Ocean-Crossing Laker Just Such Another as Fire-Fated "L. M. Davis": Schooner Days CXXIV (124)

DID YOU EVER hear of the Dean Richmond?

Dean Richmond was not an ecclesiastical or collegiate dignitary, as far as can be learned, but an American railway magnate who made things hum in the middle of the nineteenth century and the middle west.

He had two vessels named after him. One was a schooner, the other a steamer. The steamer Dean Richmond belonged to the Clover Leaf Line, plying between Toledo and Buffalo. She had a long career and was lost with all hands off Dunkirk, on Lake Erie, in a gale of great violence which destroyed fifteen vessels, on 15th of October, 1893, Capt. Stoddard was in command of the steamer.

The schooner Dean Richmond enjoyed, questionably, the reputation of being the first vessel to take a cargo direct from Chicago to the Old World. The Dean Richmond did indeed make the adventurous voyage from Chicago to Liverpool at an early date, but she had been preceded in these Atlantic passages by Canadian schooners almost ten years before. Some Americans had also gone across the lakes before she did. It may be that her reputation was earned through loading wheat in Chicago and not breaking bulk until she reached Liverpool, whereas some of her predecessors may have had to unload and reload their cargoes and their first port of departure may not have been Chicago. The Dean Richmond completed loading in Milwaukee. So far as is known, the first lake vessel to cross the Atlantic was the three-masted schooner New Brunswick of St. Catharines, with eighteen thousand bushels of Western grain in 1847. In 1848 the Canadian schooner Lillie crossed to Liverpool from Kingston, Ont. Capt. Gaskin, of Kingston, took the Sophia over from the lakes in 1850 and the Cherokee in 1853, and the Cataraqui in 1854. That same year the barque Arabia went across from Kingston, and in the following year the barque Reindeer, built at Coldwater, Ont., and the ship City of Toronto, built in front of the present Royal York Hotel, sailed from the lakes for England. The brig Pacific was another Canadian vessel from Lake Ontario which preceded the Dean Richmond.

Without controversy over the accuracy of the claim for the Dean Richmond, the voyage which she made is a most interesting one. It is recalled by a recent discovery of two beautiful paintings in the possession of the daughters of the late Captain George Brock Chisholm, who died February 22nd, 1884, after owning and sailing the barquentine Three Bells and the schooners Wood Duck, Newsboy, Good News, Coquette, and Kate, out of Oakville. One of his friends was an American named G. F. Dixon, probably a relation of Mrs. Dixon who painted this stirring picture of the Coquette reproduced recently in The Telegram. It is probable that Mr. Dixon gave these paintings to Capt. Chisholm. They are beautifully done in oil and appear to be colored reproductions over photographs of original oil paintings of much greater size.

One picture shows the Dean Richmond at the height of a gale which lasted five days during her Atlantic passage. In this she is shown shortened down to a close reefed foresail and reefed staysail; all other canvas stowed and her topmasts struck, that is, lowered down until the eyes of the topmast rigging come, to the caps of the lower mastheads.

The weather depicted is certainly wild enough for the Atlantic at its worst, but the great accuracy shown by the artist, John Dori, of Liverpool; in the details of the vessel convince, one that he was not exaggerating. It is not probable that he himself made the passage in the Dean Richmond, but the paintings were undoubtedly done to order at the time of her important voyage, and we may he sure that they were corrected in every detail, so as to meet the approval of the Dean Richmond's captain at the time.

On the back of the picture showing the ship at sea is this note in pencil:

G. F. Dixon, Dear Sir:

The within is the photograph of the Dean Richmond in a gale on the Atlantic Ocean, which lasted five days, from the 1st to the 6th of September, 1856. The oil painting I have, which is the same size as the other. I wish you could see the originals. They are beautifully colored and much more distinct than this.

Your friend, C. W. RICHMOND

Chicago, April 17th, 1857.

The other painting mentioned has this inscription on the back:

G. F. Dixon, Sir:

The within photograph is from an oil painting in my possession, painted by John Dori, Esq., of Liverpool, England, of the schooner Dean Richmond, off Point Linai, forty miles from the River Mersey, bound in, with steamer Baltic and a pilot boat in the distance.

From your friend,

C. W. RICHMOND.

The oil painting is about six times the size of the within, and a splendid picture. The Dean, you will recollect, was the first vessel that ever took a cargo direct from Chicago to the Old World—which was wheat--and I confidently believe is the pioneer of the greatest thoroughfare in the world in time.

Chicago, April 17th, 1857.

—C. W. R.

