Port Credit's Stone Hookers: Schooner Days CXII (112)

One of these days we are going to publish a list of all the stonehookers we have seen or heard of, out of the Credit, or any place else along the lake shore. Keep this in mind, and when the list appears see if you can improve on it. Meantime, what follows may help revive recollections of this vanished "mosquito fleet."

PORT CREDIT long possessed a fleet unique in lake navigation, and, indeed duplicated nowhere - the stonehookers of Lake Ontario.

These were small vessels of from twenty to one hundred tons burden, nearly all schooner-rigged, although a few of them, being ex-yachts, were single stickers. They were of many models, but the characteristic stonehooker was a scow, floating almost on top of the water when light, kept from blowing to leeward by a certain amount of deadwood at bow and stern and pivoted centreboard amidships. These scows were usually square-ended, in contrast with the V-bowed scows of Lake Erie or barrel-bowed ones of the Bay of Quinte. They were very wide, very shoal, and, on some conditions of sailing - smooth water and leading winds - very fast.

The scow model was used all over the Great Lakes, sometimes in vessels of considerable size, but Port Credit scows were a peculiar variant, and the best of them were so designed that they could carry their whole load on deck. This effected a great saving in handling of cargo.

One of the best examples of such a model was the scow Coronet, designed and built by Capt. John Miller, for many years lighthouse keeper at Port Credit. She was 53 feet long and 17 feet beam and four feet deep in the hold; drew 18 inches of water light, with her centerboard up; carried thirty tons of stone on deck, with nothing in the hold but stone-chips for ballast. She sailed and sailed well in this trim, although the load brought her deck within eight inches of the water amidships. She was about three feet higher at each end. Her rig was large, the mainboom projecting outboard for 17 feet, half its length. Her topmasts were long, over thirty feet, and her lower masts comparatively short, so that when she clewed up her topsails it was equivalent to reefing ordinary lower sails. She sank off Port Credit in 1899, when owned by a Bronte man, Elijah Pickett.

At the other extreme was the smaller schooner, Ann Brown, built in Toronto about 1836 and owned in Port Credit for a half century by Abram Block, senior, and, in turn, Abram Block, junior, Justice of the Peace, who died this summer in his 83rd year. The Ann Brown was not a scow nor a centreboarder. She was a surviving example of the old "standing keel." She was 36 feet long and 11 feet beam and 6 feet deep in the hold. She drew 6 feet of water when loaded, and carried slightly over twenty tons of stone, most of it in the hold. Tiny as she was she had made voyages as far east as Kingston as as far west as Manitoulin Island, for she was built for the fur-trade with the Indians of the Georgian Bay. She was sailed for many years by Thomas Block, a brother of Abram Block, J.P., and survived until 1904. In her early days she had a square topsail and topgallantsail, although the yards for these sails were so short they could be used for pike-poles.

Port Credit had not a monopoly of the stonehooker fleet, for stonehookers were owned in Port Nelson, Bronte, Oakville and Toronto, and points further east from Frenchman's Bay to Belleville, but the industry centered in the Credit, and the local vessels were so numerous that they would form a floating bridge nightly across the harbor. Their plan of operation was to work on the shore by day, gathering cargo, and put into the port at nightfall if possible.

Many owners seldom slept aboard, going ashore each night to their families, and making a special point of being home Saturday night, even if they chanced to be "in town for market" on that day. By this they meant going to Toronto to deliver their cargoes. It was a proverb in Port Credit that no wind ever blew hard enough to keep "Daddy" Block from home Saturday night while the Ann Brown was under him.

The stonehooker usually anchored on the lake shore and collected a cargo by sending in a small flat scow, into which loads of stones were gathered from the beach itself or from the bottom, long rakes, with prong-like forks being used for the purpose. Some have thought that these hook-like rakes gave the name to the trade.

Stonehooking was very wet work, the men sometimes wading the shore waist-deep in water, quarrying the stone loose with crowbars, and lifting it on to the small scow, which was usually decked over and water-tight as a wooden bottle.

