"Up the Lake Like a Diving-Bell": Schooner Days CXL (140)

Something more of the life adventures of the schooner Keewatin, ex-Paragon.

REDNERSVILLE, on the south side of the reach of the Bay of Quinte passing Belleville, commemorates a long established United Empire Loyalist family, and J. W. Redner, who gets his mail on Rural Route number four, Belleville, writes "Schooner Days" most interestingly about a vessel once well known in Toronto, the Keewatin of Port Hope.

He tells what became of her, which is even yet news to some of the sailor community. She was one of the great fleet of grown-up war babies that left the lakes when tonnage grew scarce on the sea-board— they ran them down the St. Lawrence four abreast sometimes—but unlike many of the lake wagons, she reached her salt-water destination, New Orleans. But it took her months to get into the Gulf of Mexico.

As requested by Mr. Redner, "Schooner Days" adds the information, already given in this column, that the original Paragon, which was rebuilt and renamed Keewatin, was built at Oshawa in 1852 by a traveling shipwright named Lummaree.

The rebuilding which resulted in the Keewatin was a very thorough one, and so changed the vessel that not only had she greatly enlarged carrying capacity, but she had three masts instead of two. The old Paragon, which may have started life is a brigantine or topsail schooner, was unrecognizable in the new three-'n'-after. The new name, Keewatin, was taken by sailors to mean a fair wind. Two Indians were depicted on the stern, making the medicine for this great desideratum. The old Paragon could do with it, for she was never remarkable for ability to go to windward. The new name came from the Cree words Keeway Din, meaning the land of the north wind. The north wind is a "fair wind" down Lake Ontario.

The Keewatin was rebuilt for Archibald Campbell, Esq., who had a wharf at Colborne, and was a grain and flour and shipping merchant on a large scale in the good old days of Ontario barley. Capt. John Keith of Colborne sailed her and later Capt. James Redfern. She was bought by the Elias Rogers Company of Toronto and traded out of this port for twenty years. But to Mr. Redner's letter:—

"I am enclosing a snapshot of the Keewatin in the Bay of Quinte near Belleville coal loaded, which I hope you will be able to use.

"I look forward to the regular Saturday edition as the means of recalling old friends and reviving old memories.

"The Keewatin was built back in '88 at Lakeport on the bottom of the schooner Paragon and was owned I think by a Mr. Campbell. As your sources of information are more accurate than mine I hope you will add to this anything relative to her early career.

"In 1911 she was bought from Rogers Coal Co. of Toronto by Doherty and Meehan of Belleville, ho sailed her for a number of years and finally sold her to a firm in New Orleans.

"She lost her rudder in the Atlantic on the passage down and was towed into an American port and fitted with a new one and finally reached New Orleans after a passage of two months. I understand she went to pieces a gale in the Gulf of Mexico.

"I would like to add the account of a passage from Oswego to Toronto coal loaded the same fall Doherty and Meehan bought her.

"The Arthur and Keewatin both loaded in Oswego for Rogers and the wind being from the north they both hung up for the night.

"In the morning the storm signals went up for a northeast gale. The Arthur towed out at 8 a.m. and two hours after the Keewatin followed with the wind northeast and light. As the day wore on the wind increased and before dark she was reefed all around and going like a scared cat. She had too much sail on her still and the man at the wheel couldn't handle her and let her broach to filling her from rail to rail, shifting a heavy line box that stood aft of the main mast, and throwing overboard a compass that was attached to the box.

"They got the main and mizzen off her and eased her up some but she was deep loaded and wet and steered hard.

"However toward morning the wind seemed to be taking off and they dressed her up again and she went up the lake like a diving ball finally arriving in Toronto two hours ahead of the Arthur.

"You had to make a passage in one of those deep loaded coal schooners in the fall of the year to realize the hardships encountered on the old wind windjammers.

"The mate, Mick Meehan, was so wet and chilled that night that his throat and vocal cords were affected and it was six weeks before he could speak and he never regained his normal speech.

"I would like to add that it would be just too bad to burn the last old wind wagon to give people a thrill.

"Yours truly.

—"J. W. REDNER."

THE KEEWATIN in the Eastern Gap, 1907, from an old Christmas Globe supplement kindly lent by Mr. J. Humphrey.

IN THE BAY OF QUINTE—A snapshot for which we are indebted to Mr. J. W. Redner. It shows the "Kee" with light-weather flying staysails on the main and mizzen masts.

THE KEEWATIN READY FOR LAUNCHING after her rebuild, a picture which Capt. Peter Shaw kindly supplied.