Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 40, no. 7 (May 2008), p. 8

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Ship of the Month - c o n t 'd . 8. On May 5, 1905, Star-Cole Transportation announced in the Buffalo press that DARIUS COLE and IDLEWILD would be going onto the Buffalo - Crystal Beach excursion service on May 30 (they did not make it until into June), and ARUNDELL on the Thousand Islands route on June 21. The "Buffalo Morning Express" article stated: "Extra efforts are being made to give the ARUNDELL additional carrying capacity. New staterooms have been added and the buffet has been put below in the forward end. The after part of the boat has been completely renewed from the fender strake to the upper deck. Many new frames have likewise been put in. " It further stated that Capt. Byron Armstrong would be master of ARUNDELL. It might have been at this time (although we suspect that it was in the rebuild of 1898) that ARUNDELL was given a new and more modern pilothouse which had four large curved-top windows in its face. In fact, ARUNDELL spent a bit more time at Buffalo that spring than earlier had been antici­ pated before she headed to Lake Ontario. The "Buffalo Morning Express" of June 15, 1905, stated that "The Crystal Beach Co. will have the passenger stm. ARUNDELL here to help out its excursion business as soon as she has been repaired at Detroit. She is in the Detroit drydock having a new propeller put in. " Things went well for ARUNDELL until June of 1908. The "British Whig" of June 18 reported: "Early this morning the ARUNDELL went ashore at Fine View Shoal, among the Thousand Islands, on her way from Alexandria Bay to Charlotte. The steamer was going full speed when she hit and hit hard. Word was at once sent to Ogdensburg, and a powerful tug was dispatched to her assistance. From the latest reports, the ARUNDELL was leaking and has made three inches of water since she struck. " On June 22, the same Kingston paper reported that after several days of work, Star-Cole had been unable to have ARUNDELL refloated, the steamer having run so far up on the shoal that only about three feet of the after part of her keel was not on the rocks. Accordingly, she had been turned over to the underwriters. The steamer, which went aground at 7: 25 a. m. on June 18, was between Fine View and Thousand Island Park when the accident happened. She was on her first Thousand Islands trip of the season and was under the command of Capt. J. F. Meno, of Port Huron. It was his first trip over the route but also none of the ship's former officers had been kept on for the new season, and all the officers were new. We suspect that those new officers may simply have been unfamiliar with the hazards of the route, but the newspaper article blamed high water conditions for the grounding. The Kingston paper on June 26 indicated that the underwriters had sent to Detroit for wrecking apparatus to float ARUNDELL with pontoons. In reports dated June 30 and July 2, the paper reported that, on June 29, the Donnelly Wrecking Company had been able to pull ARUN­ DELL free from the shoal after she was pumped out and her hull patched by Horace Baker, of Detroit. She was taken to Clayton, New York, for inspection and then went to Kingston for drydocking and the necessary repairs. A subsequent report indicated that she was back in service by mid-July, Star-Cole presumably having reacquired her from the underwriters. ARUNDELL got into trouble again in the spring of the following year. The "British Whig" of June 14, 1909, reported that ARUNDELL had gone ashore on Lake Erie off Amboy, ten miles east of Ashtabula. The report did not say so, but it would seem likely that ARUNDELL was heading east for her season in the Thousand Islands trade and, as usual, doing a bit of excursion tramping en route, when the incident occurred. Our notes say ARUNDELL was running between Ashtabula and Port Stanley at the time and that 150 persons had to be taken off her. The ship was pulled free by the G-tug FRANK W. As we have nothing further on the inci­ dent, we would assume that ARUNDELL did not sustain any particularly serious damage in the grounding. The 1909 season was ARUNDELL's last on the Thousand Islands service. At the beginning of the 1910 season, ■Zimmerman collection photo shows ARUNDELL departing the Oswego River.

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