Outsailed Steamers - but Lake Caught Her: Schooner Days DCXCVIII (698)

by C. H. J. Snider

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MINNEDOSA was meant to sail, and did sail, as fast as any steamboat could go. Her voyage to Toledo to load grain was in tow of the tug Walker, because they knew she would need a tug to get her through the Welland canal and up the Maumee river. The Walker couldn't keep the towline taut when they made sail on her, cast off. When they got to the canal there was little use for the tug, either, for the Minnedosa was so long she filled the new (then) locks completely, and the tug had to lock through ahead of her or after her. The tug came in handy of course on the long level, and in light winds, especially if they were ahead.

The Minnedosa had to tow through the canal with horses, and it took four teams to move her—six or eight if the wind got strong. That was one of her drawbacks. And twelve men are said to have been needed to sail her—whether twelve all told, or twelve in the forecastle and four in the cabin is not known. That is one of the reasons why she was cut down to be a tow barge. She needed a small crew. There were only eight in her when she was a barge.

MASTERS OF MINNEDOSA

The Minnedosa's first master was first Capt. John Geoghan of Kingston; her last, Capt. Phillips. Capt. Geoghan was succeeded by Capt. John Irwin, of Kingston, who had successful seasons in her in 1896 and 1897 but had to give her up from a fatal illness contracted on board. Her freights from Fort William to Kingston ran sometimes as high as $3,000 a trip. In the plain living and high thinking 1890's, with sailors wages at $1 a day and, "corporation pay" considered extravagant at 15 cents an hour, any vessel earning a $1,000 freight was a money maker.

Capt. "Cham" Irwin - Robert Chamberlain were were his first names - succeeded his father, John, in 1897 and sailed the Minnedosa until 1904, when he left her and went into steam, in the English built 'midship bridged steamer Wexford, lost in the Great Gale of 1913. Capt. Irwin was not in her. He died in Collingwood in 1909 after laying the Wexford up. Two of his sons live in Toronto, Dr R.N. Irwin and Mr. Wm. Geo. Irwin.

Capt. John Irwin's name lived long after him on the lakes in the tanker John Irwin (now the Cyclowarrior) of the BA Oil Co. She was built in the old country.

Before becoming master of the Minnedosa Capt. Irwin had been master of the schooner Edward Blake for seven years when she was owned by Samuel Fraser. Her portrait appeared recently in Schooner Days. She had a curious adventure with McGarrigle of Chicago.

Capt. John Irwin was an old employee of the Cabin [Calvin] Company, timber-merchants, of Garden Island, and of James Morton, of the Kingston distillery. Later he sailed his own schooners, the Lily, lost off Long Point in a storm—his only disaster—and the Champion and Queen of the Bay. He was in partnership for a time with James Falconer. He was 47 years a lake mariner.

MORE THAN BUILDER'S HEART WAS BROKEN

One error in judgment was made in building the Minnedosa and it cost dear in the end. It almost broke the builder's heart, although he was in no way to blame for it. The management was persuaded that the ship would have too much freeboard, that is, she was going to have her side unnecessarily high out of the water so that with her hold full to the hatches she would draw so much water she could not get through the canal. So they gave the order when she was in frame to finish her with 18 inches less topsides than planned. As originally designed she could have carried 90,000 bushels and been the most seaworthy vessel on fresh water.

She seemed to do well enough, as it was but the testing time came when she was fifteen years old and crowded with cargo in an effort to establish a new record for a big load from Fort William to Kingston. With 75,000 bushels in her she had not enough reserve buoyancy and spare freeboard to rise with the waves like a duck or a gull; instead she dipped like a helldiver. This befell her in an autumn gale on Oct. 20th, 1905, 2 1/2 miles off Harbor Beach in Lake Huron, across the lake from Goderich.

She was in tow then of the steamer Westmount, behind the barge Melrose, for the tall topmasts had long been taken out of her and her masts reduced to stumps. She had become a towbarge, just another of the weary caravan trailing up and down the lakes behind tug or steamer. Running for shelter in a great gale she went down in a sea and never came up, and she took good men with her six sailors and Capt. Phillips and his wife. Seeing that she was foundering, Capt. Phillips is believed to have cut the towline so as to save the Melrose ahead of him from foundering too.

THE MINNEDOSA IN HER PRIDE OF SAIL

MINNEDOSA, Kingston-built pride of Canada on the Great Lakes, with her four masts, twelve sails, and figurehead that cost $1,000 to gild.