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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 10. She went to the Atlantic Coast in 1916 and finally was abandoned at Balti­ more in 1937. The 1896 Blue Book of American Shipping lists the owner of the VAN ALLEN as S. Rogers, Toronto. The 1897 and 1899 issues of the Great Lakes Register (Bureau Veritas) show her as owned by the Oswego Manufacturing Co., although she still was registered at Chatham, Ontario. It does not appear as if the steamer ever was registered in the U. S. or bore a U. S. official number. On April 23, 1898, D. R. VAN ALLEN went to Trenton to load lumber for Oswe­ go. She was later known to have raced the steamer IONA, of Trenton, from Trenton to Oswego, a distance of 112 miles. IONA won the race by ten minutes. In 1899, whilst wintering at Kingston, the VAN ALLEN had her engine compoun­ ded. Her register was closed on May 1st at Toronto. The "St. Catharines Standard" of August 11, 1900, reported: "The steam barge D. R. VAN ALLEN has gone on the dry dock (at Port Robinson) where she will receive a general overhauling. This boat was built at Chatham some thirty years ago, and was owned by a Canadian company until recently, when she passed into the hands of an American firm. Captain Thompson, who was her first commander, is still in command. " The steamer was re-registered at Port Hope in 1901, owned by the Toronto Electric Light Company, for which she was to haul coal. It may have been at the time of this rebuild (although it might well have been somewhat earlier) that the VAN ALLEN became a "rabbit". The cabins were removed from atop the forecastle head, and the pilothouse was relocated atop the after cabin. One photo of her as a rabbit shows her with closed in sides and a fully flush deck, but all the rest show her with fully topgallant forecastle and poop, just as when her pilothouse was forward. To us today, the "rabbits" may have been cute little vessels, and a sort of forerunner of modern stemwinders, but at the time, their crews often called them "coffins" as, run in gruelling trades in even the worst of weather, they did not enjoy a good safety record as a group, and accidents took many lives. Fortunately, the VAN ALLEN survived. "The Railway and Shipping World" issue of April 1901 reported a new Clyde boiler was under construction for the VAN ALLEN at Polson Iron Works, Toron­ to, "to be 10 ft. diameter x 11 ft. long, containing 1, 200 sq. ft. of heat­ ing surface; 2 furnaces each 40 ins. diameter, built to pass Government in­ spection for 125 lbs. steam". It was reported in early May by "The Toronto World" that she was completely overhauled during the previous three months at the foot of Yonge Street. Three American men were arrested in late April 1901 for attempting to blow up Lock 24 on the Welland Canal, their motive being undetermined at the time. The press speculated that they might have been Fenian sympathizers, opponents of the Boer War, or possibly persons sympathizing with a strike of Buffalo grain shovellers. The day before the escapade, two of them had their photograph taken at Niagara Falls' Table Rock House and they had it mailed to Ireland. The Welland Canal was not yet even for the season's navigation when this incident occurred, but no sooner had the shipping season begun when the D. R. VAN ALLEN accomplished what the dynamiters could not. She had already made two trips from Toronto to Charlotte and Fairhaven, New York, bringing back coal for the Toronto Electric Light Co. Ltd. and, upon the opening of the canal for the season, she was sent to Toledo to feet coal. On Wednesday, May 1st, she was downbound in the canal and, for some reason not reported by the press, she was unable to stop at Lock 6 and car­ ried away all four lock gates. Perhaps she suffered a mechanical failure. Captain Frederick Graves, of Toronto, who from 1892 to 1900 had commanded the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company's steamer HAMILTON, had signed on as master of the VAN ALLEN that spring. Capt. Graves had been sailing the lakes since 1860 and was considered to be a fine navigator. It was said in the press that the damage, for which the steamer would have to pay, would cover a fair share of her value. By the following day, the two