First of the Orioles: Schooner Days CCCXII (312)

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NO NAME has ever meant more in freshwater yachting and in lake sailing generally than that of the Oriole. No name has ever become so much a part of community life, we have Oriole road in the city of Toronto, and Oriole Gardens; and on Toronto Island we have Oriole avenue. And there have been Oriole clubs, in various branches of sports. There has been an Oriole in the fleet of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club for almost seventy years; sixty-five to be exact. Every Torontonian, every Ontario man, has heard of the Oriole. No matter how scanty his knowledge of yachting, if he has any at all it includes the idea of the Oriole; usually "Gooderham's Oriole," for the name has been associated with the Goderham family almost as long as the Gooderham family has been associated with yachting. This is for four generations.

It was in 1872 that the first Oriole made her appearance. She was a shoal-draught centreboard schooner, of the approved model of her time, and dimensions over which the third and fourth generations would shake disapproving heads: 76 feet 6 inches over all; 69 feet 2 inches waterline; 17 feet 1 inch beam; 6 feet 3 inches draught. Her beam is also given in old records as 18 feet 4 inches. This was probably her maximum, at the deck. She was certainly not over broad nor over deep. The Oriole was a moderate and well-proportioned centre-boarder for her time, and quite removed from the extreme skimming-dishes which brought the centreboard model into disrepute.

This Oriole was the product, of that fine old Maltese master-builder, Louis Shickluna, whose shipyard on the Welland Canal at St. Catharines added more than a hundred fine schooners, propellors and tugs to the commercial fleets of the lakes. Old Shickluna did not design the Oriole. That was the work of an American gentleman, a Mr. Feversham, of New York.

Although the Oriole is associated inseparably with the Gooderham family it was not the Gooderhams who had her built. Her first owners were Messrs. W. C. Campbell, Robert Hunter and Wm. Mulock, all of Toronto—the latter none other than the venerable Chief Justice the Honorable Sir William Mulock, hale and vigorous in 1937, but, unfortunately, no longer an "active sailor," as the yacht club phrase goes. He told a yacht club gathering a few years ago that the name was chosen for its hailing qualities. You could put a good lungful into "Ahoy, OriOLE!" Sir William has sailed a long time. We have a picture of him as one of the crew of Commodore Robertson's Dart back in 1865.

From Messrs Campbell, Hunter and Mulock the Oriole passed in 1876 to Messrs. A. B. Lee and John Leys (later commodore of the club). Both these gentlemen were members of the well-known firm of Rice, Lewis and Son, Limited. They were succeeded in ownership about the year 1880 by Mr. George Gooderham, who flew the vice-commodore's flag in the club when John Leys was commodore, from 1884 to 1887, and succeeded Mr. Leys in the commodore's rank in 1888. But by that time Mr. Gooderham had another Oriole. Next week, mayhap, we shall tell you why.

The first Oriole, like all of her successors, was a bird of passage. She poked an exploratory bowsprit over every wave from Dickinson's Landing to Skilligalee. Her first season was spent cruising in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Her last, or almost her last, was marked by a race with thirteen yachts on Lake Michigan. East and west she travelled, essentially a cruiser, a floating home for her owner or owners, but racing everything that cared to take her on — and often winning. The famous Annie Cuthbert could beat her on a triangular course, it is said; but the Oriole took the Prince of Wales Cup three years hand-running, over the old club course from the moorings to the lighthouse on Gibraltar Point, then to a buoy anchored out in the lake, and down to Victoria Park and back. That was in 1877, 1878 and 1879, when Mr. Leys headed the syndicate which owned her. Earlier, in the merry days of Mulock, Campbell and Hunter, the Oriole had captured the cup twice in succession, racing to Niagara for it. That was in 1874 and 1875.

Oriole I. and her successors were exponents of yachting at its best, a sport and a recreation, an adventure and a social function. Race records being the more prominent survivals of a yacht's career, the impression often obtains that the yacht did nothing but race; or, if race records are absent she may be set down as a mere cruiser. The Orioles have been centers of hospitality from the day the first of the name first kissed the waves of Lake Ontario. The visitors' book of the first Oriole contains the names of hundreds of guests distinguished in the world of business or of fashion or the learned professions; or of sport; some of them afternoon callers while the yacht lay at moorings, some proudly enrolled in port or starboard watch as "crew" for long voyages. The visitors' book is eloquent both of the yacht's wide cruising radius and of the owners' wide range of acquaintance.

At Pullman's Isle, in the Thousand Islands, summer home of the Pullmans of Chicago, which Oriole visited on Aug. 5th, 1872, among the visitors who signed her log were "P. H. SHERIDAN, Lt.-Gen. U.S.A." and "U. S. GRANT"—with the sentiment:

"The two flags and the two countries. The Mother and the Child—

May they be always fraternal as they are invincible."

