Christmas Cheer "Out-A Detroit" And El'sewhere: Schooner Days CCXIX (219)

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Detroit, 12-16-'35.

"Schooner Days," The Telegram,

Toronto, Ont.:

STAND by to grab a heavin' line and haul in a friendly hail and a few words of appreciation for the enjoyment and remembrance of old times your fine articles have brought to me and several friends who, also, can hark back to the days when the lakes were lousy with sailing craft and nearly every port had its shipyard turning out more each season.

Made your acquaintance over a year ago when Friend Jim McMillan, conductor, C.N.R., at Allandale, started sending me clippings. Think "Annavan," that story of that grand old Highland lass who kept heart in the storm-tossed crew of the Otonabee was the first. A bit later while visiting the McMillans, a neighbor, Trainmaster Little, drove us over to Collingwood where he introduced me to Mr. David Williams at the Bulletin office as a "worse bug about boats than you are, Dave!'" We had quite a session over Mr. Williams' scrapbook containing pictures and pedigree of nearly every vessel that plowed the lakes. The same age, I could go back as far as he and swap yarn for yarn. Meanwhile our wives, in the car were beginning to worry, wondering where we were.

FROM THE HOME OF "THE GRAND HAVEN RIG"

Born at Grand Haven, I spent nearly half my life there, saw the I schooner trade reach its peak, and the steambarge begin to crowd them out; the first towbarges, then the end of the sawdust empire, and lumber cargoes began coming into our ports from way north and Canada. Several of our schooners had ports cut in the bows and made trips with long timber to Liverpool. Someway, then, it did not seem such a remarkable feat as it does now in recalling it; we took our ships and skippers for granted, then.

The Grand Haven ketch rig, I think, was the result of one of T. W. Kirby's schooners losing her mainmast in a squall; found she worked so well under fore and mizzen he changed several of his three masters to the ketch rig, and built two or three with fore and mizzen only. They needed fewer men and it was easier stowing lumber. I can also recall several very old timers which had tarred I manila standing rigging, instead of the later universal wire.

'Time I was five my mind was fully made up to become a sailor; later, during school vacations, I messed around on schooners enough to "hand, reef and steer"; then the engine room proved more fascinating and I settled on that as life work. Before serving "time" enough to apply for first papers an accident ended further sailing except as a passenger, but the love of boats and the element they navigate has persisted through all the years. My final berth was the "antipodes" of all the early dreams —for over thirty years have been a proofreader on the Detroit News and most of our vacations have been on the Canada Steamship boats. All this to explain further why your articles have set a lot of chords vibrating in this old hulk.

CORDWOOD BREASTWORKS

FOR MACKENZIE'S REBELS

Of especial interest are the Muir numbers and the list of (Canadian) vessels on Ontario in the year 1837, for my maternal grandfather, Hamilton Jones, sailed on that lake from 1829 to 1843, though from the "south side" of the lake. He came from Vermont, as a boy, in 1818, settling near Sacket's Harbor, learned ship-carpentry there, then till 1844 sailed, farmed or worked at his trade. During the "rebellion" Capt. Muir writes of, in 1837, grandfather was living in Rochester and belonged to a militia company. They were sent to Fort Niagara to help guard the border, and somewhere along the line, he used to tell, they built breastworks of cordwood, to stop rebel bullets. Wasn't that the year the loyalist forces burned the steamer Caroline and the rebels blew up Brock's monument?

Grandfather could tell stories by the hour of those Lake Ontario days, they always seemed to mean more than the later ones. Have heard him mention a number of Capt. Muir's list; and of the American schooners he sailed on some were the Ariadne, Lady of the Lake, Hiram and Oneida, and he owned a craft called the Maria.

One of the few relics I have is a "clearance" reading "District of Genesee, Port of Rochester, Sept. 28, 1838," wherein "H. Jones, master of the schooner Maria, hath here cleared his vessel for Toronto, having on board ballast and necessary sea stores for the voyage.

DURHAM BOATS

AND THE FIRST PROPELLER

He used to tell of those large, flat boats, Durhams some were called, which brought cargoes down the rivers and the fighting and drinking common among the crews. From his yarns I seemed to get to know most every port, bay, island or inlet on Ontario, so your descriptions are doubly interesting, yet I was 60 years old before ever setting eyes on its blue expanse, and then got a fine shaking up going across on the "Kingston."

