Wood Smoke vs. Wind: Schooner Days DCCXXVIII (728)

by C. H. J. Snider

_______

Great Lakes Veteran Credits Initiation of the Towing Era to Enterprising St. Catharines Man

_______

WHEN and how did the towing era in the Great Lakes commence?

There are various legends about it, the commonest being that owners initiated it to avoid paying the higher wages demanded by the sailors' unions formed in the 1870's.

Another version is that towing was begun as a remedy for a sailors' strike, leaving the vessels idle at their wharves. Both may be true in specific instances but neither may account for the era.

A more convincing explanation is given by that honorary first vice-president of the Evergreen Club, Capt. W. D. Graham, of St. Catharines, who spent 34 lively years in sail before starting on another 34 lively years with the Hydro.

"Capt. James Norris was a St. Catharines vessel owner, with fine three-masters, like the old barque Malta, the St. Lawrence, the Clyde, and later the Sylvester Neelon, Augusta and James Norris and others in his fleet or the fleet of Norris and Neelon. He also owned and operated two flour mills, one situated above Lock Three and the other below Lock Three, on the old Welland Canal, the second one of the four that have been. He had as well large cooper shops on the canal, for flour was at that time shipped in barrels.

"Towards the close of 1869 or '70, Catharines, Detroit, Chicago and when the fleet had completed its season in the timber trade, Mr. Norris decided to send the Clyde, St. Lawrence and Malta up the lakes to Chicago, for a supply of grain for his mills. Other owners shook their heads at this, for the voyage might take a month or more, and the season was so advanced that the vessels might be frozen in either in Chicago itself, the Straits of Mackinaw or at Port Huron, and the Welland Canal might be frozen up before they got to Port Colborne. But Mr. Norris went ahead. "There was at this time a powerful big American tug named the Samson, whose picture yet decorates old shipping offices in a lithograph showing her towing a string of schooners up the St. Clair or Detroit River against the current. That was her specialty. Mr. Norris engaged her to take his three schooners to Chicago and back, a tremendous tow of nearly two thousand miles altogether. He stripped the schooners of their tophamper as they would not be needing their upper sails, and he loaded their decks with cordwood, for wood fuel was then in use in the tugs and the Samson could not carry nearly enough fuel for the voyage. No steamer did. It was common to steam "from wood-pile to wood-pile," cut wood being at every port like bunker coal is now.

"By being able to fuel from the tow as she went along, the Samson lost no time, and surprised Chicago by steaming in with three vessels astern of her. Shipping men thought she had picked them up in distress, and when they learned that Mr. Norris intended to have them loaded, they said: 'What is that crazy Canuck trying to do?' He showed them. His convoy delivered over 50,000 bushels of Chicago wheat at Lock Three before the Welland Canal froze, and with the addition of the local crop, the Norris mills were able to keep going all winter.

"What happened? Next season the American steamer Interocean, and barge, and the American steamer Raleigh, and barge, started a regular U.S.A. towing enterprise, and others soon followed suit. Capt. James Morris, of St. Catharines, is truly the pioneer in the art of towing."

The first Capt. James Norris of St. Catharines, started more than the towing era. He showed a practical interest in lake commerce which has rooted and grown through three generations and in several cities, St. Catharines, Detroit, Chicago and Toronto. Toronto. Mr. James Norris, of Chicago and Toronto, a partner in Toronto Elevators and navigation companies, and one of the donors of the steel yacht Oriole III, to the Navy League of Canada, during the World War, is a son of the St. Catherines original.

THE ST. LAWRENCE, as identified by the Great Lakes News ten years ago. This picture has also been identified as the OLIVER MITCHELL of Port Huron after being rerigged. She was sent to salt water during the Great War. When the Oliver Mitchell last visited Toronto, about 1895, she had only two masts. She was an Oswego vessel originally built by Navagh at Algonac, Mich., 1874, and her dimensions were 136 ft. length, 26 ft. beam, 13 ft. depth of hold, and 320 tons burden. The St. Lawrence's dimensions were 135 x 23.7 x 11.9, 358 tons. She and the CLYDE, 137 x 26 x 12, 407 tons, were built by Shickluna for Norris and Neelon in 1864, as one-masted Barges, becoming 3-masted schooners in 1866. The St. Lawrence was eventually lost in Lake Erie.

RUNNING THE RIVERS WITH HEADSAILS "SCANDALIZED" AND WIND AND CURRENT FREE

LAST TO USE "STUNSLS" ON THE LAKES

BARQUENTINE "MALTA" of St. Catharines, built by Shickluna, 1853, wrecked on the Devil's Nose, Lake Ontario, in the 1880's, when owned by John A. Proctor of Brighton. Her rig was restored after her wings were temporarily clipped for the first long voyage in tow. The studding sails which made her noteworthy were an ancient device for extending sail area, being narrower sails rigged out on the edges of the square sails spread by yards. The Malta also had a figurehead, which is not plain in the picture.