'Nigger-in-Wood-Pile'--and 1st Propeller: Schooner Days DCCLXI (761)

by C. H. J. Snider

HORATIO NELSON THROOP, of Pultneyville, N.Y., just missed the niche or pedestal in history reserved for him who changed lake steamers from paddlewheels to propellers; a momentous alteration. John Ericsson and Capt. J. C. Van Cleve, as it is, occupy the narrow space jointly. Ericsson had perfected a screw propeller in 1836, and Capt. Van Cleve applied it to the new steam sloop Van Dalia [Vandalia] in 1841.

Our hero's prosperity dated from May 12th, 1830, when Henry Fitzhugh, Oswego mill owner, bought out Hiram Gallop's interest in the "big" schooner Enterprise (60 tons!) which Horatio had built. To make her pay he sailed her himself and did all the work of management and maintenance, for times were slack. But after Fitzhugh came in there was always plenty of work carrying grist to his mill. Horatio was able to turn the schooner over to his brother, Washington, in 1833, and went to Oswego to build the schooner Whig for Fitzhugh and Lyon, for the Upper Lake trade opened by the Welland Canal. The Whig was finished in June, 1834, and Horatio became a partner in the forwarding business of John E. Lyon and Co., at Cleveland, on Lake Erie. He married Mary E. Ledyard, of the old Pultneyville sailing family—Capt. John H. Ledyard commanded the steamer Cataract in 1862 — and for 1835 "commuted" between Cleveland, Pultneyville and Oswego, rebuilding and enlarging the firm's schooner Aurora The firm consisted of Henry Fitzhugh, James Lyon, John R. Lyon, John E. Lyon and Horatio.

FIRST ON LAKE ONTARIO

Returning to Pultneyville in March, 1836, he conducted experiments with a screw propeller of his own invention upon a large open boat of two tons burden. It worked. In September, 1836, Henry Fitzhugh offered him the command of the passenger steamer Oneida, a sidewheeler, which ran to Niagara, in the Oswego daily line. It was a tempting offer, but Horatio declined it, in order to build a screw propeller steamer at Pultneyville, to be named Express, for a projected company, the commencement of the American Express Line.

It was 1838 before the Express was launched, for a hitch arose through the reluctance of some of the shareholders to entrust their capital in the newfangled invention of the screw. This was proved successful in England next year, in an admiralty tug and the steamer Archimedes, well named. Horatio was convinced of the merits of screw propulsion, for the propeller, from its position astern delivered more power and demanded less hold space than the cumbrous paddle wheels on either side and the engines between them, which all steamers on the lakes were using. Almost the entire hull could be devoted to cabins or cargo, the engines being tucked away in the stern. He had designed the Express for a propeller and went to New York to get the proper machinery to use for his pattern. But rather than wreck the new company by the withdrawal of capital Horatio compromised and equipped the Express with paddlewheels.

OSWEGO GETS THE PALM

Consequently Oswego beat Pultneyville—and the rest of the Great Lakes ports — in becoming the mother of the first propeller. This was five years after Horatio had driven his two-ton boat with a screw. In November, 1841, the new sloop Vandalia was fitted with a small engine in the stern, turning one of the Ericsson patent screws. She proved everything Horatio had foreseen—her deck was free for cargo and for working her sails, for she had as much canvas on her as an ordinary schooner of the time, and her hold could accommodate twice as much freight as any sidewheeler.

In a few years a fleet of steam sloops or steam schooners was running between Oswego and Chicago, and the Great Lakes propeller, high in the bow, low in the stern, with a long roomy hold and deck between, was established for a hundred years. The Van Dalia was only 90 feet long. She was the grandmother of the 600-foot bulk freighter of 1946. The first vessels kept their sails because they could not carry enough wood fuel for long hauls without displacing pay-freight. All early steamers crept from woodpile to wood-pile. Coal and oil fuel were yet to come.

BUILDING STEAMSHIP BUSINESS

Through the timidity of some of his associates Horatio had lost not only his place in history, but his patent priorities. But he was not one to cry over spilt milk. He made a success of the Express, even as a sidewheeler, and when she was sold to the St. Lawrence Steamboat Co. in 1841 he operated her for them. Next year he transferred to the steamer Rochester, of the Utica and Ontario Steam and Canal Packet Company, and solved their problem of making their steamer stand up under heavy deck loads by adding "blisters" or false sides to her.

By 1843 the Ontario Steamboat Co. had two steamers and the Utica and Ontario two more, running daily between Niagara and Ogdensburg in furious rivalry. Horatio retained command of the Rochester and was supervisor of repairs and alterations for his line. In 1847 he was sent to New York for engines and a model for a larger steamer. He designed the model himself. E. G. Merrick, of Clayton, N. Y., built the resultant steamer. She was christened Ontario, second of the name, Horatio was placed in command, and in July, 1848, she went into service. The two rival companies consolidated in an uneasy, jealous amalgamation, but were delighted to have Horatio superintendent of the fleet, with headquarters at Rochester.

