He Went Into Steam: Schooner Days DIII (503)

by C. H. J. Snider

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WHAT?" writes a follower of Schooner Days in a tone that Means what and some more, "what became of Capt. Johnny Williams, whose adventures in so many sailing vessels, from his boyhood in the Rover as cook to his manhood in the Sir C. T. Van Straubenzee as owner, have given us such a picture of lake life from Saturday to Saturday in your feature that we have hopes that you will make a book of him? Or am I trespassing upon a carefully covered surprise?"

Apologies, follower. Capt. John Williams is alive and well and eighty-four, and at his grandson's wedding last week he was, if not the groomsman, the "best man" of any if it had come to making a long splice; which it did. Capt. Johnny has had leave of absence from these columns for a bit on his own request, being a very modest man. He insisted readers wanted a rest, or what is supposed to be as good, a change. But it is only a rest, mind you. Schooner Days has a lot more to tell about him, all of it good, and it is coming in its turn.

But meantime, an answer to the question as to what became of him. You followed him up to his becoming master and owner of the full canal-sized schooner Sir C. T. Van Straubenzee, and heard some of his trials and triumphs in the twelve seasons he sailed her? Well--

He went into steam.

That has been the epitaph of many a smart sailing man, but it wasn't of Capt. Johnny, not by a long chalk. He commanded more steamers than he had commanded schooners—and those were not a few. He freighted a hundred times as much cargo in steam and steel as he had in sail and wood. He never lost a ship or cargo or man, in steam or sail.

"You're not," said Mrs. Williams to her husband, Captain John, after the Emerald had been lost with all hands at the end of the 1903 season, "going sailing again".

Mrs. Williams had sailed with her husband to and from their wedding, eighteen years before. She had sailed with him for two seasons in the W. T. Greenwood. She had been managing-owner of the Speedwell for him, and the Speedwell prospered while he sailed her. She had been his standby in the bigger and better Straubenzee's career during good seasons. She was a mild and gentle helpmate, but when she put her little foot down it stayed down.

Captain John, weary with walking the beach of Lake Ontario from Toronto to Presqu'isle searching for traces of the missing Emerald, and their neighbors, the McMasters, sighed as he saw his number was up.

"Well," he agreed, "I don't want you worrying, and I don't want you and the little girl to starve to death—"

"You know very well, John, you've always kept us in comfort and happiness," she whispered.

"W-e-l-l," still more slowly, "I'll promise you I'll sell the Straubenzee, but I'll have to stay with her until she's sold, for I don't own the whole of her and I must play fair with Medlar and Arnot who bought her for me. And then—"

"We'll live happily ever afterward as we've always done before," said she, giving him a great big kiss.

"If I can get a decent job," said John to himself. He was not going to rust and grow barnacles in moorings, however snug.

At length the Straubenzee was sold and he bade farewell forever to raffees and gafftopsails, lumber-reefs and centreboards, and all the characteristic paraphernalia of the schooners in which he had spent forty strenuous years.

"I've a chance to get $75 a month as mate in steam," he told Mrs. Williams when the season of 1905 opened. "But we've a saying 'old standing-rigging makes poor running gear'."

Meaning that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Also that he wanted to go into steam, but didn't want her to know that he wanted it, lest she put the other little foot down, and take him off the water altogether.

His wife was wise and kind and brave.

"The money doesn't matter, if you are happy," said she "Try steam, for a while. But not for too long. You know, we want to have some time together while we're both here."

"We will," said John, and kept his word, as he had kept his word about giving up the hazards of the vanishing schooner trade.

Old standing-rigging that he was (standing-rigging is the stiff tarred hemp or wire rope used for shrouds and stays) he rendered through the blocks of steam navigation as readily as running gear of silk on a yacht. He brought with him all the schoonerman's resourcefulness and adaptability, ground into him by forty years of having to make good against the caprices of the wind in gale and calm, and the might of the wave in harbor or hurricane. He went mate one season with a son of the old Capt. Ewart who had sold him the Speedwell. The money was only chickenfeed to what he had been making with the Straubenzee, but the experience was precious. He had his master's certificate in steam by next season, and the company had a master's berth for him; and from then on he went up, up, up, $1,400 the first year, $1,600 the next, then $1,800, $2,250 and $2,500. Each season a larger, more important command, till he was on the bridge of a 12,000-ton freighter, the pride of the lake, able to carry twenty of the Straubenzee's grain cargoes in one trip.

