Wilson was a Schooner Port: Schooner Days DCCXI (711)

by C. H. J. Snider

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ON the history of the port of Wilson, N.Y., we are rather vague, for the only time we were there, in 1904, we went in at sunset and came out at sunrise, and nobody seen in between knew much about the empty harbor, then half sanded in between the piers.

It seems to us that after the American capture of Fort George in 1813, U.S. supply boats were chased into Olcott Creek and Wilson Creek and captured by vessels of Sir James Lucas Yeo's fleet — in particular the schooner Gen. Beresford, built here in Toronto.

So perhaps there was a settlement of some sort at Wilson Creek as early as the War of 1812, although Commodore Owen's survey of 1817 only marks the place as "Twelve Mile Creek," and shows no houses. The present village of Wilson is a mile and a half back from the harbor but the Anderson brothers of the Oswego vicinity used to go up the creek that far in small craft for grain and country produce.

BUT SHIPS WERE BUILT THERE

First records of shipbuilding at Wilson Creek date from the 1850s. It appears to have been a shipbuilding centre for ten years or so and then to have ceased firing, perhaps from the silting up of the harbor. That seems to be a chronic affliction, for the port and piers have been dredged and rebuilt more than once.

An old register shows these Wilson-built vessels, some well known in Schoonerdom:

Schooner Josephine, 380 tons, built by Littles in 1852 and owned by F. Pryme of Wilson; the most ambitious of all the Wilson craft and probably three-masted.

L. Littles or Little, the name being spelled both ways in the same book, may have been one of the many itinerant builders of the time, with Wilson as his headquarters. His name appears as the builder of the schooner Olivia, in the same register, and her place of building is spelled "Bronta," meaning Bronte. The vessel was launched at Bronte in 1853 or earlier, and in 1855 was sunk in collision with a steamer, the America of the Great Western line, and five of her crew were drowned, but the schooner was raised and rebuilt, being then renamed Olivia. Before that she had been called the Emblem. In 1864, the date of the register, she was owned in Brighton by Messrs. Chisholm and Bennett, and at one time she must have been owned in Napanee, for "Emblem of Napanee" appeared under the fading newer paint on her quarter long after she had become the Olivia, indeed when she was laid up in Picton marsh, where her bones now repose. So where Littles built or rebuilt her is a matter of conjecture, though Bronte was her birthplace.

Schooner St. Joseph, 75 tons, built by Dupree at Wilson, in 1852, for Sterling and Co. of Monroe, Mich. She was intended as a river scow, and was repaired in 1861. Perhaps she was able to negotiate the creek as far as the village.

Schooner Mary, 80 tons, built by L. Littles in 1852 for J. A. Acton, St. Catharines, who owned her in 1864.

ANOTHER BIG GIRL

Schooner Geraldine, 303 tons, built by Littles in 1858, for W. H. Ingram of Buffalo.

Schooner Enterprise, 116 tons built by Littles in 1854, repaired in 1861, and bought by John Stanton and Co. of Picton, by 1864. Another Enterprise of 118 tons, and distinguished by a round stern, was built by Wm. Manson in Port Hope, in 1855, and owned by Hargraft and Butler, Cobourg. One or other of them was wrecked at Wellington. Her anchor, recovered a few years ago, is a tourist attraction on the beach.

Schooner Almira, 38 tons, built by Ira Sweet in 1858, and owned by M. Conner, J. Ryan and J. Leary.

The Almira appears on the books of the old Port Whitby harbor company as paying "export tolls" on 105 cords of wood in 1855, a pretty good load for her tonnage. The date is three years before her building date in the register, which requires explanation. Perhaps the Almira was an older vessel, rebuilt at Wilson in 1858, or perhaps there were two Almiras. She appears again on the Port Whitby books in 1861, charged 60 cents "export tolls" on two masts. The spars may have been new ones for herself in a refit or intended for some schooner being outfitted at Wilson. Anyway, the harbor company, which never missed a chance, collected for them.

FENIAN RAIDER

Schooner Eureka, 216 tons, built by L. Littles, 1858, owned by Caleb Giles and Sylvester Bros., in Toronto in 1864, and fitted out as a cruiser by Capt. McMaster in the Fenian Raid troubles and manned by a Toronto Volunteer Naval Brigade.

