'MAPLE LEAF' in Two Guises: Schooner Days DCXXII (622A)

by C. H. J. Snider

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With Some More Eddies in the Wake of the Man Who Was Her Master for Thirty-five Years

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THE future Capt. Richard Goldring was thirteen or so when his big half-brother, John, got the Pugsley on Lake Erie. Father's industry with the Betsey, the floating home he had built for them all in the mouth of the Etobicoke River had borne fruit, and the family moved from her to the Jenny Lind, much larger, as big as the Defiance, and like her with a square topsail. From her they moved up into the Belle, larger still, and the "Goldring fleet" of small neat schooners—and some butt-ended scows, too—developed.

CAPTAIN AT SEVENTEEN

When Dick was seventeen the big fast scow Mary E. Ferguson came into the family. And he was put in command of her. Young Dick had seen the Ferguson launched, ten years before. She was built at Cavan's Line, where a little creek came into Lake Ontario near Ducks Bay, about a mile east of Port Credit. Dick had come up from the Etobicoke to see the launching. How he envied young Abe Block, a "big boy," only a few years older than he! Abe was put on board before the launch, to break out the new vessels colors as she struck the water, and he ran them up to the masthead and gave the halliards a smart jerk which broke the stop which had held the bunting in a tight ball; and then everybody read the name in big letters on the red, white and blue burgee. Mary Ellen Ferguson was the sailmaker's pretty daughter, and William Ferguson had thrown in a new set of flags for the launching, seeing that he had the order for the vessel's seven sails, and his daughter had been chosen sponsor.

The only hitch at the launch on the shingly lake shore was that the water didn't deepen fast enough to float the vessel off when she ran down the ways. But Frank Jackman was coming up to the Credit with the tug Mixer, to tow out a grain-laden schooner, and he backed in close enough to get a line on the new hooker and pulled her into deep water without damage.

Good old days!

DREAMS COME TRUE

It never seemed possible that little Dick—or bigger Abe, either—would be master of such a fine scow as the Ferguson, the day that the older boy hoisted her colors for the first time. But it came true for both of them. And for the younger first. Abram Block, J.P., died in Port Credit eight years ago, full of years and honors, none more cherished than the fact that the Ferguson's flags were the first ship's colors he had hoisted, and the last that he had hauled down. Forty years later, when he had owned her and his sons had sailed her a long time, he himself hauled down her tattered fly when she was laid up at the Queen's Wharf one winter. She was bought next spring, and sunk to build a breakwater, almost on the spot where she was launched in 1868.

Good old days!

ENTER, THE MAPLE LEAF

Mary Ellen Ferguson was pretty. The Mary E. Ferguson was blunt and homely, built on the box car principle like the Mary Ann, which the Goldrings also had. But she was a clinker to sail and only the ex-yacht White Wings could beat her in all the harbor fleet. Young Dick did well with her and after two years when the Ferguson was traded to the Dorlands and by them to the Blocks, he was made captain of the new Maple Leaf, which had just been acquired from Len Dorland at Bronte.

This was the vessel with a long and happy history, plentifully interspersed with Y.M.C.A. cruises. But when young Dick got her she was different from the jaunty yacht-like craft so well known to the present generation of Y.M.C.A. old boys. Though always schooner-hulled, her bow was round or spoon-shaped instead of clipper, although it was decorated with a cutwater knee.

The "Goldring fleet" had much to do with the building of the city of Toronto. They filled the cribs for the Northern Railway docks. They supplied the sand for the fill for the Consumers Gas Co.'s works on the old Berkeley street jail site. They went wherever there was a cargo. Young Dick took his new Maple Leaf down to the Bay of Quinte, to try the Oswego barley trade. She could carry 2,900 bushels and although she was in competition with big three-masters that could carry 20,000 bushels there was money in that before the McKinley tariff killed the trade.

IN GREAT GALE OF 1880

Night of the Great Gale of 1880 (Nov. 6) he was in South Bay, to pick up barley; got her into the mouth of Black River, back of Waupoos Island, and moored her to the trees under Black River bluff. She hung on all right, though it blew so hard that trees above her were torn out by the roots and threatened to slide down on her deck. A spoon-bowed scow bigger than she was blown ashore and bilged. That was the night thirty sailors drowned in the lake and fifteen vessels were lost or damaged, but the Maple Leaf came through fire and water with a charmed life.

ROSE FROM HER ASHES

The Esplanade fire of 1885 threatened to destroy the Goldring fleet, for most of the vessels were in port at the foot of Frederick street. The boys got the Mary Ann clear but they had to abandon her with her foresail ablaze. The Maple Leaf was so badly burned that she had to be taken to Bronte for rebuilding.

Here was where Little Dick's treenail whittling for the Betsey twenty years before stood him in good stead. He moved up to Bronte for the winter and he himself got out from good white oak the frames and timbers for a new and handsome schooner, and with Len Dorland's help the Maple Leaf came out next season looking like a yacht. Dick wished to rename her William Goldring in honor of his father, but the registrar first said no and then said yes, too late. Having painted the old name in, Capt. Goldring left it, and so she lived as long as he had her, which was thirty-five years. And so

"God Save the King

and Heaven Bless

THE MAPLE LEAF

Forever."

Including the "Maple Leaf Man," as Capt. Richard Goldring of Port Whitby, aged eighty-four now, is still known. Happy 1944 to both.

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WHEN SHE HAD A "SPOON" BOW—The original MAPLE LEAF, 1880-1885, as drawn by C. I. Gibbons for Capt. Richard Goldring.

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REBUILT AND YACHTY—The MAPLE LEAF, 1886-1926, as rebuilt by Capt. Richard Goldring and drawn by the same marine artist. Note the sharper clipper bow.