Mr. Richmond may have been over-enthusiastic about his claim for the vessel, but he could not be too enthusiastic about the beauty of the paintings, judged by their colored reproductions. In the picture off Point Lenai the schooner is shown under full sail—almost an exact replica of the Lyman M. Davis, which the Sunnyside Amusement Co. now threaten to burn to boost their receipts on the 24th of May. Indeed, with the exception of the squaresail yard which the Lyman M. Davis carries and the Dean Richmond did not, the portrait of the Richmond would be accepted anywhere as a portrait of the Davis under sail. The paint is similar - a black hull with white bottom and a stripe of color at the covering board, the clipper bow the same, and the rig is identical, the same long spearing jib-boom with four jibs and the same long raking topmasts. The Richmond is shown flying the American jack, white stars on blue, at the fore truck, and at the main truck, a red burgee with her name on it in white letters. Below this burgee is a white flag bordered in yellow with the letters C.Y.R. At the main peak flies the Union Jack. Gaffs, booms and mastheads are painted white. The jib-boom is yellow with a black" tip. The foot of each mast, between the boom saddle and deck, is bright green. A lifeboat is shown to be carried on deck under the foreboom for the ocean passage.

Some writers have set down the Dean Richmond's voyage as taking place in 1859, but it is apparent from the inscriptions on the back of these pictures that she made a passage three years earlier. She left Chicago on July 17th and spent two days in Milwaukee, completing her cargo. She arrived in Liverpool on September 17th, sixty-two days and five hours "out" from Chicago, having covered a distance of four thousand and sixty-eight miles. It took her ten days and two hours to reach Port Colborne from Milwaukee. She was three days, fifteen hours in the Welland Canal, towing through with horses. The passage of the present canal only takes eight hours. It took her six days more to sail to Prescott on the St. Lawrence. She was six days and three hours in the canals leading to Montreal. From Montreal to Quebec was a hundred and eighty miles in twenty-nine hours in tow of a tug.

Her voyage from Chicago to Quebec one thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight miles, took twenty-nine days and one hour—two days longer than it took her to cross the ocean. She made the passage of twenty-five hundred miles from Quebec to Liverpool in an even twenty-seven days.

The Dean Richmond was as about as large a craft as could be wriggled through the old Welland Canal. She was loaded to nine feet draft for this voyage with 15,000 bushels of wheat. Although in appearance exactly similar to Lyman M. Davis, the Dean Richmond was slightly larger than that vessel in dimensions. The Richmond was 134.7 feet long, 26.11 feet beam and 11.6 feet depth of hold. She measured 379 tons, old American style. She was built by Quayle and Martin at Cleveland and was launched the year she made the Atlantic voyage. Her master was Capt. Pierce.

Following the Dean Richmond's successful voyage the brig or brigantine J. G. Dasher sailed from Chicago with a cargo of wheat for overseas in October; 1856.The wheat was owned by S. J. Holley. The vessel was owned by Warner and Harmon of Cleveland.

But the brig got ashore at Nine Mile Creek, near Oswego, on the 4th November, 1856, after losing both topmasts during the night and becoming unmanageable. Her crew floated a line on a spar ashore and farmers on the beach secured this and fastened it to a tree, and so rescued the ship's company of eight men and one woman. Evidently the brig survived the battering on the beach, for in 1863 she loaded a cargo of copper at Bruce Mines, took on staves as a deckload at Detroit and cleared for Liverpool on May 27th under a Capt. Stingleman. She her made the round trip and was back at Detroit on Dec. 14th. Meantime she had been sold to Shaw, Cunningham & Co., and renamed the Cressington. She brought back a cargo of salt and pig iron from London and sailed again with staves for Liverpool from Detroit under a Capt. Jennings, but was never heard from 3 after leaving Quebec.

AND IS OUR FACE RED?

Sir,—May I, a landlubber, express my appreciation of your articles in The Telegram showing the progress of the "Nancy" model.

I find these articles most interesting and am saving each as it appears. I am sure I am one of the many thousands who, look forward with keen expectation to each issue of The Tely in which your interesting and instructive articles appear.

Very sincerely,

-GORDON HILL GRAHAME

2 Washington avenue.

RIGHT, ABBIE

Sir, -Wasn't it in 1854 the Conductor was lost on Long Point?

ABIGAIL.

WIARTON WIRES IN

Sir,—Don't let them burn the Lyman M. Davis. As the last of the fore-and-afters she ought to be saved future generations to see. Two years ago she wintered in Wiarton, Ont., and I remember her quite well. Your effort to save her from burning is very much appreciated in Wiarton where she is well known and remembered. Best of luck.

- ED. HULL,

Wiarton, Ont.

THE LIMEKILN

Sir,—In your very interesting and instructive "Schooner Days" article "Accompanying Kate," you say the "Kate" grounded on the Limekiln crossing on the St. Clair River.

The crossing is in the Detroit river near Lake Erie, close to Amherstburg.

Bois Blanc (Baw Blow) island lies fairly close to the Canadian shore, and my recollection is that the ship channel lies between island and shore, the "crossing being a short distance up river.

-WM. S. DEAN,

132 Simcoe street.

(Thanks, Mr. Dean. Of course you are light. And thank you for the information about your model fittings, which we, know from their high reputation.)