Figure Heads: Not including some we could mention: Schooner Days CXXI (121)

By C. H. J. Snider

Discussion of the Nancy's figurehead while her model is being built recalls the figureheads of the successors of this pioneer craft, the schooners whose thronging sails, a thousand strong, made the blue waters of the lakes glad all last century and a little of this.

Lake Schooners were practical, burdensome vessels, built and rigged without fuss and feathers to carry big loads and earn big freights for their owners. The later generations of them had many severely plain specimens -- wall-sided, straight-stemmed, painted monotone, with no decoration. But, up to the very end of the sailing era, art, that expression of man's joy in his work, flourished alongside of utility. The Minnedosa, for example although only intended for a towbarge, had a beautiful cut water bow, and $1,000 was spent on gold leaf and carvings for her stem and stern decorations. Yet she was a "modern," of the late 80's.

Going back two or three decades further, the sailing craft of the lakes revelled in decoration. Of course, times were good with the sailormen, and they spend their money in pretties for their sweethearts, whether they were canvas or crinolines. Out of Oakville, for example were the Flying Cloud, the Sea Gull, the Champion, the Royal Albert, the Homeward Bound and the Coquette each with her figurehead or trail-boards or both, carved and painted and gilded like Cleopatra's barge on the Nile.

Just the other day we saw a painting of the Coquette, owned by Mrs. Frank Chisholm of Oakville. It had been done in oil, three-quarters of a century ago, by an Oswego lady named Dixon, who admired the trim Canadian schooner so much that she besought her master to have the sails hoisted so that she might make a drawing of her under canvas. The Coquette was lying in Oswego at the time. She was owned and sailed by Capt. George Brock Chisholm of Oakville. She was built by John Simpson in the Sixteen Mile Creek in 1857 and was of 176 tons Canadian and 260 tons American.

The gallant sailor gallantly complied with the American lady's request, and she presented him with an oil painting of the schooner, dashing along under full sail, with maintopmaststaysail set, and a bone in her teeth. One can tell it is an old-time picture, because the vessel shown under the land in the background has one of the long vanished square single-topsail. Single-top—sails started to "go out" in the "60's.

The painting shows the Coquette in all the detail in which a sailor revels. This includes an elaborate figurehead. The coquette herself hangs under the Coquette's spearing bowsprit, her long hair rippling down to her waist, red and green ribbons crossing the bosom of her white frock, her feet disappearing in a cluster of red and green vine wreaths. The figure must have been life size, it is painted quite as large as the sailors in sea boots, and red or blue shirts and black wideawake hats standing on the schooner's brown deck.

The hull is drawn accurately, showing the beautiful model for which the Coquette was famous, and her elaborate paint, which was also long an Oakville tradition. Her gaffs, booms, mastheads, doubling, blocks, mast-hoops and jib-hands were all painted white. (This was in the days of wooden hanks, which saved wear on the hempen stays.) Her chainplates were black. The whole hull was painted white, but she had a green stripe at the main rail, and for the topgallant rails above it white bulwarks and a green coveringboard, with a red beading immediately below. Another red beading marked the lower edge of her white sheer-plank. Below this were two strakes of white plank, when a fender-strake painted red; then two more strakes of white plank and another fender wale, painted green, with a final bead or moulding of red below it.

The hawse-pipe in the bow winked a wicked red eye between the two upper beads of red; the whole color scheme was a cheerful reproduction of the white-robed coquette, with her red and green ribbons, who for ever rushed through the air ahead of the schooner. Above the figurehead the white bowsprit was decorated with a red and green batten on either side.

The heads of the Coquette's topmast were adorned with little globes of gold, and under the main or tallest one flew the Chisholm houseflag- white with blue borders to top and bottom and a bright red "C" in the centre.

In addition to the four bobstays- most lake schooners had but two-a peculiarity of the Coquette's rig was the reefpoints in the standing jib. She had also reefpoints in her fore staysail, and three lines of them in her foresail and mainsail. Her quarterdeck was raised, and her cabin was lighted by a square skylight. Her topmast rigging terminated with futtock shrouds, as was the custom of the time,

The pose of the figure under the low-steeved bowsprit is not as graceful as it would have been had it been possible to have had it more upright. The lady looks to be hung over the water. But then uprightness was never the outstanding characteristic of coquettes; and figurehead carvers in that day had not the priceless advantage of the example of Mr. Epstein's contribution to the beauty of statuary.