The next season, 1873, Messrs. Campbell, Mulock and Hunter cruised in the Oriole to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On August 15th, 1875, the Oriole was at Cheboygan, Mich., on her way to Chicago. In 1876 she cruised to the Thousand Islands again with this party:

John Leys, Captain; Alex. G. Lee, Harry Armstrong, George Massey, Albert Gooderham, E. Gooderham, J. V. Ham, Jack Ross.

Her sailing master on this occasion was Capt. Peter Lawson, with a mate and two men—one of whom, signing on as Dick Fugler, was cook. He was soon promoted to the sailing master's berth. Capt. Richard Fugler was the professional in charge of the first Oriole for most of her career and for all of the career of her successor, but an early sailing master Oriole I. was Capt. Peter Thompson, a Dane, with saltwater papers. He left Oriole to take the schooner Edward Blake across the Atlantic in 1876.

In 1877 Oriole cruised to Lake Superior, visiting the remote posts of the Hudson's Bay Company at Michipicoten River, Nipigon River and "Prince Arthur's Landing" (Port Arthur). Superior was then still primeval wilderness, and the Oriole explored it before the railways had crept around it.

Oriole went back to the Thousand Islands in 1879, and in 1880 again cruised to Chicago, leaving Toronto July 31st, and reaching Chicago, after calls at Put-In Bay, Toledo, Detroit and Mackinac on Aug. 14th. On Sept. 2nd she was home in Toronto, having sailed over 2,000 miles in the month she was away. Naturally, no grass was growing on her keel. Messrs. John Leys and Geo. Gooderham went cruising in her as late as Thanksgiving Day, Oct. 20, 1881.

Oriole had the usual eight-piece sail plan of a fore-and-aft schooner with a maintopmast staysail. She had a squaresail yard and squaresail, and a spritsail yard to extend her jibboom guys. In her later years she used a spinnaker. When it blew hard she housed her topmast and rigged in her jibboom. Her fore staysail, which went to the bowsprit end, had a bonnet, which was taken off for blowing weather. While modern yachts go through whole seasons without reefing, the crew of the Oriole thought nothing of reefing her mainsail and foresail twice in a watch.

For racing she used to be black-leaded to the coveringboard.

When the Oriole beat the newly arrived Verve and the new-built Aileen in the race for the Anderson Cup, Championship Flag, and $200 prize-money, on Sept. 16th, 1882, some said it was "luck." Aileen led Oriole at the Scarboro buoy and up to the Eastern Gap, with Cygnet, Alarm, Verve and Madcap, large and small, all hard on the heels of the old schooner. As the fleet stood up the Island shore and passed the Gooderham residence on the lake front Oriole seemed to be electrified. She forged past Aileen, leaving the whole fleet in her wake, and finished the race at the Queen's Wharf with fifteen minutes to spare.

"It was the boat, the crew, and the blacklead that won," was Capt. Dick Fugler's diagnosis (for publication) "especially the blacklead."

The triumph was consolation to the Oriole for being beaten in the sweepstakes race earlier in that season, on July 22nd, 1882. Aileen beat her on actual time and Verve on corrected. After that contest, in which Verve and Aileen appeared for the first time, the critics declared: "The object of prominent members of the club in going in for boats like Aileen and Verve, namely, to popularize deep-draught craft, has had a startling push forward given it. The days of the schooner Oriole, which until yesterday was recognized as about the fastest all-round yacht in Dominion waters, even with the time allowance she has to give, would appear to be numbered."

They were. The story of her end reads like the finish of a gallant racehorse bursting her heart to save her master. It is told in the "Annals of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club," just published—a book no sail lover should be without. It was printed for club members, but is obtainable from the Secretary on order. The pictures here used are from its illustrations, which run into the hundreds.

The first Oriole, from an oil painting in Sir William Mulick's residence, showing her defeating the fleet.

SIR WILLIAM MULOCK AS A YACHTSMAN, 1865, 1937.

He (seated, left) was then a member of the crew of Commodore Robertson's schooner DART. He looked like the Price of Wales, did he not? This large copy of the picture sits it, and shows Sir William seventy years later. His shipmates in the Dart, shown above, were: Standing, left to right, Jaffray Robertson, Robert Sullivan, Commodore T.J. Robertson, Llewllyn Robertson, Charles E. Ryerson, and, seated right, Walter Ross. These were the days when yachtsmen wore whiskers if they could grow them. All illustrations are from the "ANNALS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN YACHT CLUB."