Salt Made A Lake Fleet: Schooner Days MCIIV (1104) Happier Bride's Diary - 7

By C.H.J. Snider

"ONONDAGA SALT," wrote Captain James Van Cleve in his memoirs, seventy years after Anne MacDonell's diary notice of the prevalence of that commodity in Oswego in 1805, "formed an important item in the commercial business of Oswego from the earliest times." In fact it might be credited with creating the American sailing fleet of the lakes.

The first American vessel which Oswego has record was called the Flat Bottom, for so she was built. Archibald Fairfield, forwarder, owned her. She was of 100 barrels (salt) capacity, and daringly ran the rapids of the river from near the Onondaga salt licks, with a cargo. Being of course unable to come back up the river, she was fitted with masts in Oswego and employed in the slender lake trade. This was in 1802. She was Oswego's first schooner under the Stars and Stripes. She was only 15 tons measurement and was under 40 feet in length. The Jemima of Genesee appears to have been on Lake Ontario by 1797.

Matthew McNair came to Oswego in April 1802 and began his storage and forwarding business, first employing scows and open boats rowed and polled on the river. In 1803 he bought the schooner Jane of Genesee, just built by Scott and Vaughan. He renamed her Peggy, after his daughter, and ventured into the lake trade. This was the Oswego Peggy. She brought Mrs. Anne MacDonnell, whose diary we are interrupting, from York on her way to Long Island in 1805.

Thanks to the salt trade and commerce in other provisions and commodities, Oswego's fleet of two small schooners had grown to 15 vessels by 1810. These were not all built there, nor owned there, but they all traded there.

18,000 BARRELS

Ogdensburg sixty miles down the St. Lawrence river, acquired an early schooner fleet too. In 1810 D.M. Lewis wrote to David Parrish of Philadelphia, owner of the Ogdensburg Packet Line, that 18,000 barrels of salt came down from Oswego, and British vessels came for it "previous to the trammeling of commerce , - referring to the U.S. Embargo Act of 1807, and Non-Intercourse Acts.

"The Experiment," continued Mr. Lewis, referring to the most recent Ogdensburg craft - was a centreboard being experimented with? - "will make 18 trips yearly (from Ogdensburg to Niagara) if she can have loads." This meant fortnightly round trip voyages, as navigation would not be open for more than eight months. "Earlier vessels were making 4 trips with salt and 7 with pork and flour, or a maximum of 14 per season."

Lewis gave a list of the Ogdensburg traffickers, with their tonnage and salt carrying capacity:

Total salt capacity, 4,081 barrels

There were, in 1810, other schooners owned in Oswego, and elsewhere, and a few more in Leeds, York, Kingston and Niagara in Upper Canada. The British Queen mentioned came to Oswego in 1807 by purchase by Captain McDonald.

The Genesee Packet, Experiment and Collector, wrote Capt. Van Cleve, became a packet line in 1811 from Lewiston to Ogdensburg. The rates from Lewiston, Niagara, or any lake port that far west to Ogdensburg were: Flour, 75c a barrel; Pork, 87 1/2 c., Whiskey, 87 1/2 c, Ashes, $1.50 per cwt. - but not more than 4 cwt. at a time, because of the danger of wetting such cargo. In scows, which were rowed or polled, rates before and after July 1 to Oct. 1 were: Flour, $1 to $1.12 1/2; Pork, $1.50 to $1.75, and the same for Whiskey. Ashes, $2.50 to $2.75 per cwt; in barrels in scows, after Oct. 1st, more. He did not quote the salt rate. "The first vessels built in Ogdensburg were the Experiment, launched July 4, 1809, Christian Holmes, master, which became the U.S. schooner Growler in the War of 1812, and 3 months later the Collector, Obed Mayo, Sam Dixon, masters, which became the U.S. schooner Pert. These 50 ton schooners were built by Jonathan Brown of New York for the account of David Parrish, cost $5,000 each, and were launched from the site of the Red Store of Amos Bacon."

Having thus got the salt out of our system we shall go on with Anne MacDonnell's much-delayed diary next week.