Lake Whalers and 2-Wheel Velocipedes: Schooner Days DCCXXXIII (733)

by C. H. J. Snider

IT was fitting out time in X Port and the sap was stirring in the sugar maples on the ridge and in the oldest tree that gave the name to Appleboom Point, and in the winter weary sea legs of the schooner men and even in the timber toes of the old tars who had lost a leg or flipper in Chauncey's Lake Ontario fleet in the War of 1812.

As these worthies sat whittling on the string piece in the mild April sunshine of 1869, they saw a strange spectacle on the drying dirt highway known as the Lake Road.

It was so remarkable that even you, reader, might not believe it unless given the authority. These are the very words describing what they saw, quoted from the sporting page of the Commercial Advertiser, published monthly in "this place," as it was fond of saying, ever since the Civil War, at 3 cents a copy or 15 cents per annum, cash subscription, strictly in advance:

"Geo. W. Griffin and Capt. James T. Holling have been out with their two-wheeled velocipedes and managed them, we thought, first rate, and could get up almost any speed they desired. It is yet to be seen how useful they may become. The work may be less than walking. If so, the speed is an improvement."

FLAMING YOUTH

Who George W. Griffin was we do not know; maybe a young blade who became master of the schooner St. Peter much later, for the name seems familiar in that connection. But Jimmy Holling's lakefaring ancestry should have warned him against such tempting of Providence. His people were merchants and ship owners in "this place"—had been for generations.

Old Capt. Andrew Holling had been sailing the Free Trader, 46 tons, from 'forty-nine until she passed to the Canadian register in the Civil War. Capt. Armine Holling had sailed the Rival from the year 1856, when Horatio Nelson Throop had her built in Alexandria Bay, until 1862, when Holling and Allen rebuilt the old J. J. Morley and called her the Alfred Allen, and Capt. Armine took her to Milwaukee, from Lake Ontario, with passengers and freight.

That had been young Jimmy Holling's big chance, when he succeeded to the command of the Rival, biggest schooner sailing out of the port. The Rival was of 331 tons register and insurable for $8,000 even when eight years old. He had been master of her now for seven years—and what an example was he setting now, flying around on one of those French inventions?

The "two-wheeled velocipede" of 1869 was not the old high bike you can just remember, with a little wheel behind, of one quarter the diameter of the big one. That had not been evolved yet. The vehicles for the exhibition of the recklessness of Captains Holling and Griffiths were the original boneshakers patented by the Parisian, Pierre Lallement, in the United States in 1866. They had two wooden wheels, with the saddle and pedals on the front one. This was 36 inches in diameter and the rear one 28. The boneshaker was the first velocipede to be called a "bisycle," but that name in 1869 was as new as radar and too much for the chaste Commercial Advertiser. The "safety" bicycle, with equal wheels, did not begin to appear until 1885.

PORT BOYS CAUGHT WHALES

This pleasant old port, of gently gleaming big white houses, now wharfless and shipless (save for the little yachts snuggling in the river mouth under Appleboom Point) sent its sailors all over the Great Lakes and much farther than Milwaukee. It has records of little forty-ton fruiters sailing for Chicago, and some of its frequenters even tackled Lake Superior. One of its mariners is said to have taken his bride on a whaling voyage to the Arctic, for it was the home of whalemen.

In 1867 the Commercial Advertiser reported the departure of three whalemen from the port:

"Capt. Sam'l W. Roys, Capt. A. Roys and Capt. Henry Roys sailed from New York for San Francisco, Cal., on the Steamer Morning Star, Saturday, Dec. 21 (1867). They are to remain on the whaling coast of California this winter and in the spring they will proceed to the coast of 'Alaska,' our new possession just purchased off Russia."

Capt. Roys was credited with inventing a harpoon gun, or gun-fired harpoon, which helped deplete the whale population.

BACK PROM "OUR NEW POSSESSION"

Two years later — this very April, when the portentous appearance of velocipedes lightened the heavens — the Commercial Advertiser told of the homecoming of the whalemen. Perhaps they brought the velocipedes with them:

"April, 1869 —Capt. Henry N. Roys, son of Philander B. Roys, of our village, has arrived home from California, having been gone almost two years in a whaling voyage on the coast of Alaska.

"Capt. Sam'l W. Roys arrived home from San Francisco, Cal., a few days since. He has been in command of a vessel employed in the merchant service. He was at San Francisco at the time the recent earthquake took place, He says the published accounts did not give one quarter of the amount of damage done buildings and personal property. He has purchased a farm in Nebraska and moved there."

It isn't fair to drag out the mystery of "this place" and "X Port," of which we have been making such a molehill. People have been guessing at it all the way from Jordan to Port Ontario. The port was and is Pultneyville, N.Y., some twenty-five miles east of Rochester. It is a lovely lively place to-day, full of old memories and modern good living. And there will be more about it soon.

Robert D. McLeod, Jr., of Toronto, who has just sold his well known "Bubbles," recognized the place from the reference to Capt. Dick Burcroff, whom he used to meet occasionally in Lake Ontario ports in his little cruiser Scud.

"IN THE LEE OF APPLEBOOM POINT....."

OLD CAPT. THROOP KEPT HIS "MAGIC in the little cove at the river mouth where the yachts are seen snuggling. A willow tree drowned by three years of high water on Lake Ontario, marks the end of one of the vanished harbor piers. Immediately above it, and to the right, is Appleboom Point.