On the Lakes Before the Mackenzie Rebels: Schooner Days CXCV (195)

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ALEXANDER MUIR'S LIST OF SAILING VESSELS ON THE GREAT LAKES IN 1837.

ADELAIDE of Brockville, Capt. John Atkinson. H. and S. Jones owners.

AMELIA, Oakville, Capt. King.

BRITANNIA, Oakville, Capt. Boyland.

BRITANNIA, Port Stanley, Capt. Bostwick. Pt. Stanley, also called Kettle Creek. Bostwick owned another small vessel here.

BURLINGTON, Hamilton, Capt. Carr [Kerr]; at Burlington Beach, owner; 100 ton steamer of same name owned at Dundas same time; ran daily from Dundas to Toronto, calling Hamilton and Oakville.

SIR FRANCIS BOND HEAD, Prescott, Capt. Wm. Taylor.

CANADA, Kingston, Capt. John Mason; owners, John and George Ives.

HARRIET CALVIN, 1839.

EMILY, Brockville. Capt. W. Thompson; H. and S. Jones owners.

ERIE and ONTARIO, Port Stanley, Capt. Jas. Lang; owned by Mr. Parks at Fort Malden and Amherstburg.

FANNIE, Niagara, Capt. McBroom.

FARMER'S DAUGHTER, Oakville, Capt. Roberts

FONTANA, Kingston, Capt. Cormair.

GRANVILLE, Prescott, Captain Jonathan Currin.

KINGSTON. Kingston. Capt. Wm. Donaldson; J. and G. Ives owners: they also owned strs. Gt. Britain, Cobourg and Queenston, St. Geo., Wm. IV., Barrie. [ed: which is incorrect, just Queenston]

LADY HILLYARD, Capt. John McIntyre.

LORD WELLINGTON, of Wellington; perhaps same as Wellington of Kingston.

LORD NELSON, Toronto, Capt. Ross.

LIVERPOOL.

MASS (AS) AGA CHIEF. Port Hope, Capt. Bennett; owned by J. McDonald.

McKENZIE, Toronto, Capt. Valler.

MARGARET, Hamilton, Capt. McArthur.

MONTREAL, Prescott, Capt. Henry Towle [ed: Towhy]

PRINCESS ROYAL, Oakville, Capt. Boyland owner.

PRINCESS. Niagara, Capt. McHenry; owned by Capt. Wheeler.

PACIFIC, Toronto, Capt. Ross owner, with one or two other small vessels.

QUEEN VICTORIA.

ROSE.

ST. LAWRENCE. Kingston, Capt Fred Mayne.

SOVEREIGN, Niagara, Capt. McKee; launched midsummer '37.

TRAVELLER (str) Hamilton, Capt. Zealand.

UNION, Port Hope, Capt. Patterson.

WELLINGTON, Kingston, Capt Burns; also given as owned at Wellington by Col. Pearson.

JESSIE WOODS. Niagara, Capt. Wheeler; also Capt. Burgess

WELLAND CANAL. St. Catharines

Wm. PENN

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THERE were two Alexander Muirs.

One gave us the Maple Leaf. The other gave Canadian shipping the drydock at Port Dalhousie which bears his name, and an impetus which lives long after him.

This Alexander was the greatest of the five Muir brothers who built the drydock, and built their own vessels beside it, and sailed them all over the lakes and across to their ancestral Scotland. Alexander was the leader in most of the family enterprises. His nephew', Mr. Wm. C. Muir, is the present head of Muir Brothers Drydock. When an old man in 1890, Alexander Muir prepared a memorandum of how he came to Lake Ontario, a move which made his fortune and that of his house. It sheds the light of long ago on "Schooner Days," for Alexander was sailing the inland seas before the first shots were fired in the Mackenzie rebellion. It also contains the earliest census of last century's lake shipping. Here is how it begins:

"In the winter of 1836 I heard of the great freshwater lakes a few hundred miles further west, and with a few other young men, neighbors of my father on the river (near Montreal), I made up my mind to go . . . About midnight, early in April, 1837, we all left the river on horseback. We rode about 30 miles to Fort Covington or Dundee on the Salmon River. My brother, James,

went thus far with us. and took all our horses back home."

