The Night the "Merritt" Went: Schooner Days CCCXXXVI (336)

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CAPT. JOHN WILLIAMS doesn't think the wreck pictured so carefully in last Saturday's Telegram is that of the Sir C. T. Van Straubenzee sunk in Lake Erie in 1909. The wreckage was discovered at Point Abino last summer.

Capt. Williams bases his diagnosis upon the chainplates, those iron straps which secure the shrouds, or principal lateral members of a vessel's rigging, to her sides. It was the twisted chainplates, as they appeared in the picture, which made the identification of the wreck as the Straubenzee's seem probable to the writer, but Capt. Williams disagrees.

If there is one man alive who , should know all about the Straubenzee's chainplates it is our good , friend Captain John, for he had her for 14 years and cared for her like his own child. In the process he drifted back and renewed the bolts of the chainplates of her fore-rigging, and he is positive that they were spaced regularly and not in groups of two and four as the chainplates on that wreck appear to be.

The two-and-four arrangement was one used by many of the old, three-masters which had square topsails on the foremast, as the Straubenzee had originally. The aftermost chainplate was for the topgallant rigging, the next for a leg of the topmast rigging. These two came down close together, like backstays. Indeed they were often extended by spreaders laid on the fore crosstrees. Forward of these, three topmast shrouds came down to the crosstrees, which had a rounded forward rim, like the top in a square rigged ship. The topmast shrouds were set up on this top rim with deadeyes and lanyards, and the strain was taken off the crosstrees by futtock shrouds, which set up on a band on the head of the mast a few feet below the trestle trees. In such a rig the topmast shrouds did not come down to the sides of the vessel at all, but to the lower mast heads below the hounds. It was only the backstays which came to chainplates. Forward of the pair of chainplates already mentioned were four larger chainplates to take the four principal shrouds of the lower rigging.

Brother Roy here files an objection to these shrouds being called "swifters." He says, and truly, that a swifter was a piece of rigging in the older ships, used to draw the shrouds in towards the masthead, so as to take up their slack and allow the yards to be braced up sharp without chafing the lee rigging. A swifter is any rope used to tauten other rigging by putting a transverse strain on it, or to hold capstan bars in place, or secure a boat on deck, like a gripe.

Brother Roy will probably express a mariner's respect for Webster, Noah, his dictionary, which defines a swifter as the forward shroud of a set of rigging. He will say that may have been Noah's idea, but times have changed. It is a fact, however, that many lake sailors called all the shrouds in the lower rigging "swifters," perhaps an impropriety such as their term "three-'n'-afters" for three-masted or tern schooners.

Brother Roy also avers that Capt. Dolph Corson went into the Lake Michigan — propeller, not body of water situated entirely within the boundaries of the United States of America — after he left the T. R. Merritt, or she left him. Maybe so, maybe so. He sailed with him in the Merritt, but not when she was lost in 1900.

That, from what Capt. Williams heard of it, must have been a pretty close call for Adolphus. It was the night of Sept. 12th, in the backlash of the hurricane that had destroyed Galveston, and a hard night it was. The Fred L. Wells was driven ashore at Oswego that night, and so was the Albacore, after Capt. Charlie Redfern had the flesh burned off both hands, trying to hold the runaway halliards when they were getting sail off her. Both the Wells and the Albacore were complete wrecks. So was the T. R. Merritt.

The story current about the Merritt was that Capt. Corson let go both anchors well out in the lake, and that she dragged before that raging wind, mile after mile, until she crashed in the great seas somewhere near the Ford shoals. Capt, Williams has it, however, that she first rolled over on Adolphus and his crew. Unlike the Straubenzee, she did not sink at once, but drove on down the lake until, with morning's light, lifesavers and tugmen from Fairhaven rescued the men who were clinging to her. After that, it must have been, she drove in on the Ford shoals. Perhaps her anchors went overboard by accident when she capsized. At any rate she was a total loss, and a sad one, for she had newly rejoined the ranks of the lakers, and had been refitted with topmasts and all the trappings of a full-rigger after touring [towing] for years.

But this is not meant to divert us from the Straubenzee's chainplates. Capt. Williams is certain that hers were not distributed on the two-and-four plan described at such tedious length, but that the chainplates for the principal lower shrouds were equally spaced at regular intervals, with two chainplates among them for the topmast shrouds. As said before, if anyone should know, he does, from long association with the ship. This was the usual arrangement with the Old Canallers, or such of them as did not have any square topsails demanding backstays. The Straubenzee had lost her square sails long before Capt. Williams got her, which was in 1892.

Capt. Williams also contributes the pact that it was Capt. Dolph Corson's brother, John, who commanded the W. J. Suffel when she was wrecked at Burlington in 1890. He himself has good cause to remember the fact, for that was the year he did his famous early bird stunt in the Speedwell.

He left Toronto on Feb. 19th, sailed down to Whitby, cut a load of ice there, and opened navigation into Charlotte, the port of Rochester, by a bringing in his cargo of ice for the Rochester breweries before February was out.

Encouraged by his success the little stonehooker scow White Oak of Port Credit—not to be confused with the large schooner of the same name hailing from Oakville—opened navigation into Toronto Harbor by bringing in the first cargo of stone on March 4th, as the harbor master's records show.

Capt. Williams, however, had gone across to Whitby or Presq'isle for a second cargo of ice for Rochester, and delivered that at a good price. Meantime the schooner W. J. Suffel had fitted out, possibly in Presqu'isle, where many vessels used to winter, and came into Charlotte to load coal for Hamilton. Capt. John Corson was in command of her, and he matched with Capt. Williams to see who would load first at the Charlotte coal trestle. Capt. Williams won, got his cargo of four or five hundred tons for the Western Coal Co. in Toronto at 25 cents a ton, and sailed for home. It was late in March, with light weather all the way up the lake and he had a pleasant—and profitable—run, collecting three freights before the month of March was out.

But Capt. Corson had no such luck with the Suffel. The difference of a few hours while the Speedwell was loading put him that much behind in starting, and he was overtaken by a heavy spring snowstorm on the first of April and driven ashore north of Burlington piers. The Speedwell was by this time unloading in Toronto, and every effort was made to get her out to send her up to Hamilton to lighter the Suffel off. But before she was emptied word came that local lighters were working on the stranded vessel, and she was refloated with out very much damage.

THE ALBACORE ON THE BEACH AT OSWEGO AFTER THAT GALE.

THE WOOD DUCK AND THE SNOWBIRD ON THE SAME BEACH TWENTY YEARS BEFORE - AFTER THE GREAT GALE OF NOV. 7th, 1880.