He was with the Chicago and St. Lawrence Steam Navigation Company, a powerful concern, operated on the simplest of lines. Two old gentlemen and a competent stenographer were the "office"; the captains, carefully chosen, not only navigated the fleet, but each conducted the business of his own vessel as though he were the sole owner. Big responsibility, which could only be carried by competent men.

Johnny Williams did well in steam for the same reason that he did well in sail. He always worked hard. He was willing to work just as hard for wages as when he was his own employer. He would do what he was told, but he never fell for the fallacy "Obey orders if you break owners." That was not what he would want a master to do if he were an owner, so he did not "do it unto others." He was not foolhardy, but he was not timid. All his life he has believed in "Nothing venture, nothing win." He practiced that when sailing schooners for himself and he kept on practicing it when he commanded steamers for other owners.

Towards the end of his first season as master in the very vessel in which he had entered steam as mate a few years before, he got a wire from his owners to this effect: "Proceed to lakehead first opportunity. If you can load and clear by Dec. 5th your freight is $10,500. If not load for winter storage at half cent bushel lay up and send crew home at cost of $600."

He had two owners to think of. both excellent men, one leaning over backwards in his uprightness, the other so swift to seize any honest opportunity that he might be described as never off his tiptoes even when asleep.

Capt. Williams got the freighter to the lakehead, which may be taken to mean Duluth, Fort William, or Port Arthur, on Lake Superior, on Dec. 4th. The port, whichever of the three it was—or none, maybe—was lined with vessels waiting to load and clear before insurance ran out. Skippers of the waiting ranks hailed him as the latest arrival steamed dead slow between their lines, asking him what he had come for, and how he expected to get a load with so many ahead of him.

"Maybe I'll be able to get a storage load," said he. "This is a good place to lay up for the winter, when you get half a cent a bushel for lying idle.

Derisive shouts followed him, but he moored where he found a spot, put his ladder over the side, and walked up to the nearest elevator.

"Here are my orders," said he to the Right Person, producing the telegram in a thick heavy wrapper. "What can you do for me?"

"Sorry, captain," said the Right Person, in a voice that could be heard down as far as the lighthouse, "but you see how many vessels there are ahead of you. Guess it will have to be winter storage. Where are you lying?"

"Round the corner of pier No. Such-and-Such, out of the way." "You'll be safe there, anyway.' "For the winter," snickered a group of steam skippers who were not unwilling to see the comb of this ex-schoonerman clipped. Owners do not promote masters who barely break even, or go in the hole.

"Good night, gentlemen," said Capt. Williams, to all and sundry, walking briskly past the loiterers. He could walk all the faster because his pocket was lighter by the whole of two month's salary (which had wrapped his orders).

An hour later a messenger with a lantern clambered over the steamer's rail.

"We'll be finishing the So-and-so by a quarter to twelve," said he, "your load will be ready for you if you drop in as he drops out."

By midnight the steamer was in the just-vacated berth, and the spouts were groping for her hungry hatches. By morning she was chock-a-block with a $10,500 freight and on her way with it for delivery. A few days later Capt. Williams was in the owners' office, reporting the vessel unloaded and safely moored for the winter in her home port.

"There is an item here," said the head bookkeeper diffidently "of $300 for personal expenditures."

"We have never had the custom of questioning the personal expenditures of our captains," said Mr. Leaning-Over-Backwards. "You should know that. Certainly it is O.K. — Merry Christmas when it comes, captain. I think you will find your latest cheque satisfactory." Mr. Sleep A. Tiptoe just winked.

STEAMER ALGONQUIN, 1,806 tons gross, built in Glasgow, 1888; Capt. Williams' first command in steam, 1906-1907.

CAPT. JOHN WILLIAMS WITH HIS DAUGHTER, MRS. LEON H. WATTS, AT HIS GRANDSON'S WEDDING LAST WEEK