO was acquired in 1922 by the Saint John Drydock and Shipbuilding Company Ltd., while in that same year, EMILY STEWART, MARY STEWART and CYCLONE were purchased by the To­ ronto Harbour Commissioners. J. C. STEWART was not involved in either sale, but there is something of a mystery as to what did become of her. J. C. STEWART is not listed in either our 1918 or 1922 issues of the "Do­ minion List" showing vessels on the Canadian registry books, nor is she shown in our 1920 or 1922 copies of "Merchant Vessels of the United States". So where and what was she during this period? Had she left the lakes? Or had there simply been some bad record keeping? Copies of "U. S. M. V . " from the late 1920s show that the tug was acquired at New York in 1924 by the U . S. Army Corps of Engineers, which renamed her COL. M. J. McDONOUGH and stationed her at Buffalo. She was recorded as being used for "general duties", which no doubt means that she did whatever was re­ quired, including pushing around Corps dredges and scows. Although the listing of vessels in the "government" section of the annual "U. S. M . V . " did not show U. S. official numbers, we do know from several sources that the McDONOUGH had one. The trouble is that we have two different versions of that number, 213259 and 213529, and we have no way of knowing which may be correct. The McDONOUGH would have worn the usual Corps of Engineers colours. This would mean that she had a black hull, cream coloured cabins, and a black stack with two narrow silver bands, a broad red band, and in silver the Corps of Engineers "fortress" insignia. Still the McDONOUGH appears to have led a charmed life and we have no record of anything unusual happening to her. But after the cessation of World War Two, a steam tug such as the McDONOUGH no longer was required by the Corps of Engineers and she was placed on the U . S. government's disposal list. It was just about at that time that the Toronto Dry Dock Company Ltd. was seek­

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