Full length figures such as the Coquette's were not general among the lake schooners. When the human form was used the head and shoulders frequently sufficed as in the case of the Caroline, reproduced recently. But human heads and busts did not exhaust the figurehead carver's collection. American schooners used the eagle frequently; the Skylark of Detroit had a yellow eagle when a blue skylark would have looked much better in her bows. Another favorite subject with the Americans was an Indian, with long feathered head dress; perhaps because they used the Indians so badly.

The handsomest figure was the horse-either a horse's head, with proud arched neck and glancing eye, or the full figure, leaping or galloping with streaming mane and tail. There was something active and dashing about such a figurehead which made even a homely old tub handsome. The Highland Beauty had a little golden horse not as a figurehead, but right on her jibboom-end, in 1891. The tug Charley Ferris of Oswego had a horse cut from a brass plate on her wheel house.

Often the figurehead itself was small and simple, such as a billet, as the turned-over curve of the head of a fiddle is called; but from this scroll, at the extreme of the knee under the bowsprit, would sweep back long curved planks, called trailboards, joining the bulwarks of the bow forward of the catheads, and these might be painted and decorated elaborately, and carry the vessels name. The painted scroll work sometimes spread over the stem and cutwater on to the hull itself. A good example of this was in the schooner Singapore, one of the handsomest fore and afters the lakes produced. She did not, unfortunately, sail as well as she looked. With her black sides, red bottom, and golden-scrolled trailboards she was as pretty as a picture. Captain Sam Malcolmson had her on towards the last, and she ended on Lake Huron, early this century when she was sailed by Capt. James C. Sutherand, of Goderich. She was lost of Kincardine, when she waterlogged with a load of lumber. The Singapore was built at Kingston in 1878 and was 108 feet long, 25 feet 5 inches beam and 10 feet deep in the hold. She registered 186 tons.

The Atlantic one of the so-called brigs, really a topsail schooner, sailed by Capt. Dave Sylvester before he was 21, had a cornucopia under the bowsprit, pouring back its fruits and flowers in natural colors along the scrolls of the trailboards. She too was painted black and red like the Singapore, but she added a broad white stripe along the bulwarks on which was painted the black squares of gunports. This was a common decoration among the whalers and clippers on salt water, but was rarely seen on the lakes. The Atlantic also presented a very handsome appearance.

A Toise

Sir- In one of your recent contributions in "Schooner Days" you stated that some of these stone scow from Port Credit would carry from two and a half to four toise of stone." Now my question is, "What is a toise of stone." Thanking you in advance for this information.

G.D. Reid

732 Queen Street west

Answer- We had to make a pile of stone three feet high by six feet wide by twelve feet long, to be allowed on toise when we were selling it. That is 216 cubic feet and it would weigh about 10 tons. A mason's toise is somewhat smaller 192 cubic feet. The contractors toise takes into account all the "dog holes" and air spaces in ingenious stonehooker could fabricate, for the stonehooker found the air between the stones just as profitable as the war contractors found the salt in the bacon, or the customs people the sawdust between the bunches of grapes.

Frenchman's Bay boy tells of fighting the foresail.

Sir.-- Ran across a lot of your sailor clippings, including a picture of Port Credit, full of schooners. Put me in mind of Frenchman's Bay. I have counted thirty-five stonehookers in the harbor there at one time. The bay was full of them, my home town. A lot of them have slipped my mind, but I know most of the last fleet. I knocked around the water a lot.

I sailed in the Hope, Capt. Mat Thomas; in the Madeline, Capt. Geo. Atkinson of Whitby; in the Wm. Jamieson, Capt. Joe Braun, Port Hope, the Abbie L. Andrews. Capt. John Joyce of Bronte, and the Arthur, Capt. Chas. Wakeley.

Speaking of the Abbie L. Andrews, we came down Lake Erie with nothing but the foresail and staysail on, running with a southwest gale, carried away our foresheet traveller, and out went the foresail to the rigging. Back she came, broke the pennant, and went out on the other side, carrying the big blocks along. They flailed about and smashed the rail and bulwarks on both sides. Finally I landed the foresail on deck and dropping the peak halliards and the lifts. We lost three carloads of coal off the deck that night. Some sea!

We left the canal at the Lake Ontario end for Toronto and got out about thee miles when we passed the schooner Sir C. T. Van Straubenzee going into the canal. That was the voyage on which she got cut down by the steamer on Lake Erie. I think a man by the name of Gardner was the only one that was saved.

J. A. Edwards

The COQUETTE's, out of Oakville, seventy years ago.

The SINGAPORE's of Kingston

The COQUETTE. as painted by her Oswego admirer.

The SINGAPORE, depicted by a Belleville artist.