When the scow was loaded it was poled or sculled out to the parent stonehooker, and its cargo transferred to her deck and hold. These small scows could carry about a third of a toise, or three tons deadweight. It took from ten to forty scowloads to give the stonehooker her full cargo. Gravel was loaded in the same way, except that it was shoveled from the beach to the deck of the scow, and not gathered with rakes.

It was the necessity of being able to approach the beach closely, and to carry large loads on deck, saving much handling, that evolved the square shoal scow model of the stonehooker. The first vessels engaged in the trade were the small coasters, some scows and some schooner-built, which had been in the grain, lumber and cordwood trade while this was profitable for small vessels. It was soon found that the scows were particularly well fitted for carrying stone, and the specialized scow model resulted. Stonehooking flourished through the decades while great harbors were being constructed on Lake Ontario, and stone was needed to fill the timber cribs; and while cities were growing and needed building stone for walls, flat stones for sidewalks, cobble stones for pavements, and crushed stone for macadamized roadways and the later cement foundations of asphalt. The trade lasted until eliminated by the economies of rail and motor transport, which brought the prepared stone from inland quarries to the very spot where it was to be used.

It cannot be said that all stonehookers hailed from Port Credit, but all used that harbor, and many of them were owned there. Surprisingly few showed "of Port Credit" on their sterns; partly for the reason that the stonehookers were engaged in warfare with the lakeshore farmers, until the third or fourth generation. The farmers objected to the stone being carried from their beaches, over which they claimed riparian rights.

At one time what was called the "three-rod law" prevailed for the protection of beaches in Halton, Peel and York counties; stonehookers were not allowed to remove stone, sand or gravel from within three perches or 49 1/2 feet, of the water's edge.

Conditions being such, stonehooker mariners had no great desire to display, for the convenience for prosecutors, the name of the port where they could be found. Many Port Credit stonehookers were registered in Toronto, and had "of Toronto" following their names on the sternboards. Others were "of Hamilton" or "of Oakville." In some cases stonehookers actually built in Port Credit to appear on the marine registry as having been built in Toronto, where the registration was made. Many masters paid for the stone they took from the beach, or bought it where the farmers had hauled it in clearing their land. Stonehookers, indeed, were much better than their general reputations. They were honest hardworking men, and the majority considered it a sin to work on Sunday, no matter how fair the day or how long they had been held up by adverse weather.

Stonehookers, even up to a hundred tons burden, were usually sailed by a crew of two; sometimes single-handed. Occasionally three or four went in vessel, especially in the early days, when wages were low. Profits were small then, for stone sold for $5 a toise, and three trips a week for a two-toise hooker, with her crew of two men, was considered very good work. On this account few steam vessels ever appeared in stonehooking; there were only three, the steam barge Chub of Bronte, the Gordon Jerry, a covered scow-brigantine from Port Dover, and the steam scow Maybird of Toronto.

Besides the stonehookers mention, several larger sailing vessels were built and owned in Port Credit, such as the schooners Maggie Hunter, Minnie Blakely, Margaret, Caledonia, and the brigantine Credit Chief and British Queen; but theirs is another story.

The Reuben Doud

Sir,- In your article, "Bull-of-the-Woods," on Saturday, you mentioned one Cunningham at the wheel. He lived three houses from me at Lakeport (Cat Hollow) and his name was James - and a good sailor as you said. The mate of the Reuben Doud at that time was Capt. George Brown, Lakeport, and his two sons, Harold and Robert, are still sailing out of Toronto. Harold was in the Cape Trinity a while ago and Robert works for the Harbor Commission.

Madison Cunningham, a son of the above mentioned, while "scraping down" on the Emerald's spars some years ago, fell from the "chair" and struck his father on the shoulder, but he struck the deck - concussion of the brain - but he is living in the northwest now.

- F.H. BATTY,

Port Hope.

Port Credit Harbor filled with stonehookers of a Sunday forty years ago.