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Alexander was then 18. They travelled further by canoe, stage, canal-boat and steamer. The Cornwall canal was then about half finished and no men at work. "Our Canadian rebellion was near at hand and the country was in an unsettled state."

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"Small bateaus were passing up the Lachine Canal. When loaded they drew about 5 feet of water, and one foot when light. They were 18 feet wide and 90 feet long, and their capacity was about 300 barrels of flour. They sailed and poled and towed with horses and oxen. Sometimes they passed up the St. Laurence [Lawrence] and sometimes they passed from Lashene [Lachine] up the Ottowa [Ottawa] River and locked up at Bytown, as Ottawa was then called, then up the Rideau Canal to Kingston. This voyage would last from three to four weeks. All depended on favorable winds and towing.

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"In towing in the St. Laurence the line was often cut to prevent the horses and oxen from being pulled into the canal when the boat would take a sheer out from the shore. When I came up the river in this spring of '37 there was still a capstan on Pine Tree Point to tow barges around the bend. A line would be passed from the boat to this capstan, and a horse would turn the capstan and heave the boat around. This is the narrowest point in the St. Laurence River.

"In the months of October and November the forwarders were charging 40 and 50 cents a barrel freight for flour from Kingston for Montreal.

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"We travelled the length of this canal (apparently Long Sault) and were in time to catch the steamer Black Hawk at Dickinson's Landing from which place she left every morning for Prescott.

"Arrived at Prescott I found the schooner Sir Francis Bond Head discharging flour. She had made one trip up to Hamilton and return. She was named after the then governor of Canada [Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada]. This vessel was built at Prescott, and was owned there by Hooker and Henderson, forwarders. They also owned the schooner (Montreal?) built at Prescott. The schooner Granville was also owned at Prescott. Their capacity was about 5,000 or 6,000 bushels of wheat on a draft of 8 feet. This was all the shipping then owned at Prescott."

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"I will now name all the vessels and steamers owned in Canada in 1837."

The list, completed from further references in Capt. Muir's memoir, is given beside his portrait. Of the vessels mentioned he says:

"The schooner Granville was owned at Prescott by Thos. Dacet.

"At Whitby, Lake Ontario, the schooner Lady Hillyard was owned by Stewart and Thul. (Thul? or Trull?)

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"At St. Catharines a schooner called the Welland Canal was built and owned by an old sea captain who intended taking her to the coast of Africa as he said to catch 'black birds' and sell them in the Southern States.

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"McPherson and Craine [Crane] owned a number of small steamers and canal boats trading between Montreal and Kingston by the Rideau Canal. Hooker and Henderson, Prescott, H. and S. Jones of Brockville, J. and G. Ives at Kingston were all that were doing business in that line (forwarding) in 1837. There had been a McMillan at Prescott, a forwarder before these others, as I saw his sign on an old warehouse near the old fort. In 1848, the first year that large lake vessels attempted to take cargoes from the lake to Montreal, I met this same McMillan as a collector of canal tolls Edwardsburg.

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"The Canadian steamers landed most of their passengers and freight at Niagara. Here was a good marine railway, capable of hauling out of the largest steamers, a large foundry, and one or two banks. Goods were teamed from the west and shipped at Niagara, and each steamer had a warehouse on the dock there. On each warehouse was printed the name of the steamer, and all goods received from steamers were stored at and shipped from the differently named warehouses. It was the most law-abiding town west of Montreal. There was also a fine race course, and they had races every year, and soldiers occupied the old forts built in 1812. There were two gunboats on the stocks near the river. They had been ordered by the government during the War of 1812 but as they had never been required they had never been launched."

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Alexander's adventures in the Sir Francis Bond Head will be recounted next Saturday.

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IN THE LONG LEVEL AT PORT COLBORNE on the Welland Canal when the Muir shipyard at Port Dalhousie was turning out wooden schooners.

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MASTER MARINER AND BUILDER ALEXANDER MUIR who begins the story of his life life in Rebellion times.