A Credit to the MAPLE LEAF: Schooner Days DCCXIII (713)

by C. H. J. Snider

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THE 'MAPLE LEAF' MAN is no more. Referring not to Alexander Muir, creator of the gallant song, but to Capt. Richard Goldring, for 31 years master of the comeliest little schooner on Lake Ontario, the Maple Leaf of Toronto.

He brought his good ship up from babyhood, for she was newly built when his father bought her and put him in charge of her, a proud young skipper, just out of his 'teens. As such he brought her safely through the Great Gale of 1880, and he brought her back to life from the great Esplanade Fire of 1885, in which she burned and sank with half a dozen other craft for which there was no comeback.

MOVING 100,000 TONS WITH 20 FINGERS

With his own hands—and master carpenter Lem Dorland of Bronte's assistance—he hewed out the new chestnut frames and the fine arching clipper stem which transformed her from a spoon-bow to a yacht-like profile. With these same capable hands and his younger brother Charlie's staunch help he lifted 100,000 tons of stone from the bed of Lake Ontario and brought it in the Maple Leaf for Toronto's pavements, for Toronto's buildings, from foundations to gravel roofing, for Toronto's harbor cribs, piers and entrance works.

A hundred thousand tons of stone is a lot for two pairs of hands to lift into and out of a one hundred ton schooner, but "Little Dick" Goldring and all his brothers belonged to a generation of Canadians who did not shrug off hard work upon the despised and envied "foreigners," who reap its rewards.

Canada satisfied "Little Dick" Goldring. The rewards of his useful life were, first, a large, well brought up family, every boy and girl occupying an honored place in the country; a Royal Humane Society Medal for saving lives with the Maple Leaf off the Eastern Gap; a comfortable substantial home, built with his own busy hands, in Port Whitby, surrounded by an orchard, flower beds and vegetable garden of his own planting—his own vine and fig tree. This very year, his eighty-seventh, he dug, sorted and basketed the winter supply of potatoes which he himself had planted in the spring He was at work in his garden four days before he died.

He had outgrown his beloved Maple Leaf twenty-five years ago. When he sold her she died soon after, broken-backed and broken-hearted. He established a yard in the little port where he had been glad to bring coal cargoes for others in intervals between stone raking and carrying Y.M.C.A. boys on summer cruises to the Thousand Islands. The Maple Leaf was never idle while "Little Dick" Goldring had her.

HIS ANCHORS DOWN

"See these stones?" said the old man with pride, one evening in Port Whitby last month. "I got them when I took the family on a holiday to the Bay of Quinte in the Maple Leaf. It was just a pleasure cruise. So I threw in a load of stone before we started back and unloaded them for the foundations of this house I had planned for here. In my mind's eye I already had my anchors down in Port Whitby. Have you noticed them?"

Yes. They had attracted attention to the house before knowing who lived there. In each corner of the walk leading in under the shade of the maple trees was a neatly designed anchor in the concrete—laid out as only a sailorman would for good holding, splayed, not tandem or parallel.

GREAT GALE OF 1880

He told us of how he came through (the Great Gale of 1880; not heroically. just sensibly. Newly installed in the original Maple Leaf, he had taken her down to Prince Edward County for a bite at the barley trade—1 1/2 cents a bushel, from bay ports to Oswego, $60 freight for perhaps a week's work and waiting. They wanted him to load at Wellington, on the dangerous, open, harborless west face of the county. But he wouldn't be tempted. Instead he beat into South Bay and up behind Waupoos and then into Black Creek and up till he came to the roller bridge that was pulled back and forth by oxen. Somewhere above it and near the village of Milford was the loading place. The barley was carried aboard the Maple Leaf in bushel boxes with a handle at each end. Four thousand times the box had to be emptied to make up the load.

Then to get her down the creek they had to heave her out with the windlass, dragging her bodily through a shoal of yielding sawdust formed by fifty years' dumping from a Milford mill. However, they got her out and through the roller bridge and down to the big bluff at the mouth of the creek, below where the Goldhunter and the Hibernia were built. Beyond that was the open water of South Bay; beyond that the open lake.

"Little Dick" was in haste to reach Oswego and cash his freight but did not like the look of the sky. It was muggy and fitful, that 6th of November. Capt. John Walters' spoonbowed scow Sea Bird was lying loaded a anchor between the Black Creek bluff and Waupoos. He wouldn't go out either.

"Little Dick" moored the Maple Leaf right in the river mouth, making her lines fast on the biggest trees on the shore.

At midnight it blew a hurricane. Turning out to see that his lines were holding, Capt. Goldring was almost blown overboard by the gusts sweeping down the creek. But there was no scope for the sea to make up between the banks and the Maple Leaf never surged, though the wind pressure on her bare poles listed her and off-torn branches filled her deck. Uprooted trees came hurtling down from the bluff above but missed her. With morning light he looked for the Sea Bird. She had dragged both anchors and gone ashore and bilged on the point, even in the shelter of South Bay. Crew safe.

On the lake five vessels had been totally wrecked, twenty had been damaged and thirty sailors had been drowned. Groping through a fog some time afterwards, in a near-calm off Bald Head Island, Capt. Goldring saw a square post projecting from the1 water. He put down the Maple Leaf's yawl boat and sculled over to it. It was a schooner's paulpost, the great timber forward of the windlass, into which the heel of the bowsprit fits. Like every paulpost on the lakes then, it had a horseshoe nailed on it for luck. Capt. Goldring recognized the horseshoe.