In 1844 grandfather, two other Ontario skippers and families boarded the Vandalia, first screw steamer on the lakes, for Chicago. They had taken up government land near there and expected to farm it. Reckon that voyage would have made an epic could a day-to-day account have been preserved. Grandmother never forgot that weary progress up the lakes from the time they crawled through the Welland Canal. A succession of storms, lying in shelter, stopping for wood, sickness and utter discomfort as well as danger. Erie was bad, Huron worse; but Michigan the very worst.

Seeking shelter in Grand River, on Lake Michigan, they found Rev. William M. Ferry "missioning" Indians, building a town and sawmill and acquiring all the pine timber for miles around. He persuaded grandfather to debark and go to work for him, assuring him Chicago would never amount to anything while Grand Haven with its harbor, boundless forests and the railway coming from Detroit was to be a metropolis.

The Joneses unloaded their chattels and there lived out their days; grandfather for years acting as mill-wright, shipyard boss and master of Ferry vessels, by which I mean not ferry boats but schooners owned: by the W. M. Ferry firm.

"PORT OF CHICAGO"

IN THE 1840'S

Perhaps the fact that some years previous his old friend, Capt. Eddy Irons, had sailed the Eliza Ward; from Oswego to Chicago with a cargo of general merchandise and, arriving at the river mouth, had to swing his booms out with all the weights he could hang on them, then hove down on the bilge, a dozen yoke of oxen dragged her over the bar, had something to do with the decision. This was on July 4th and instead of firecrackers a huge New York cheese was broached and passed to all comers by Capt. Irons.

Grandfather's last gesture seaward was to build a five-ton sailboat, an exact model of the old Lake Ontario schooner, square-rigged forward, too. He was nearing 80 then, and the boat outlived him 25 years as a staunch and able fishing craft. As I said before, have to take my sailing "vicariously" and I want to say again how much your articles have meant; have over a year's numbers in a large scrapbook. Please excuse such a rambling mess as this is, but those old ships and men come very close to "where I live" and the cuts are interesting. Please keep on, and more power to you. Sincerely yours,

JAMES H. SAFFORD.

262 Piper North, Detroit.

Thanks, Skipper Safford, and a merry Christmas to you. I would give my next month's pay, if any, for the chance to talk with your grandfather. Some of the vessels he told you about were original war-craft of 1812. That Oneida, for instance, was the old brig-of-war built in 1811, which mounted sixteen 24-pounders and was the whole American navy on Lake Ontario when the war broke out. She was slow as molasses, but solidly built, and made a grand carrier in the timber trade when the war was over. Capt. Van Cleve's memoirs tell of her at Carleton Island in the early 1830's.

And the Lady of the Lake, built at Sackett's Harbor during the war, was the fastest schooner in the American fleet, according to Fenimore Cooper's hero, "Ned Myers." As despatches show that she sailed from Niagara to Sacket's Harbor in 1813 in fourteen hours she must have been a clipper. No yacht on Lake Ontario has ever done that, and I doubt if any can. Come again and again. A Merry Christmas, from the compiler of Schooner Days.

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"GRAND HAVEN RIG" This conversion of the three-masted schooner rig into an adaptation of the ketch was peculiar to the Great Lakes, and originated on Lake Michigan, Mr. Safford tells.

FIRST OF THE PROPELLERS, the Vandalia, oozing her way up the lakes as Mr. Salford's grandfather describes. The Vandalia was highly significant; she initiated the steam-barge era on the lakes, eventually eliminating the sailing vessel from the bulk freight trade. So long as steamers were side-wheelers, their model and the disposition of machinery amidships confined their efforts to handling passengers and package freight. The propeller had an open hold, like a schooner. This picture is reproduced by courtesy of the Canada Steamships Lines marine collection, and is the work another excellent freshwater marine artist, Lieut. George A, Cuthbertson, of Thurso, Quebec. His book, "Freshwater," which he illustrated himself, is a priceless record of marine types.

FROM CHIEF MATE ROWLEY MURPHY, TORONTO - a Christmas card showing the Stuart H. Dunn in Sylvester's slip at the foot of Church street one Christmas Eve thirty years ago. Mr. Murphy, an outstanding illustrator, and one of the professors in the Ontario College of Art, has an uncommonly sensitive feeling for the spirit of sailing times. When this century was younger, ROWLEY MURPHY was filling schoolboy sketchbooks on the waterfront just like the lad in his picture.