End of a Friendship: Schooner Days DCCLXXIX (779)

by C. H. J. Snider

GRIST to the Mill, Toronto," subject of a recent Christmas card by Rowley Murphy, was brought by hundreds of schooners, from Consecon in the east and from Chicago in the west. The last schooner this writer recalls with a load for Gooderham and Worts at their old mill and elevator at the foot of Trinity street, was the Katie Eccles of Lakeport, in 1898. Steve Taylor was then her captain. Jack McCullough of Napanee may have brought the Lyman M. Davis in from Bay of Quinte ports as late as 1922, but not so consigned. The "grain rush" to the Gooderham mill by schooner was pretty well over by the beginning of the 1890s, thanks to increasing railway facilities.

The firm owned schooners, among them the Son and Heir, built at Oakville by Melancthon Simpson in 1857. and named possibly in honor of the late W. G. Gooderham, eldest son of George, one of the original partners. She was wrecked at Wingfield Basin, Cabot's Head, in Georgian Bay, in 1869. but was then owned by her captain, Wm. McIlwain, who sailed her with his brother James as mate. She was a fore-and-after.

They also owned the three-master Jas. G. Worts, named for the other partner, or his son. She was built at Mill Point (Deseronto) in 1874, by Ed. Rathbun. She is the only vessel recalled that had "of Toronto, Ont." on her stern The other Toronto schooners were not worried about there being a Toronto in California as well. The Jas. G. Worts was the pride of the Queen City, from which she hailed.

After Sylvester Bros. got the Jas. G. Worts she was always painted green and white above, with green coveringboard and rail and a red beading. In the Gooderham and Worts ownership she was similar on top, with a leadcolor bottom. The "S" in the flag at her mizzen topmast head in the picture was for the Sylvesters.

She had a lovely set of colors— burgee, Union Jack, ensign, etc. They were lent to decorate the University for a great St. Valentine's party in the winter of 1890. Before the ball began the place was ablaze. Among the losses of the great University fire were the colors of this pride of Toronto.

The Worts was lost on the Devil's Shoals in Georgian Bay, in 1895, which might provide a text for prohibitionists, had not the distillery firm already divested themselves of ownership. Indeed, her fate suggests moralizing on other lines.

She was in tow of the steam barge City of Owen Sound, and both were grain-laden for Kingston, when they were caught in a November snowstorm and the towline parted. The schooner wound up on the beach. The steamer either got ashore, too, miles away, or was frozen in somewhere, which prevented her rendering assistance, The Worts was lying easily, in a sheltered position, and Capt. George Williamson, who was sailing her for Sylvester Brothers, her new owners, saw that she would be safe until spring as soon as the ice formed around her, and that she could be got off if the weather held mild and there be an "open fall." He had left the schooner Star hard aground between the Main Duck and Yorkshire one winter and got her off safely in the spring. So he brought his crew and belongings all to Toronto, where Sylvesters had the old steamer Hastings then, which might be 'fitted out for a salvage tug and save expense.

He had a friend on the shore nearby where the Worts was stranded in some sort of government employment, which he had obtained for him, and to him he gave the job of shipkeeper for the winter, at so much a month. All he had to do was to keep trespassers off.

This trusted friend next day rowed out to see if all the hatches were well battened down. They were, and well covered with tarpaulins, too. But the battens came off one hatch easily, and when he lifted the cover to see if the grain was dry, there was 20,000 bushels of prime wheat staring him in the face. And, he had a dozen hungry hens ashore for which he had to buy screenings for chicken feed. It didn't seem natural . . . but there wasn't a box, or bag, or basket left on board the schooner, and he couldn't throw the wheat into his boat by the handful. So he rowed back to get a shovel and a bag. By the time he had come down to the shore with them the Devil's Shoals were roaring again with a change of wind. It was going to be tough sculling out. Better wait till the wind went down.

He did. He had to wait a long while. It blew an on-shore gale, with rain and soft snow, and the spray flew high over the wreck, though the seas could not get at her to make her pound, or do her any harm. Old Geordie was right; she would lie I there as snug as a bug in a rug, especially when the ice formed around her with the cold. But ....he wished he had put that hatch cover on and battened down the tarpaulin before he had left her . . . . of course, he only expected to be away half an hour, and it was a lot of work to do, and do all over again, for a few bushels of grain that would never be missed . . . Sorry now he had thought of the darned thing at all . . . Wondered if any of that spray was slopping over as high a the hatch coaming ... if he thought it was . . .

When Geordie Williamson arrived, unexpectedly soon, with a salvage outfit, the chicken fancier couldn't be found. Nor, for that matter, the Jas. G. Worts, although there was plenty of evidence that she had' been t there. The 20,000 bushels of wheat, each grain a small atomic bomb, had swelled with the wetting and the sweating until they had burst the schooner into pieces too small to tow away.

"THE JAS. G. WORTS of TORONTO, ONT." from a period crayon drawing by C. I. Gibbons, tug fireman and marine artist for thirty years.