Turning Back the Clock – Builder's List Does It: Schooner Days CXCVI (196)
- Publication
- Toronto Telegram (Toronto, ON), 13 Jul 1935
- Full Text
- Turning Back the Clock –
Builder's List Does ItSchooner Days CXCVI (196)___
OF COURSE all the vessels mentioned by Alexander Muir, in his interesting census of shipping on the lakes when he first saw these inland seas in 1837, after coming out from Scotland, have long since vanished.
Ships often outlast the men who build them, but few ships and few men live a century. But there are surprisingly many traces left of the vessels Alexander Muir saw afloat ninety years ago, and recorded in his memoirs.
One of these was the Jessie Woods, a schooner built by the Niagara Harbor and Dock Company. She measured 150 tons, and was commanded, as Alexander Muir relates, by Capt. Wheeler at one time and by Capt. Burgess at another.
Now Mr. James G. Cornell of Scarboro had on view, at a garden party given a fortnight ago at his residence on the Kingston road, two mementos of the Jessie Woods. One was an octagonal Waterbury clock, which used to hang in her cabin, and the other was a rectangular slab of dressed marble, which formed part of her last cargo. Marble from the Jessie Woods is still sometimes dug out of the beach at the foot of the Highlands, or Scarboro Heights, for it was there that she was wrecked, coming over from Niagara eighty years ago, almost opposite Mr. Cornell’s home. The family has lived in Scarboro for generations, and his grandfather, William Cornell II, was one of the boys engaged to guard the wreck after the crew had been taken ashore.
They took their duties very seriously, and primed themselves against falling asleep by brewing a pot of tea from the cargo, which was being salvaged. The tea was green, and the product did not look very strong, so they put in another handful of leaves. This did not seem to produce a very dark flow, so they tried some more. The resulting potency of the draught was such that they felt fit to carry all the marble in the cargo up the Highlands on their backs; but before they got around to it they were deathly sick.
Besides the tea and the marble the Jessie Woods had crates of glass, agricultural implements, tobacco, sugar, boots and shoes. Most of this was got out of her when the storm abated. The lighter stuff was hauled away. The marble was left on the beach. Pieces in varying size are still to be found in Scarboro farmsteads and some of the slabs were built into the Scarboro War Memorial at Birch Cliff.
The vessel was so badly damaged that she broke up before she could be refloated, and this clock and the slab of marble were William Cornell’s part of the salvage. The clock has been in service for almost a century; it had a second hand, and the second dial was divided into quarter-minutes.
The first William Cornell, father of the salvager, and great grandfather of Mr. James G. Cornell, was a U.E. Loyalist, who settled in Scarboro in the year 1800, occupying the land at the crest of Scarboro Highlands, which is still the Cornell homestead, and adjoining the farms of the Muirs and the Millers. It was here, after the battle of York, on April 27, 1813, that the British wounded were left behind in Sheaffe’s retreat to Kingston. The Cornell family fed and sheltered these British soldiers for two months.
Sometime between 1800 and 1812 William Cornell built a small trading schooner at the mouth of the River Rouge. He may have been the pioneer of the Rouge mouth operations, for several vessels of considerable size were built where now a canoe can scarcely float. The snub-nosed promontory to the east of the river mouth, which used to be much more pronounced than it is now, was locally known as Billy’s Point after William Cornell. In later years the Cowan family, whose farm included the point, named it Rosebank. The Cornell schooner built there was confiscated at Ogdensburg just before the war of 1812, with her cargo, by the Americans. She was either captured on the lake by the cruiser Oneida, which was making unjust prizes under the embargo law, or she was run into Ogdensburg by her skipper, who was a New York State man. The Cornell schooner apparently shared the fate of the better-known Crooks schooner. Lord Nelson, for which compensation was paid more than one hundred years afterwards.
Another vessel Capt. Muir included in his pre-rebellion list was the Lady Hilliard, of Whitby. The name is also spelled Hiliard and Hillyard. Whom the schooner commemorated is not known. Apparently the vessel was a long-lived antique of many aliases. Thomas’ marine register lists the schooner Caspian, owned by David Hudson in Brighton, in 1864, as “formerly the Lady Hilliard, formerly the Isabella." The Isabella, owned by N. Hudgins, of Port Milford, in Prince Edward County, is listed as “formerly "Alwilda,” formerly “Dove.” Which brings us pretty well on towards “formerly Ark, Noah, master.”
Still another mentioned by Alexander Muir is the William Penn, originally a brigantine, later rebuilt and re-rigged as a schooner, and renamed the Marion L. Breck, after a daughter of one of the owners, the firm Calvin and Breck, of Garden Island. The Marion L. Breck lived till 1907, when she was wrecked on the Bear’s Rump in Georgian Bay, with a cargo of bricks. Her bones may still be seen there -- another link with the long ago recalled by Alexander Muir’s memoirs.
The Pacific mentioned by Capt. Muir was probably the Pacific of Whitby, formerly the Sir Robert Peel, a smallish schooner or brigantine of 65 tons. She was owned in 1864 by R. Mara, Toronto, and must have been decrepit from age. Her insurable value was then only $400. An early brigantine of this name crossed the Atlantic from Toronto in 1844; the first recorded lake vessel to do so But the Pacific of Whitby appears to have been too small to be sent profitably on such a voyage. A three-masted schooner named the Pacific, built at Robbins Mills, near Picton, made a successful voyage to Liverpool and another to South America in the 1870's.
The Jessie Woods was sailing as late as 1855 for the old records of the Port Whitby Harbor Company show her paying harbor dues in that year. A smaller sister ship, built at Niagara in 1832, and mentioned by Alexander Muir—the Fanny—is on the Port Whitby books in 1854. The Fanny was owned at one time in Toronto, John Harper advertising her for sale at Tinning’s Wharf in 1843, and giving her size as 60 tons. When Alexander Muir first knew her she was sailed by Capt. McBroom. The Princess, also mentioned by Capt. Muir, was a third sister in the Niagara Harbor and Dock Company's fleet, built in seven years between 1832 and 1839.
CaptionClock and marble slab kept by Mr. Jas. G. Cornell. The ring-like stains on the marble are where flowerpots have stood.
- Creator
- Snider, C. H. J.
- Media Type
- Newspaper
- Text
- Item Type
- Clippings
- Date of Publication
- 13 Jul 1935
- Subject(s)
- Language of Item
- English
- Geographic Coverage
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Ontario, Canada
Latitude: 43.25012 Longitude: -79.06627 -
Ontario, Canada
Latitude: 43.80012 Longitude: -79.11628 -
Ontario, Canada
Latitude: 43.718055 Longitude: -79.227777 -
Ontario, Canada
Latitude: 43.88342 Longitude: -78.93287
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- Donor
- Richard Palmer
- Creative Commons licence
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