"Spences of Saugeen"-Some of Their Ships: Schooner Days CCXXVIII (228)

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As soon as Capt. John Spence's little boys were able to toddle up the gangplank he took them sailing with him—Johnny and Harry and Willy and Aleck, who was nicknamed "Cappy." He made sailors of them all.

"Old" Capt. John, of Southampton and Port Elgin, did this. He was so known on Lake Huron long before he died—and he lived to be ninety—but he was Old Captain John to distinguish him from his son, Capt. Jack Spence, who also sailed vessels when he grew up. Two of his commands, which his father owned, were the Wanderer and the White Oak, both of which came from Lake Ontario.

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All the Spence boys sailed with their father in the Nemesis. It is a long time since she was ploughing the waves—sixty years— but there are men still living who sailed with John Spence and his sons in her. One is Mr. Albert Leeder, of 116 Millicent street, Toronto. Another is Mr. George E. Currie, of Detroit, who went to the Saugeen Peninsula in 1878 and, ten years later, married Capt. Spence's youngest daughter. Still another is Capt. Frank Granville, of Chatham. The lakes bred a race of hardy, long-lived sailors.

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"I sailed with the old captain and John and Harry on the Nemesis," says Mr. Leeder. "That was in 1879 that I was with them. Old Captain John was quite an old man then, and the son John was really sailing the vessel. It was him I shipped with and he was known as Capt. Jack Spence. The old captain would take the wheel on his watch with Harry, Capt. Jack and I on the other watch. If more help was required in emergency, such as sudden squalls, etc., in our watch, Capt. Jack would sing out down the cabin scuttle, 'Come up here, Harry,' or if in the Old Man's watch, it would be, 'Come up here, Al.' We all slept in the cabin, four bunks in the sides, and Captain Jack's bunk was partitioned off into a separate room, the captain's room. We slept — we 'turned in' all standing when out on the lake, always ready for a call."

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One of the pioneers of the growing lake trade, the Nemesis used to gather up grain cargoes along the east shore of Lake Huron in the spring and fall, carrying them down to Walkerville, Cleveland or Kingston, at the foot of Lake Ontario. In the summer she used to freight lumber, tanbark and cedar for block paving, to Detroit.

One morning late in the year 1876 the little Nemesis was storming down Lake Huron before a strong northeaster. She was a small schooner about 80 feet long, built to carry 4,500 bushels of wheat; a contrast against the 600,000 bushel freighter Le Moyne, of our time. Capt. Spence sighted a ship's boat, wallowing in the trough. The waves were running so high it was impossible to bring the Nemesis alongside, for she would have crushed the lifeboat as she rolled. It was also impossible to heave a line and take the boat in tow, for that would have swamped or capsized the little craft. The crew of the Nemesis could count seventeen figures huddled in the ice in the bottom of the boat.

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Capt. Spence sailed the Nemesis as close to the boat as he dared, and the crew, hanging over the rail, grabbed at whatever they could catch and dragged some of the ship wrecked people aboard as the schooner shot past. Then he turned her around, let the boat drift down and sailed past her again and again.

In this way, at great peril to his own craft, which might have been dismasted or capsized in the maneuvres, he took off sixteen men and one woman from the water-logged boat. One of the rescued, a fireman, was so helpless he slipped between the schooner and the lifeboat as they were trying to haul him aboard. He was drowned. The others were all carefully tended in the little vessel's cabin and brought in safety to Sarnia Bay. The Nemesis was so iced up when she anchored there that the sails could not be lowered. They had to hang as they were, frozen masses of ice, snow, spray and canvas.

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The rescued were the crew of the United States propeller New York, which had foundered in Lake Huron in the gale during the night. The woman was the cook. Several vessels had passed the foundering steamer and the lifeboat without being able to give assistance.

Ulysses S. Grant was then President of the United States. In acknowledging the bravery and skill of the captain and crew of the Nemesis he sent Capt. Spence a beautifully engraved gold watch, and medals for Mate John H. Spence, the captain's oldest boy, and all the members of the crew. The village of Southampton, not to be outdone, presented the captain with a solid silver tea service.