Carried 50,000 A YEAR

The business of the Ontario Steamboat Company and its American Express line grew until by the time the American Civil War loomed the line was carrying 50,000 passengers a year between Lewiston and Montreal, with four steamers a week calling regularly at Pultneyville. Horatio, filled out and be-whiskered now after the fearsome fashion of eighty years ago, was the general superintendent of the line, a man of substance, with his residence in Pultneyville, his office in Rochester.

He only captained a steamer now in emergencies, but he liked those emergencies. He particularly clung to his pilot house in the Ontario, for the festering sore of slavery in the United States was now coming to a head, and Pultneyville was one of the stations of the underground railway that helped fugitive slaves to Canada and freedom.

RAILWAY WITH STEAMBOAT CONNECTIONS

The black men who owed their escape to the dignified Capt. Throop, of the American Express liner Ontario, may have been legion. An honorable local justice (head of the underground) would appear on the wharf when the Ontario came in and ask "Have you sufficient fuel for the voyage, Captain Throop!" This was the cue that there was, literally, a nigger in the woodpile, for the company kept its fuel dock well filled, and the slabs and cordwood made good hiding places for escaping slaves. The Pultneyville practice is said to be the origin of the expression. Capt. Throop would delay his refueling till dark, and some poor black man would be smuggled aboard under the sharp noses of the sheriff's officers from the slate states. Next day he would be drawing freedom's breath at Queenston or Kingston or some Canadian point where the Ontario touched.

Perhaps it was from these contacts with the sons of Ham that Horatio became such a good banjo player. Perhaps, also, such a dog lover. A dog was always at his heels ashore. When he had his picture drawn - like Cromwell, "wart and all" - he all had one of the dog of the day drawn, and they were published together in the stiffly-perspective illustration of his residence in one of the subscription atlases of the period.

HIS OWN PROPELLER YACHT

He never changed his faith in propellers, and when he built a yacht for himself, the Magic, in the opulent 1860's, she was a screw steamer; a quaint thing to our eyes, with her funny smoke pipe and glassed-in sides; but she was big, some 80 feet long. Her old mooring in Salmon Creek mouth is still preserved in Pultneyville. She was the first unit of the Pultneyville Yacht Club's fleet, and possibly the first steam yacht on the Great Lakes. Her date was 1867. A large steam yacht was begun in Oakville about this time, but never finished. She stood in the stocks long and was completed as the sailing schooner Highland Beauty — slim, crank, and fast.

Horatio still believed in schooners, and built and owned two big ones, ten times the tonnage of his poor little Sophia. One was the Challenge, 1855, sold after a year's operation, to become a light ship or government service vessel. The other was the Rival, 1857, the first three-master in Pultneyville, and she paid her whole cost by her earnings in her first season.

MESSAGE IN FIRE BUCKET

Horatio placed his best mates in command of the vessels of the line when he had to have captains, and this paid dividends. On one occasion one of the company's steamers broke down in mid-lake, with a gale blowing. Within twenty-four hours the steamer was bound to driver ashore, a wreck. It was too rough to lower a boat, there was no wireless or ship-to-shore telephone then.

The captain, who had been fist make with Horatio in this very vessel, threw overboard two of the bright red fire buckets, with the same note secured in each: "Steamer Such-and-such broken down 15 miles north by west of Devil's Nose. Notify Superintendent Throop, Rochester, immediately. Reward. " He added the exact time and date. One of the buckets was picked up on the beach that day, the message rushed to Horatio, and he started for the position immediately with the Ontario, which happened to be in port. Rochester was one of the ports-of-call, and headquarters of the line. In a few hours he sighted the cripple, dangerously close to the shore. He dreamed to windward of her, floated down a "messenger" line passed her hawsers, and to avoid parting these lifelines vey gently went ahead until he got her under weigh; and so towed her off shore and into port. Thereby he saved a hundred lives and a hundred thousand dollars in salvage.

Our hero lived to the age of 77, and died in Pultneyville on Aug. 6th, 1884. He had no children.

FIRST LAKE PROPELLER, drawn by her owner—90 feet long, 300 tons capacity, forerunner of C.S.L. bulk freighter LEMOYNE, 600 feet long, 20,000 tons capacity, built a hundred years later on the same principle of engines in the stern and long uninterrupted hold.

CONVOYED BY ONE OF HIS DOGS, HORATIO, FULL OF YEARS AND HONORS, COMES HOME TO HIS COBBLESTONE MANSION—PERHAPS AFTER A SUCCESSFUL TRIP ON THE "UNDERGROUND RAILWAY" OR THE "WOODPILE LINE." —From an old American Atlas.

CAPT. THROOP'S PROPELLER STEAM YACHT, MAGIC of PULTNEYVILLE, with his own propeller in 1867. He drove a two ton open boat with his own propeller in 1836.