3 French Sisters Try Lake Ontario: Schooner Days DCCLII (752)

by C. H. J. Snider

All Dead Now But They had and Gave a Good Time While it Lasted - Among Them was the "Otonabee"

THREE FRENCH LADIES gladdened Lake Ontario with their presence just after Confederation. (We are talking about schooners, not sirens, grandpa.) They were buxom belles 26 feet 2 inches wide, 10 feet deep, 125 feet long, and registering 225 tons. At least these are the official measurements of the one of them in which we are particularly interested.

Their paint varied from time to time, as we understand ladies' paint still does. The Tranchemontagne usually wore white with a green petticoat, and green ribbons at rail and coveringboard. The Maria Annette, for the ten years that we knew her, was always white above with a peculiar shade of dark red below, and had red trim. She is said to have looked much smarter in black, with lead color below, red hawsepipes and beading, and white coveringboard. The Otonabee was often green, long and still a favorite color with the French of the St. Lawrence. She, too, was sometimes black, and may have been white; but always handsome.

They were clipper bowed, straight in the sheer, overhanging in the transom and looked yachty, their topmasts being rather shorter than those of other lake schooners. Their masts raked jauntily, with their mainmasts, salt water fashion, nearer amidships. They sailed well, especially by-the-wind, arid they carried big loads.

They were named F. E, Tranchemontagne, Maria Annette and Otonabee. The first was called "Tranchmontang" by the barbarians of Ontario; the second's name might have been spelled Maria Nett from the way it was always pronounced, but the third was Ougt On A Bee, however the Indians or her French builders may have pronounced or spelled it. In the first Dominion register it was Otanabee, but the name belongs to the river and township in Northumberland County. The schooner was owned by A. H. Campbell, of Peterboro, and registered at Port Hope, and sailed out of there.

After some years on Lake Ontario she was purchased by Capt. Alex. Birnie, of Collingwood Township for himself and the J. C. Hughson Lumber Co., of Tonawanda, New York. They had a branch at Sarnia and the Otonabee was employed carrying lumber from Georgian Bay to the various branches of the firm.

She and her sisters were noteworthy among lake schooners in that they were built of tamarac instead of oak and were "treenailed," or as we used to say, "trunnel-fastened." That is, where other ships had iron bolts and driftbolts, these were fastened together with wooden pins. Both plank and frame would be bored with a big auger and then a hickory pin driven in. The pin was then split at each end with a chisel and a wedge driven into the splits. Since the auger hole tended to be a bit "bellmouthed" where it began, the expanded pin would hold firmly.

On one occasion the Otonabee wintered in Sarnia and it was decided to put a new deck on her. The ship carpenters had a hard time getting the old deck off, so firmly did the "trunnel" fastenings hold. It meant boring out the treenails the depth of the plank and then driving the pin out of the deck beam below. While an extremely solid method of construction, the ship would groan and squeal like a herd of hogs in a heavy sea as the wood of the fastenings pulled against the grain of plank and timber.

In one season the Otonabee made 20 round trips from Georgian Bay to Sarnia, a record for sail that was never equalled. When winds were fair, Capt. Birnie would bring her into the Narrows at Sarnia, outrunning the tugs that wanted to tow her, then swing her around and lay her alongside the Hughson dock. On one occasion they ran into bad weather on Lake Huron and shipped so much water that she was waterlogged. Captain Birnie's wife and two children used to sail with him, and on this occasion he arrived in Sarnia with his family wrapped in a spare sail on top of the cabin, the water having chased them out of their beds below. There was one consolation about carrying lumber; no matter how much water there was in the hold the ship would not sink. There was a danger, however, that the lumber would swell and tear the deck off, as the cargo in the hold was wedged tight against the deck beams.

The Tranchemontagne capsized once, off the Western Gap, Toronto, and drowned Mrs. Jackson, the wife of the captain who then commanded her. The vessel was righted and ultimately came to grief at Oswego in the late 1880's, striking the east breakwater and being smashed into loose boards like the lumber she was carrying. The Maria Annette, long sailed out of Port Hope by "Young Will" Peacock, son of Capt. Jim, died at Sarnia about 1902, having waterlogged in Lake Huron and been towed to the drydock, a wreck. The Otonabee survived until 1910 or thereabouts, when she stranded at Morpeth on Lake Erie.

This, however, was years after both Capt. Birnie and his family, and Capt. James W. Baby, whose fortunes we have been following had left her, Next week, if still interested, you shall hear of his life in the Otonabee, when he and she were both in their 'teens.

RANDOM SHOT at an unidentified schooner submitted recently by Capt. F. E. Hamilton of Kelley's Island proved to be an interesting portrait of the historic EDWARD L. BLAKE "with her cargo McCarrigles" as the old Welland Canal joke used to go. Now, who can identify this one, also at present unknown? She looks like the MAJOR FERRY, which we only saw once, o the LUCIA SIMPSON, which we have only seen in photographs. The French sisters looked nothing like this.