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Young "Cappy" Spence was his father's favorite. As their sire aged, the sons urged him to give up sailing and take his ease ashore. He yielded to them in 1885, retiring with the dignity of a Justice, of the Peace, but he yearned for the water. "Cappy" was sailing the Nemesis and was shorthanded. His father insisted on going with him for a trip late in the fall. His other sons had firmly declined exposing him to the hardships of late navigation, and he exclaimed pathetically, " 'Cappy' won't leave his poor old dad at home!'" So the' Nemesis sailed, still shorthanded, even with the addition of her old master.

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Outside Goderich they tried to moor, to ride out an offshore squall, in the lee of the land. Something went wrong, and the yawlboat had to be lowered. Possibly they were trying to run a line to the breakwater. In assisting at the lowering the young captain was knocked overboard by the main boom jibing. The davit falls jammed and the boat could not be lowered for his assistance. He drowned before his father's eyes. In the squall the Nemesis blew all the way across Lake Huron, fetching up, at Sand Beach, Michigan, in the morning. Capt. Spence's heart was broken by the tragedy, though he lived long after it.

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As already said, his son, Capt. Wm. Spence, died in Kingston a few months ago. His son, Mr. W. H. Spence, lives at 319 Indian road, Toronto. Senator Spence, of Rosedale, is a cousin.

What other vessels beside the Nemesis, White Oak, Wanderer and Ontario, the Spences, father and sons sailed various times is not known to this deponent, but there were lots of them trading "out of Saugeen" in the sixties, seventies and eighties of last century, and even up to the first decade of the present one.

We will try to look at a list of them next week.

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CAPE HORN DAYS

I never was in clipper ships when

   they was in their prim,

The tea fleet an' the wool fleet, they

   was done afore my time,

The ship I knowed the best was a

   big Cape Horner

Thrashin' to the westward 'round

   that stormy corner

Loaded down with Cardiff coals, for

   California,

Rollin' 'round to 'Frisco—forty year ago.

 

When it was 'round the Horn an'

   'ome again, that's sailor's way,

Cross the road to Newcastle—back

    to 'Frisco Bay.

Up the coast to Oregon, down to

   Callao,

'Round the Horn an' 'ome again—

   forty year ago.

 

She was 'ard-runned, undermanned,

   'ungry as you please,

She wallowed both rails under in

   the thundering Cape Horn seas;

With three thousand ton inside her,

   she was like an 'ouse to steer.

She didn't carry flyin' kites, nor

such like fancy gear.

But reefin' upper topsails was a

   picnic in a blow.

Rollin' 'ome from 'Frisco—forty year

   ago.

 

She was only built for cargo, she

   was nothin' of a clipper,

But the old man was a snorter of an

   old-style racin' skipper.

The seas they kep' on poopin' 'er, 'e

   wouldn't 'eave 'er to,

'E ung on to 'is topsails an' 'e run

   till all was blue.

It was "keep 'er moving, mister!"

   every time 'e went below.

And we beat the fleet from 'Frisco-

   forty year ago.

 

But time 'e keeps on movin' too, and

   them old days are past,

An' the ol' ships gone for ever like

   we all must go at last;

Like the ships that made a forest on

   the 'Frisco Bay,

The slashin' big fourposters from the

   Mersey an' the Clyde,

An' the Yankee sky sail yarders with

   their deck scoured like snow,

Loadin' grain at 'Frisco—forty year ago.

 

Law's ship, De Wolf's ships, Castles,

   Counties, Glens,

Potter's fleets an' Leyland's, Hall's

   and Clans an' Bens,

Cities, Ports an' Passes, Falls an'

   Lord knows what,

All o' 'em are gone now, and most

   of them forgot.

 

This comes from V. P., 901 Bloor street west, who modestly says:

"The lines above are a copy from a monthly Norwegian magazine and as I am an old Cape Horn sailor and a reader of Schooner Days in The Evening Telegram I thought it may interest others, old and young readers of Schooner Days, in your paper."

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THE WHITE OAK (lumber laden) in Chatham on a holiday, when commanded by Capt. John Spence, Jr., or Capt. Wm. Spence. Along with her was the schooner Azov, commanded in turn by Capt. John Munro, of Tiverton, and Capt. John Maconald, of Goderich. She was built at old Wellington Square, now part of the town of Burlington.