When Roarin' Roberts Carried Red Iron Ore: Schooner Days DCCXCVIII (798)

by C. H. J. Snider

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FATE of the ill-starred Collingwood steamer Emperor, sunk with 14 of her crew and 10,000 tons of iron ore in frigid Lake Superior this week recalls a happier episode in the experience of the

"Young fellows that follow the lake

In iron ore vessels their livings to make."

This is the lake ballad of the E. C. Roberts, an iron ore carrier of seventy years ago. We last heard it from Stan Baby, of Toronto, who had it from his father, the late Capt. James Baby, who was second mate in the Roberts when he was nineteen.

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The tune, a borrowed one, as all lake chanties are, is a pleasant rocking lift that makes some think of the Laird o' Cockpen, but from the Derry Down chorus one would expect it to have originated in England rather than Scotland. Derry Down, in various forms, figures in the refrains of many lake come-all-ye's and English ballads. In the Roberts ballad the singer lets himself go on one of the Downs as though seeking an altitude record.

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The Roberts was new then, a fine, big white schooner nearly 140 feet long, a pigmy beside the 504 ft. Emperor, but luckier,in her life. She was big enough for three masts, but had only two, which meant that all her sails, and particularly the foresail and mainsail, were outsize backbreakers in the days before steam winches and donkey engines. But they made her step.

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The ballad recalls her triumph over another new vessel, the Sophia Minch, of much greater tonnage, 538 register and 1,200 carrying capacity. The Roberts registered 300 tons and might carry 700. The Minch was 180 feet long, built by Nicholas at Vermillion, Ohio, in 1873. She was a lake "barque" or topsail schooner, with fifteen sails on or between her three masts. She was a stepper, too.

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The ballad sails the Roberts from Chicago, down Lake Michigan to the arm of the lake known as Green Bay, which she enters through Death's Door, and crosses to Escanaba, at that time a great ore shipping port, in the northern corner. Here, after hauling alongside the Exile, another ore carrier, she loads six or seven hundred tons of the "red iron ore" by hand, "some with shovels and some with their spades." The iron ore trade in its commencement was very hard on wooden vessels and harder on their crew who had to do the loading and trimming.

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There is another lake ballad called The Red Iron Ore. All recalled of it is the stanza:

"Oh we're bound down from Marquette

And both of my hands are sore;

I've been pushing a wheelbarrow

And I'll do it no more;

And I'm humpbacked from shoveling,

So listen to my roar!

When we fetch up at Cleveland

I'll shake Red Iron Ore."

Who can oblige the rest of it? And the time? I'll thank you.

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Many of the vessels in the iron ore trade, in despair at keeping their white sides clean, painted with red oxide—mastheads, gaffs, booms, decks and hull; dismal garb if unrelieved. The Roberts ballad mentions her white sides of which her master, Capt. Harvey Rummage or Rammage, was proud.

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Ready to sail, she encounters the big Minch and slips by her. Thunder Bay, where the vessels again sight one another, is not in Lake Superior where the Emperor was sunk, but half way down Lake Huron on the way to Cleveland, Ohio, where the early iron ore went for smelting. Louse Island passage is one of several exits from Green Bay to Lake Michigan.

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The voyage across Lake Michigan, with its Foxes and Beavers and Skillagalee—all islands, the latter being Isle aux Galets on the chart—is told in racy detail. The place names have a particular appeal, having sailed the same waters last season in King&rvie, from Toronto to Green Bay. Here is the ballad:

I.

Come all you young fellows that follow the lake,

In iron ore vessels your livings to make:

I shipped in Chicago, goodby to the shore,

Bound for Escanaba and red iron ore —

Derry down, down, it's high derry down.

II.

'Twas the month of September, the seventeenth day,

Two dollars and a quarter was all they did pay,

And on Sunday morning from the North Branch did take

The schooner E. C. Roberts out into the lake.

III

The wind from the southwest it blew a fresh breeze

And down through Lake Michigan the Roberts did sneeze,

And down through Lake Michigan the Roberts did roar,

And on Wednesday morning we sailed through Death's Door.

IV.

The Roberts she sailed across the mouth of Green Bay

And from her cutwater she dashed the white spray,

We rounded Sand Point and our anchor let go,

We furled all our canvas and then went below.

V.

Next morning we hauled alongside the Exile

And we were made fast to an iron ore pile.

They let down their spouts and like thunder it roared

And they emptied their pockets of red iron ore.

VI.

Some fellows got shovels and others got spades,

And some with wheelbarrows, each man to his trade.

We looked like red devils, our hands they were sore,

And we cursed Escanaba and red iron ore.

VII.

The tug Escanaba, she towed out the Minch,

The Roberts they thought they had left in a pinch,

They gave us three cheers as they passed us by

With "We'll meet you in Cleveland next Fourth of July!"

VIII.

Thro' Louse Island Passage it blew a fresh breeze.

Past the Foxes, the Beavers and Skillagalee.

We flew by the Minch just to show her the way,

And she ne'er hove in sight until off Thunder Bay.

IX

'Cross Saginaw Bay the Roberts did ride,

The green rolling billows rolled by her smooth side,

But straight for the rivers the Roberts must go,

And the tug the Kate Williams she took us in tow.

X.

We went the North Passage, O Lord, how it blew!

And all round the Dummy a large fleet lay to,

The night it was dark, old Nick it would scare,

But we hove up next morning, and for Cleveland did steer.

XI.

And now we're in Cleveland, made fast stem and stern,

And over the bottle we'll spin a good yarn,

Then Captain Harve Rummage should oughta stand treat,

For getting to Cleveland ahead of the fleet.

XII.

And now my song's ended and I hope you won't laugh,

Our bags are all packed and all hands are paid off.

Let's drink to the Roberts, she's stout, staunch and true,

Not forgetting the brave lads comprising her crew.

Derry down, down, it's high derry down!

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Ore Carriers, Then And Now

BRIGANTINES, so drawn by J. F. McGinnis, an old lake sailor, 20 years ago, were popular in the early iron ore trade out of Escanaba because had no fore-booms, they were easier to load from the ore pile, which looked like so much red sand or gravel. Most of the vessels, however were two or three-masted schooners. Sailors then worked twelve hours a day, watch-and-watch, or twenty-four hours if "all hands" were required. In port they were lucky to only work from dawn to dark stevedoring. The $2.25 a day paid in the song, was "big money," for $25 a month was often the mariner's reward.

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THE RED IRON ORE, once hand-trundled in wheelbarrows grinding along planks over the rail of the little wooden vessel to her three or four small hatches, now pours from twenty or thirty chutes into the big steel bulk freighters, like water from so many taps. Here the Royalton, a 30-hatch steamer, like the lost Emperor, is is shown among the chutes at Duluth at the head of Lake Superior, where most of the ore is now loaded.