Slip Keels, Centreboarders and Stoney Creek: Schooner Days DCCXIX (719)

by C. H. J. Snider

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THAT curious story of how the early Lake Ontario clipper schooner Britannia saved Mackenzie's type from his enemies, and other adventures, were related by Peter Van Wagner when he was an old man, in long slow rides his grandson, Chester Hamilton of Toronto, had with him on the farm wagon, loaded with oats or barley for shipment. Peter had a gift of narrative, Chester a gift of memory. Thus it came about that an unknown tintype published at a venture in 1945 was identified and the Britannia's history unfolded a hundred years after her swift keel and sharp stem drove their last furrows.

There are no traces now of that little port of call which once flourished at the mouth of Stoney Creek where the Britannia landed after leaving York in the dark with all lights masked. The creek itself reaches Lake Ontario yet at Van Wagner's beach, about four miles east of the Burlington piers, but its old embouchure has been changed beyond recognition by the dredging away of the sandbar which once protected it.

Stoney Creek village is inland, under the brow of the mountain. The creek paralleled the road from the village, cutting its way through the marshes at the east end of Burlington Bay, to a gap in the beach. At the foot of the road the water was deep enough for small vessels to lie, and there used to be two elevators, operated by horsepower, for grain shipment and storage for lumber, for much of this was shipped from Stoney Creek, as the timber trade dwindled. The sunken cribs of the two old piers were a favorite spot for bass fishing up to recent years. They, too, have vanished.

Peter Van Wagner was well acquainted with the Britannia. He was born in 1818, and therefore only eight years old when the Britannia, probably no older than he, fled by night from the raiders of York. But he saw her often in succeeding years when she was loading timber on the shore, and his descriptions of her corroborate Alexander Muir's tributes to her sailing ability. She was fast and able, but too sharp and had too much dead rise and too little hold space to be a profitable but carrier in competition with the fat droghers, which could earn twice the freight with the same wage bill. Peter Van Wagner knew Alexander Muir, for he went sailing with his school chum, William Bates, born on the site of the Hamilton waterworks, and mate in Muir's schooner, Queen Victoria, successor to the Britannia. Peter was on board as wheelsman when the adventure, elsewhere related, occurred, in which a seaman named Fish fell from the mainmast head to the deck, fifty feet below, but survived. In falling he had caught the main topsail halliard, and slid down it at such terrific speed that his shirt was torn to ribbons and his chest was lacerated with rope burns, but his arms were saved by the sleeves of the heavy peajacket he was wearing. On reaching Port Dalhousie, Alexander Muir recounted, "John Martindale sharpened his penknife and bled him in the arm. Fish took some physic and in a short time was all right, for his allotted time had not yet arrived."

It was historic irony that the sand dredger which removed the sandbar protecting the old creekmouth port-of-call which received the remnants of Mackenzie's printing plant, as told last week in Schooner Days, was the Commodore Jarvis, named after Canada's great sailor, Aemilius Jarvis, internationally famous commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. Samuel Peters Jarvis, grandfather of Aemilius of our time, was one of those hot young loyalists who had thrown the Mackenzie press into the Bay. A great-grandson carries his name.

It was also historic irony that the ship which saved the remnants of Mackenzie's tools for cutting the tie with Britain should have been British built at Wellington Square and named the Britannia. Who the Britannia's owner was at the time, 1826, and who was her captain, is not known.

Scadding's Toronto of Old mentions Matthew Crooks of Niagara, and Capt. Miller, as of this period, but in 1837, before the rebellion, she appears to hail from Oakville. Alexander Muir recalled her captain's name as Boyland, and she was owned by the Calvin timber firm of Garden Island between 1838 and 1844, when she was considered an "old vessel,"being then 25 or 26. Twenty-six years was a good average life for a wooden vessel on fresh water, but many attained an age twice as great. The tintype taken at Chippawa, and supposed to be a photograph of the Britannia, could have been made before 1860, when the Britannia would be forty-one, a not improbable age, even if she were "old" sixteen years before. The hull and rig of the vessel pictured seem to date, from a launching considerably earlier than 1860.

Explaining the remark that the deep-draught, sharp-deadrise Britannia, with her greatest depth aft, marked the end of the standing keel era on the lakes, it may be stated that Americans make the claim to the first centreboarder on Lake Ontario in 1805 intimating that the boat or the idea came by way of Schenectady. (Capt. Van Cleve's diary). Slipkeels are mentioned in war correspondence in 1813, and by 1819, when the Britannia was first reported at least one slipkeel was plying out of York.

"In 1819-20 Stillwell Wilson, with whom we are already acquainted, is in command of a slip-keel schooner carrying passengers and freight between York and Niagara," wrote Dr. Scadding.

Stillwell was apparently a lively lad in little old muddy York. In 1799 at the annual York township meeting he was elected overseer of highways and a fence-viewer for Yonge street from lot 26 to lot 40 in Markham and Vaughan. He left his fence-viewing to operate a slipkeel and in 1821 was landlord of the Waterloo House in York, owner of four improved farms up Yonge street in York and Vaughan townships and a sawmill on the third concession of York, east of Yonge street on the west branch of the Don, 10 miles from the town. All was not smooth sailing for Stillwell on land, however well his slip-keel sped over the lake between York and Niagara, for in 1828 at the suit of Jairus Ashley one of Stillwell's Vaughan township lots, No. 30, was sold by sheriff's auction at the town of York, having been seized by that functionary. The lot was bought by Mr. Cawthra.

The slip-keel, as its name indicates, was a variant in nomenclature for the centreboarder, the vessel in each case be ing furnished with a slipping, sliding, or otherwise moveable auxiliary "keel," raised or lowered through a slot in the main keel. The purpose of this board was to prevent leeway when lowered. When hoisted into its box, trunk, or case, it reduced the vessel's draught and enabled her to traverse shoaler waters.

At the beginning of the 19th century, all sailing vessels on Lake Ontario had standing keels, unless they were flat-bottomed craft dependent on oars or poles for propulsion when the wind was against them. The centreboard was introduced about 1820, and was used from 1850 to 1880 in almost every sailing vessel built, and even in propellers and tow-barges. Like the sails which it assisted, it has now almost vanished. The big lake carrier Minnedosa had one or more centreboards, but at sea such a vessel as the one shown in the illustration would not now be so equipped although a number of large centreboard schooners are still employed in certain localities in salt water coasting.

HERE are two snapshots from Able Seaman John Leonard, 10 Meredith Crescent, who has recently returned from duty in the navy and is, we understand, now quartermaster in one of the big freighters for the remainder of the navigation season. He thought Schooner Days would be interested in this evidence of the survival of sail on salt water, and took these pictures while he was on duty in Newfoundland. The big fourmaster is the HERBERT L. RAWDING of ST. JOHN'S, an American bottom which has been transferred to the British flag. She is as large as the biggest Canadian schooner that sailed the Great Lakes, the MINNEDOSA, which we discussed last summer. The rig is somewhat different, all four masts being of the same height. The lake practice was always to have the aftermost mast shorter than the other two or three. She is like the Minnedosa in having a long high-steeved bowsprit and jibboom which had the merit of keeping sailors' feet dry when they went out to stow the jibtopsail, fifty feet beyond the knightheads of the stern [sic: stem]. The lower picture shows the layout of the Rawding's forecastle head, and how far the headsails and jibboom project forty feet above the water. While an out-and-out sailer the Rawding has power capstans and winches, and a small auxiliary engine.

LONGHORNS STILL AT SEA