Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 40, no. 4 (February 2008), p. 6

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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 6. suited for such trades with her A-frame, boom and clam-shell bucket. M. SICKEN, which her new owner never bothered to rename, was operated by Weddell for more than a decade, and she managed to get into a few scrapes as might be expected for a vessel of her type. Most of our detail concerning her activities during this period comes from the pages of "The Kingston Whig-Standard", a newspaper which took a keen interest in local shipping matters over the years. That paper on December 4, 1929, reported that the SICKEN was frozen in the ice at Telegraph Light in the Bay of Quinte. She had run aground there and spent the winter in that state. Predictions for the steamer's future were not hopeful, but as it turned out, she was not badly damaged. On April 23, 1930, the paper reported that the Pyke Salvage Company tug SAL­ VAGE PRINCE had pulled the SICKEN free on April 13 and had brought her into Kingston the following day. The SICKEN went on the drydock of the Kingston Shipbuilding Company on April 22 and she soon was ready for operation, little the worse for her icy winter experience. She did not stay out of trouble for long, however, for on July 8, 1930, the "Whig-Standard" reported that M. SICKEN had gone aground at Stony Point, four miles from the Deseronto Lighthouse, but had been able to work herself free, apparently without any major damage. A change was in the offing, however, for on April 11, 1932, M. SICKEN was sold to Captain Henry Chauncey Daryaw, of Kingston and Wolfe Island, who came from a sailing family. When the schooner QUEEN OF THE LAKES foundered on Lake Ontario in late November of 1906, his fa­ ther, Capt. Chauncey Daryaw, commanded her and a brother, Frank Daryaw, was the mate. Both survived the sinking. Henry was not aboard QUEEN OF THE LAKES as, at the time, he was mas­ ter of another vessel. Henry Daryaw went on to own a number of ships, including the schooner LYMAN M. DAVIS, one of the last commercial sailing vessels on the Great Lakes. The DAVIS operated until Daryaw bought M. SICKEN, and he sold the DAVIS in 1933. Despite a public campaign to save her, the Toronto Harbour Commission (which frequently did such barbaric things) burned her as a public spectacle off Sunnyside Park, Toronto, in 1934. Interestingly, two other schooners owned at one time by Henry Daryaw also were burned as spectacles, MARY A. DARYAW at Kings­ ton in 1927 and JULIA B. MERRILL at Toronto in 1931. M. SICKEN was put into operation by Daryaw soon after her acquisition, and the "Whig-Stan­ dard" of April 30, 1932, noted that she was unloading a cargo of coal at Swift's Wharf, Kingston, and had been bought by Daryaw specifically for the cross-lake coal trade. She seems to have operated successfully for a few seasons, and in 1933 was photographed unload­ ing sand at Bay City, Michigan. She still had her foremast at that time, although it later was removed and the A-frame was moved farther forward, to the break of the forecastle. On November 12, 1934, the "Whig-Standard" reported that the Sin-Mac Lines Ltd. tug CHAM­ PLAIN had drifted at anchor near Timber Island and had struck the SICKEN, which was under the command of Capt. Daryaw at the time. The SICKEN received some unspecified damage to her bow, which we do not believe was particularly serious. However, 1934 was to be her last year of operation. In the spring of 1935, Capt. Daryaw replaced M. SICKEN with the larger steel steamer OAKBAY, which he purchased from the Tree Line Navigation Company Limited. The sale was an­ nounced in the "Whig-Standard" on April 15, 1935, the article going on to say that Daryaw intended to sell the SICKEN. In due course, OAKBAY was equipped with a crane to handle coal and was renamed (c) HENRY C. DARYAW in honour of the Captain's son. No buyer came forward to acquire the SICKEN and so she was not sold, but rather was left to lie idle at Kingston at the shore end of the slip at the foot of Bay Street, where she eventually settled to the bottom. On April 28, 1936, the Kingston paper reported that the SICKEN had been raised, but that a week earlier, in city police court, the harbourmaster, William Peters, had charged Captain Daryaw with neglecting to remove the vessel after due notice to do so. The charge was to be withdrawn, in view of the vessel having been raised, but instead the case was remanded for a week to ensure that the SICKEN no longer posed any menace to navigation. Just a few days later, on May 1, the "Whig-Standard" reported that the SICKEN was in trou­ ble once again. The period of the remand of the court case had not even expired when M. SICKEN sank again, this time out by the harbour's main channel, where she was deemed to be an obstruction to navigation, and Daryaw was ordered to have her removed. It would seem

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