Face Lifting Of A. BOODY: Schooner Days DCXLIX (649)

by C. H. J. Snider

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BOLD Michael Troy had decided to give his friend, Frank Jackman, tug and vessel owner, the surprise of his life. Frank had sent him to look over the ancient schooner A. Boody and Michael had bought her in and brought her down Lake Erie and the Welland Canal, for delivery in Toronto. Ae had got as far as Port Dalhousie a week ahead of schedule, and was feeling good, although he knew that Frank was dubious about the $600 he had paid for the "old bag o' bones." She had been insurable for $15,000 when she was new. But that was in 1863 and this was 1895, and she was very far from being new or worth $15,000. And besides, Frank had intended to meet him at Port Colborne with the Frank Jackman and save a tow bill down the canal.

Muir Brothers' drydock at Port Dalhousie was as empty then as it is full to-day, which is a measure of completeness in both instances. When the tug got the Boody into Muir's Pond above old Lock I, the last lock on the old canal, Michael hailed in stentorian tones: "Drop us in be the drydock for the night!" As soon as the shorelines were out he walked up the bank and told old Alexander the Great, chief of the Muir clan: 'It's a customer ye have and a bit of service is wanted. Put us onto yer dock, Mister Muir, for bottom examination, caulking and painting, and it's Frank Jackman, no less, that'll be proud and pleased to pay the bill."

"He is good for it," said Alexander in equally Boanergian tones.

Michael had been going to pay the tugman who had brought him from Port Colborne against Frank's intention out of the balance of his grocery cheque. But on second thoughts he decided to keep that for emergencies, and with another lordly wave of the tongue he had the tow bill down charged to the ship's owner, as was quite right and proper.

As was the case with many of the old lakers, the bottom was the best part of the ship, and, unless ripped by rocks in a stranding, remained sound long after the upper works needed repair. The Boody was watertight while riding high and empty of cargo and all the caulking and repair work which she really needed was in her decks and upper works, where she needed it in plenty. Capt. Frank had expected to take care of this with his tug crew when they laid up for the winter. Michael had three-quarters of a mind to tell the drydock men to make a job of it while they were at it and put in new sides and checks and get her a brand new outfit of sails and gear and christen her the MICHAEL TROY.

But this recalled the instruction he had already received to change her to Canadian registry under the name of Mrs. Jackman, nee Eliza Ann Fulton; and anyway it would take so much time that Frank would be worrying about not hearing from him and be starting out for Port Colborne to find what had happened, and the big surprise would be spoiled.

So he compromised with a new coat of paint for the topsides when the bottom was caulked and ordered the new name on the quarter and bow and stern in big bold letters.

"Twenty-five cents the letter, large or small," said Alexander the Great. "That's what the painter's time takes."

Michael had a last brilliant inspiration, this time to save money, not to spend it.

"Mebbe the initials would do as well as anything else," said he. So instead of the ELIZABETH ANN FULTON he had envisioned, to permit of a few flourishes to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Jackman, he settled with the registrar for "E. A. FULTON," and figured he had saved Frank $8.25 on the paint job alone.

He reflected uneasily that Charlie Gibbons, marine artist and tug fireman in the Frank Jackman, might have done the name painting for nothing. And he had a more uneasy feeling when he found the bills for drydocking, caulking and painting were away over what he had paid for the vessel herself.

"But," he consoled himself, "Frank WILL be surprised."

He was. So was Mike.

Frank Jackman was a fluent man, as all tug captains had to be. He expressed his appreciation of all that had been done for—and to—him with fervent candor. He hadn't wanted to load himself up with a schooner, he only wanted a valuation of the vessel. Having got her he didn't want her drydocked, he wanted her brought to Toronto for enough economical repair work in his spare time to make her saleable at some small profit for what he had bestowed on her. And he didn't want her painted like the map of Ireland at any price — and particularly when she would have to be painted all over again after the absolutely necessary overhaul of her topsides and upper works. And he didn't know what his wife would think about being clipped down to bare initials.

"Sure, Frankie dear," said the crestfallen Michael, "it's proud she'll be when yer throwing in her apron the big freights I'll be arnin for ye wit' the E. A. Fulton."

"Somebody else will be earning the freights," said Frank grimly.

"Ye mean I'm not to be the captain of her for ye?" said Michael.

"I can't afford you," Frank rejoined.

"Gratichood, thy name is Jackman," said Michael, and walked away, his shoulders hunched.

But the two old cronies forgave one another. Frank was a generous man and paid Mike up for his ill-judged services which had cost him so dear. And Michael realized that as Frank was paying the piper it was for him to call the tune.

The Fulton proved not unprofitable. When she got into working shape (at considerable additional expense) she had three years of carrying coal for Elias Rogers, from Oswego to Toronto, and at least "broke even," which was a hard thing to do in those gay and hungry '90's. She was painted white with a red bottom one season and white with a green bottom another, like the Frank Jackman herself. Eventually she graduated to green and red. In the second half of the 1890's, the "growing time" of 1897, when the factory chimneys began to smoke, she was bought by a Capt. John Phillips who had been sailing her in the room and stead of M. Troy, retired, and went into the revived Georgian Bay timber trade, for she still had the old timber-ports in her stern which enabled her to load square timber from the water. Frank Jackman got back what she had cost him, even more. But Capt. Phillips didn't. His purchase waterlogged on him the first or second season, and the bill for "wrecking" her—that is, salvaging her and getting her into the now-really-needed drydock, was so great that she was abandoned to the wrecking outfit. They used her for a lighter for a while but she passed out at the end of the century.

THIS WAS THE "A. BOODY" AFTER SHE BECAME THE "E. A. FULTON" with sundry other improvements. The picture is from a restoration of an old crayon drawing by C. I. Gibbons, tug fireman and marine artist.