The paulpost was the solitary memorial, the oaken tombstone, of the schooner Belle Sheridan of Toronto, which had been wrecked on that Nov. 7th, 1880, drowning Capt. James J. McSherry, with three of his sons and all of the crew save one.

YES, THAT WAS 15 YEARS AGO

Sir,—Just a note to say I enjoyed reading Saturday's Schooner Days. Aggie had a great reputation as a yacht I did not know she had been rebuilt twice. Your remarks also on the lighting of the Burlington Canal were interesting as I recalled a late cruise on the Gardenia (you were on board), tearing along at night with the club topsail set and could not be taken in as she was leaning too much. We had difficulty in finding the piers as the lights were confusing. I have a good deal of sympathy for the crew of the Aggie.

Faithfully,

R. D. W.

BRUNO, BRUNO, ANYONE SEEN BRUNO?

Sir,—I have read with interest your article in each Saturday's issue about "Schooner Days," and am desirous of obtaining information about the steam barge "Bruno." About two years ago a cut appeared in the paper of the "Marion Breck" and others snowed up in Heron Bay on the north shore of Lake Superior during the CPR construction days of 1883-4. Among the others was the Bruno. Do you know of any place that I could inquire as to the Bruno as to dimensions, etc.

A few years ago I commenced a hobby of model ship building and have finished a "clipper ship."

"Some time after the above period my father, the late Capt. Alex. Peters was captain of the Bruno, which on Nov. 5, 1890, with the schooner "Louisa" in tow, was wrecked on the Magnetic Reef at the southeast end of Cockburn Island, Lake Huron.

I would like to try making a model of this ship if there was any way of obtaining the dimensions from which to arrive at a scale.

Thanking you, I remain,

G. A. PETERS.

361 Spadina avenue.

Thomas' Register of Lake Shipping shows that the Bruno was built by L. Bruno at Montreal in 1863, and was owned by J. and R. Allen in Montreal and valued at $24,000 for insurance in 1864. Her registered tonnage was 398 tons. Her dimensions were, therefore, approximately 140 feet length over all, 25 feet beam, and 12 feet depth of hold, that is, from her main deck to her ceiling or inner skin of the bottom.

Bruno, the builder, also built two river barges at Montreal, one called the B., of 9,500 bushels capacity, and another called the Bruno, of 11,500 bushels capacity.

"HO FOR THE HUMBER"

Sir,—The writer is interested in historical events and customs relating to West York, and is wondering if private yachts, commercial passenger or freight boats stopped at Mimico, New Toronto or Long Branch Park, either for afternoon excursions from Toronto, or regular calls on the Toronto-Hamilton runs? The writer believes that the Long Branch Park Hotel and picnic grounds was particularly popular with its pier for yachts. Are pictures available of the pier in its heyday?

Also, were many ships built at the mouth of the Humber, and were boat races ever held on the same river?

Trust you may find it convenient to reply to some of the above questions or suggest where the answers may be obtained.

ROBERT GIVEN.

112 The Kingsway, Toronto.

No shipping knowledge of Mimico or New Toronto, but the Humber was where La Salle's "Frontenac" sheltered in 1678 and the Toronto yacht was built in 1799. Small cargo vessels used to sail as far up as the Old Mill, and yachts, tugs and steam launches thronged the mouth as late as 1890. The Ailsa Craig and Chicoutimi used to run excursions there. Never heard of races on the river except the "Brule Lake" proposal, which was a paper chase. Long Branch had a pier and was a regular port of call for the Greyhound, White Star, J. W. Steinhoff and other excursion steamers, and for small yachts. No pictures.

BROTHERS BOUGHT SISTER YACHTS

Sir,—I read with great interest your recent article about the Aggie. I sailed on the Aggie in the year of nineteen thirty-four, making quite a few voyages to Charlotte and Olcott.

Aggie was bought and repaired by Mr. C. Strange of Toronto. Incidentally, it might be of interest to you to know that Mr. Strange's brother bought the Aggie's sister ship, the Merrythought. The Merrythought suffered the same fate as the Aggie, by piling into the piers in New York in nineteen thirty-eight. I enclose a picture of the Aggie on her trial run as a ketch. In the picture she is coming out of the lagoon at Ward's Island and just passing in front of the Queen City Yacht Club.

Thanks for your interesting stories. Have missed quite a few, though, being overseas for the last few years, but will not miss any future stories.

—JOHN FLAHERTY.

172 Hamilton st., Toronto.

This fate of the Merrythought is news to the compiler of Schooner Days. Aggie and Merrythought were "sisters" in the sense that they were both the product of the same designer and builder, Capt. James Andrew. Merrythought, launched in 1895, eight years after the Aggie, represented a great advance on Capt. Andrew's part from his original centreboard model. She embodied all of the improvements he had made in Aggie, plus greater sail-carrying ability. A failure in her first season. when her name was Winnetta and her sail area too small, she was re-rigged by Aemilius Jarvis, both as a yawl and a cutter, interchangeable, and in his hands swept the boards, defeating all predecessors and winning championships in her division as long as he sailed her.

—SCHOONER DAYS.

Two pictures of CAPT. RICHARD GOLDRING surrounded by his children, grandchildren and friends at a recent birthday celebration under the maples in his garden at Port Whitby and his schooner MAPLE LEAF

AGGIE trying out her new ketch rig at Ward's Island, 1934.

A snapshot from a correspondent.)