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3 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES Captain James Van Cleve 1808 - 1888 Captain James Van Cleve was born in Laurenceville, N.J.in 1808. When he was one year old the family moved to Batavia, where he acquired a common school education which was later rounded off with two years at the pioneer academy at Middlesburg. At the age of sixteen he began his career as a clerk in a Laurenceville store.In the year 1954 it is bard to realize that there was a time when boys went to work on such jobs working from six in the morning until nine at night, just for the opportunity to learn the calling. Fortunately, for us, young James realized that, as he put it, he was"drifting onto a lee shore". He quit his store job and became a clerk on the steamer "Ontario", first steamboat on the Great Lakes. Here was a calling indeed, and one that he followed, in one way or another,for 62 years. He worked his way up to Master and left behind him an enviable record of achievement, not only as an able mariner but in many other ways. In December l8i|0, while visiting in New York he made the acquaintance of John Erricsson,inventor of the screw propeller, who was in America trying to find a sponsor for a vessel to be equipped with his device. Erricsson made him an offer of a half interest in the patent(Great Lakes rights),if Van Cleve would see to it that just one vessel, propeller-driven, were put into operation on those waters. An agreement was made and put into writing. Van Cleve took these and went to Oswego,New York, where, in a short time he concluded an arrangement with Samuel Doolittle, who owned a ship yard there, for the building of a vessel. C. C. Dennis,of the town of Auburn, built the engine after drawings supplied by Erricsson himself. She was 91 feet long, and 20§ feet wide, with a depth of hold of 8ij feet. She registered 138 tons, and was given the name "Vandalia". OUR OCTOBER COVER This month our cover picture is another one of Rowley Murphy's Great Lakes gems. It shows the three-mast schooner "Stuart H. Dunn", of Kingston, Ontario, fitting out for the 1906 seasin. She is lying at the Church Street Slip, at Toronto. Note the timber ports for stowing lumber under the poop deck. On her trial trip,under permit, in November, 18I|JL, she went to the western end of Lake Ontario. She encountered both good and bad weather and was proved successful. We do not know what financial gain came to Captain Van Cleve from the propeller but it must have been satisfactory, since it is a matter of record that he and John Eiricsson remained fast friends for life. Captain Van Cleve had an appreciation of the value of history far above the average for his day and calling. It is doubtful if any other Great Lakes mariner has left to posterity such a wealth of historical materials. The drawings of the "Vandalia" propeller and engines he retained for many years, then presented them to the Oswego, N.Y. Historical Society. Perhaps his most valuable contribution to the history of Great Lakes shipping is several volumes,still in manuscript form, containing a great number of his own sketches of esurly Lakes vessels. One volume of this work is in the hands of the Chicago Historical Society suid the others sure a psurt of the Buffalo Historical Society*s collection, known as the Van Cleve Papers. The historical societies of Cleveland, Ohio, and Toronto, Canada, were also favored with items which this remarkable man had collected during his long and interesting life. Captain Van Cleve died April 20, 1888 at his home in Sandwich,Ontario in his eightieth year. It is regret-able that more of our early Great Lakes shipping men did not possess his appreciation of history.