Dainty Bird, Two Schooners, Ugly Duckling: Schooner Days DCCLXXI (771)

by C. H. J. Snider

LAST VOYAGE of that great master mariner. Capt. John Williams, this week was impressive under the mild benediction of the sun in his 90th November.

It was to Norway cemetery, on the rising ground not far above the Kew Beach cottage where he was born. There were many striking features: the 51st Sea Scouts, in bellbottom trousers and jumpers of navy blue; master mariners of schooner days and steamer times, all very old to the sea scouts, and all younger than The Captain; the heart stirring tribute of the young man of God who had been his friend; the mounds of blooms in honor of "Capt. John Williams, MM"—this last the proudest decoration any man can wear. All who have it, earned it the hard way. There are no honorary degrees on the compass card or on the water.

Capt. Williams certificate may have been the first issued in Toronto. He had been master of the P. E. Young for some time when his owner, Charles Robinson, told him of the new regulation which required "papers" for captains of vessels of even her tonnage. So he went to the old Post Office at the head of Toronto street—there yet, though all done over inside—and answered a verbal examination after his written one, and came through with colors flying.

Mr. Robinson was so pleased with this, and with the way this captain in his twenties, had made the P. E. Young pay when all others ran in the red, that he gave him a beautiful gold watch. It is now a family heirloom.

Capt. Williams was in the Young in 1883 and 1884, graduating from her to the Greenwood. A fine picture of this, the first schooner which he himself owned, hung above his last berth, in the sun-filled room where the rich hued flowers contrasted so with the black garbed mourners while "I am the Resurrection and the Life" was being said.

On the casket, beneath the picture of the schooner in which he sailed with his bride sixty years ago, was placed, correctly, his master mariner's peaked cap, with its appropriate insignia, and a flag, properly folded. It was the Red Ensign of the Canadian merchant navy or mercantile marine, with the arms of Canada properly displayed. They did not encroach on the Union Jack emblem dear to him and his family, children of Color Sgt. Joseph Williams, of Her Majesty's 100th Regt.

That flag has a history. It was the ensign of the schooner Highland Beauty, sailed by Capt. Tommy Williams, John's younger brother, up to 1901. He and Tom were partners together twenty years earlier in the first schooner they rented, before either owned one, the Belle of Dunbarton.

The Highland Beauty was long in the family, but John only sailed her once, and that was for his brother.

She lived up to her name. She was built to be a steam yacht, before the hard times came in the 1870's and was left unfinished for some time at Oakville. Apparently the original contract lapsed. At length to find a purchaser, fifteen feet of her beautiful fantail was cut off while she was still in frame, and she was finished with a schooner's stern.

The Williamses' made up for her bobbed tail by painting across the transom a full-size picture of a Highland lassie reclining on the heather, amid looped-back curtains. This masterpiece was known by heart to a large number of schooners that had to look at it too often for their own comfort, for the Highland Beauty had a habit of getting out in front and staying there. She was a stepper.

Captain John always had a warm spot in his heart for a schooner quite different, the Speedwell. In her own awkward way she responded to his affection, although she really [sic: nealry] gave him his death blow. He was rough-hacking a timber for her keelson, one winter, when the ship-axe slipped and gashed his foot severely. The wound healed, with the loss of a toe, and for forty years gave him no trouble. Then gangrene developed. To save his life the leg had to be amputated. The gangrene was halted, but quite recently the other foot was threatened. Careful treatment parried this attack, but it helped old age to wear him down. His end was gentle and in the course of nature.

But for all she had done to him, Capt. Williams always loved the Speedwell and covered up the good deeds of his right hand from his left by using her name for anonymous contributions. She was in every sense an ugly duckling, with a face on her that would stop a tidal wave and a broad behind that promised to drag the lake after it. Her sides were slabby and her bottom fiat. Running free she would yaw three points off her course, thirty-five degrees either way. Capt. Williams said that "Babe" Blanchard was the only helmsman who could keep her from turning around and looking at him.

Capt. James Ewart of Cobourg, who sold her to Capt. Williams, gave her this certificate of character: "There are two fools on this corner, you for wanting to buy the Speedwell, and me for having her to sell to you. I can't sail her, my sons won't sail her, and we can't get anyone into her who can make her earn a dollar. She needs repairs. Did you say Alex. Ure wanted to go partners with you? Take him. He's a good ship carpenter and you'll need him."

Against all this the fat Speedwell was surprisingly quick in stays, could carry four times the load of the slender Highland Beauty, and made money for Capt. Williams to the day of her dissolution.

But for no one else. When he got the Straubenzee the Speedwell went in the hole. She was so mean with his brother Dave that he died of a broken heart before he got her fitted out. She lay idle until bums set her on fire by their cigarette butts, and she had to be towed out into the Bay, half charred. The insurance company quibbled because some of her gear had been stored for safety ashore before the fire. Capt. Williams came home, after a season's timber droghing in the Straubenzee, and dismantled the wreck plank by plan and spike by spike at Medlar and Arnot's The salvage yielded as much or more than the insurance would have done.

Both Kew Williams, Captain John's surviving brother, and Miss Daisy Williams, the surviving sister, were fond of the Highland Beauty. Miss Daisy has used the Beauty's name frequently for the same purpose of modest benevolence as her brother and will blush to find it fame. From these two came the long treasured flag to do honor to the dead captain brother, and to the service which he had honored. And from the same pair came another substantial contribution towards a cause dear to Captain John's heart, the British War Victim's Fund. It was hidden under the disguise "From Highland Beauty in memory of Speedwell."

Highland Beauty