Last of the "Jennie Graham": Schooner Days DCCXLI (741)

by C. H. J. Snider

Her Ex-horseboy Brought About the Boon of Free Access to Lake Michigan for Canadian Clearances—Lake Sailors' Getting Home Problems at Season's End- The Blood Boats

WHEN the present Capt. Wm. D. Graham, of St. Catharines, once horseboy and later seaman in the 3-masted schooner Jennie Graham, finished stripping that vessel of her torn, patched and frozen sails and laid her up in Chicago in 1875 "we left via the Michigan and Great Western Railway for Windsor and St. Catharines—feeling fine, and I being still in my teens."

The quotation is from his narrative of last week. What followed will be told here soon, but the gay memory of the homecoming recalls a similar account by "Harry-out-of-Picton," Mr. Henry McConnell, Uncle Henry to so many in Prince Edward, after the mariner's service at Cherry Valley a week ago. "Uncle Henry" is a contemporary of Capt. Graham's. A few years his junior he is typical of the Lake Ontario sailor of the 1870's, who left home in the spring and never saw it again till Christmas, because he was engaged in the "big vessel trade up above," that is on the Upper Lakes.

This fall in 1875 Harry-out-out-of Picton was the full sized schooner Montauk of Oswego, 433 tons, built by George Goble and owned by Lyons, Finney & Goble, until sold to Upper Lake owners. She cost $17,000 new. "A big Dutchman sailed her," said Harry, "and she was the hungriest vessel I was ever in. When we got to the city of Green Bay, Wis., with our coal I sent to the hotel and spent a quarter on the first square meal I had eaten since joining her. The Old Man wanted to pay us off, for he was going to lay her up here, and the boys demanded their fare home. All he would give was one train-fare to Milwaukee, which was little good to me in two days, first because it was such a long way from Picton, and second because when I'd get there the chances of shipping in anything bound down the lakes to Ontario were very slim, it was so late in the fall then.

"In Green Bay I saw a stern wheel steamer from the Mississippi, with a wheel on her stern as high as our house, and cabins built like a hotel block, but drawing only 13 inches of water. The Fox River flows in there and joins the Mississippi, and that was how she had come up to Green Bay.

"But I didn't want to go south but east, so I took the $9.75 fare and my wages, and when I got to Milwaukee I spotted the little steamer City of Toledo, and heard she was loading for Buffalo and needed a wheelsman. I got to the 'site' and my passage down Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie, and wages to boot. Then I got across the old Welland Canal at St. Catharines. I knew the tugmen and was putting my bag aboard one of the tugs for a free ride down to Port Dalhousie, where the steamers ran to Kingston.

"My bag was grabbed before I could put it down on the deck, and a voice said, 'You're not shipping in this tug. You're shipping with me in the Guiding Star of Oswego. Come along!"

OLD RED STAR BLOOD BOATS

The Guiding Star used to be one of what they called the Blood Boats of Oswego, when she was in the Red Star Line. They all had their mastheads, gaff and boom ends, and small spars, painted a bright red, and some of this line in the 1840s were said to be the first big vessels to uses centerboards on the lake. There was the Mystic Star and the Shooting Star and the Kissing Star, and the Senator Blood and the Helen Blood; and Blood, Bond and Ford, or M. J. Cummings were the owners, at one time; but the line was often changing, as the vessels were sold or replaced, and it is not known whether the Guiding Star was in it at the particular date.

The Guiding Star was ultimately wrecked off Fox Point on Lake Michigan, and on Fishermen's Shoals in that same lake her sister ship, the Blazing Star, was lost, in 1887. Bucko Brennan of Bond Head (Newcastle Harbor) was the Guiding Star's mate.

"So I shipped in the Guiding Star," continued Mr. McConnell, "and we got out of the Welland canal just before it closed for the season, and had a good passage down Lake Ontario to Oswego, which added a few dollars to my pile. And there, as luck would have it, was Pete Ostrander lying with the little Flora of Picton, then newly rebuilt from the Flying Scud. He wanted a man, and would have given me a passage anyway. Next day we got a slant and were across and in Picton harbor before the winter sun set. And so I was home again on Christmas, after what you might call a free trip from Green Bay, and $31 more in my pocket than when I was paid off in the wild and woolly west."

FIRST LAD'S HOMECOMING

Capt. Graham was home for Christmas too, in, 1875, but the joyful prospect did not remove from his mind the memory of having had to scull his captain ashore at the Straits of Mackinaw, and get a permit from an American custom's officer in the basement of a waterfront saloon, before the Canadian schooner Jennie Graham could enter the sacred waters of Lake Michigan. That memory rankled, so—

"Shortly after arriving home I called on the MP for Lincoln county, then a Mr. John Charles Ryckert and told him of this scrap of paper business. My reception by my learned friend was rather cool and snappy. His reply was, 'Young man, you're asking a great deal from me.'

"My answer was, 'It is no personal request, it embraces the sailing fraternity.' He said, 'What could you recommend?'

" 'Stop every U.S.A. vessel at Niagara-on-the-Lake when they enter the sacred waters of Canada.

"The next year a Canadian vessel could 'clear' for American waters from Port Huron, Mich., which was an improvement, but that did not last long. The tug Champion, towing vessels through the rivers in those days, sometimes had as many as ten vessels in tow, and if there was a Canadian in the line she would have to hold all ten in the St. Clair rapids current while a boat rowed the Canadian captain on shore for the scrap of paper which would enable him to enter American waters above Lake Huron. The tug captains sometimes refused to stop, and complained of the waste of time and coal. So next season, by an agreement made with the U.S.A. Canadian vessels were able to get their 'clearances' to enter American waters from their own Canadian ports."

LAST OF THE JENNIE GRAHAM

The Jennie Graham was a well built, well managed schooner, and a good earner while she was working, but she could hardly be considered a lucky ship. Nor was April her lucky month. The fatal capsize occurred on April 30th in the second year of her short life. Fourteen years later, on April 21st, 1885, while in her prime, she struck a reef off the Duck Island in the north part of Lake Huron. She was loaded with corn from Chicago for Collingwood. She was a very early bird from Lake Ontario to be on her way to the Collingwood elevator with the first of the grain cargoes so soon in the season. Perhaps she had had to winter in Chicago, again the preceding season, for she usually ran until frozen in.

When she struck the reef she was driven over by the sea that was running, and settled on the bottom in two fathoms. This left her decks above water but her planking had been opened and her cargo was wet. The corn swelled and burst her deck and hatches up. The crew escaped with their lives. And that was the end of the Jennie Graham.

SCHOONER "GUIDING STAR" OF OSWEGO, which brought Harry-out-of-Picton home after finishing the season at Chicago.