She was no bluff as a Fenian fighter, and the volunteers who put their time and money into manning her were defenders of Canada who got less credit than they deserved. The Volunteer Naval Brigade converted the steamers Rescue and Magnet into gunboats, and was complimented by Col. W. S. Durie, himself a sailor, and the Major-General commanding the troops engaged.

Schooner Active, 67 tons register, built by two of the Sweet brothers in 1862, and owned by Sweet and Co., Wilson merchants.

Schooner Fleetwing, built by D. McNett in 1863, for Dearborn and Quick of Brighton. She had a tragic history, drowning her captain's wife and child and cook on an early voyage, when she capsized and, years later, losing "Let" McCrimmon of Prince Edward County from her mainboom, while getting under weigh off Snake Island, near Kingston, in the darkness of a cold April morning. The remnants of the Fleetwing are visible at Port Milford in Prince Edward County.

THE START FOR WILSON

The first we heard of Wilson, N.Y., was in 1890, having repaired to the old Western Gap with two younger brethren.

Capt. Pat McSherry, Irish-Canadian with a tragic background—his father and three brothers were drowned in the Belle Sheridan— brought the schooner Marcia A. Hall in to the Queen's Wharf and looked about for help to get her across to old Pier 9 in the Northern Railway docks at the foot of Portland street to load another cargo of lumber for "a place across the lake, past Niagara, called Wilson," as he told the world. His crew mustered six hands, including his own pair. The two "men" he had were in their 'teens and light. "Wanna help us heave over?" asked he, dubiously glancing at us three brothers, aged eleven, eight and five. "I'll try, myself," answered this deponent. "Mother made me promise not to let them near the water."

Always keep your word," said Capt. Pat, "but I wisht you had the heft of the three o' yez."

He himself sculled the yawlboat to the timber crib that used to centre the old basin at the east end of the Queen's Wharf, and made fast one end of a coil of line on it, then drifted back to the schooner, letting his line pay out as he came. There was just enough to connect with a "messenger," and this was led to the little roundheaded capstan amidships, and we all hove on the capstan bars. It was my first step on that clinking treadmill described as "walking the capstan 'round," and I wasn't much use. But the schooner moved slowly against the stiff east wind which had brought her in empty from Wilson, and the anxious faces of my little brothers, dutifully anchored on the Queen's Wharf, receded as unto a vanished horizon. From the timber crib we hove over to Pier 9, where the schooner was to load, a total distance of 200 yards. I returned to my waiting brethren by land, boldly circumnavigating the head of the basin in spite of "No Admittance Except On Business" signs. For was I not, even if temporarily, a "hand," and "on business?" Without knowing it I had commenced my Schooner Days, and my voyage to Wilson—not completed till 14 years later.

ANOTHER WILSON HUNTER

Sir,—Your "Mystery Port" articles have stirred memories of my own experience in the same area as Wilson. With apologies to my old friend, Commodore Bert Staples, of the Queen City Yacht Club, I recall how Bert and I set out two years ago on my sloop Brenda II. from Niagara-on-the-Lake for Olcott in the face of an increasing east wind. To make a long and wet story short, at nightfall we were opposite Wilson, riding seas that made one shudder. I would have given quite a bit to have done what you did, put in to Wilson but that port and its facilities were indeed a mystery to Bert and I. After heading for about another hour on which we thought was Olcott lighthouse beam but turned out to be a car headlight on the bluffs, we turned tail and rode like Paul Revere through the rainy, windy night, back to Niagara-on-the-Lake. En route we lost our tow dinghy and came about no less than nine times before it was rescued with my bare hands, as our pike pole had disappeared. Tired, soaked, cold, and hungry, we moored at midnight, in spite of the Niagara current, in the little cove behind the Canada Steamship dock.

I never want to see Wilson or Olcott or any other port on the south shore again under similar circumstances. My one regret of the trip was that I couldn't get my hands on the "spooners" who left their car lights on to raise false hopes in the breast of we deluded mariners.

P.S.—If anybody wants to know how to rescue a tow dinghy with your bare hands in a sea like that one just have them write me and full particulars will be sent.

—N. R. VINTON,

28 Hager Ave., Burlington