Tricks, Tugs, and Royal Dukes: Schooner Days DCCCVI (806)

by C. H. J. Snider

MANY friends from Coldwater and elsewhere have contributed information on the subject of that curious seaport village of old Upper Canada.

You will recall the Loverings, the pioneer family whose mill, still standing, cut plank for ocean ships built at Coldwater 90 years ago. Mrs. R. S. Sheppard gives the following explanation of the early photograph, identified as H. L. Lovering. the mill man, and one of his brothers, probably John; planning the planking of such a ship as the Sardinia:

"The parlor photograph you have reproduced in your July 12th article has a most interesting and unusual explanation. The picture was posed by H. L. Lovering in the home of his son, Thomas D. Lovering, at St. Paul, Minn., when Mr. Lovering Sr. was a visitor there. Tom Lovering, an amateur photographer, enjoyed original effects in his pictures, and his father lent himself in this one, to a clever trick photograph. Both gentlemen shown are Mr. Henry Lovering—not Henry and his brother, John. Mr. H. L. Lovering had much real enjoyment showing this picture, and asking if you "knew these men?' and chuckling gleefully at the bewilderment of his victim. Mrs. Albert Elliott, daughter of John Lovering, would uphold him in this statement, that this is a double photograph of her uncle Henry, and not of him and her father."

TUGGING ON THE NORTH

Another lively account of old days on the Coldwater river and the North, which angles into it near the mouth, long after the ships had been built, comes from a Toronto engineer, M. J. LaChapelle:

"I towed a number of scow loads of baled hay from their farm to feed Manley Chews' lumber camp horses on the river known at that time as the North River, and we could go down or up it rather, drawing six feet. I was engineer on the Idle Hour, a yacht belonging to Manley Chew; which we used spring and fall as a tug. We burned hard coal so it was much safer than the small tugs using wood, which was so plentiful at that time that most of the smaller tugs used it. That was 1907 and 1908. A lot of hay went up in smoke from sparks of the woodburners. There were plenty of small tugs at that time, mostly used for gathering logs along the shore that had jumped the booms in coming down the lake and gone ashore, and sometimes a tug would lose a complete raft. Then the small tugs made money.

DREDGES AND RAFTS

But to get back to the Loverings. You mention a small tug they had called the Blackbird. They also had a tug called the H. L. Lovering. I have seen her many times working among the logs in Midland Bay for Playfair. Then Playfair bought her, and rebuilt her and renamed her Menedora. She was a high pressure tug at first but in rebuilding I they compounded her and made her a steeple compound. Whether they put another engine in or added another cylinder to the old one, I can't remember but she was a real good log tug after her rebuild and the last I saw of her was when in 1915 she followed the dredge Monarch to the Welland Canal.

"The steamer Major towed this dredge and two mud scows and the Menedora and a little tug Una followed, most time tied up alongside the dredge. If the weather was a bit nasty the Menedora put her towline in and pulled, as that was better than pounding against dredge or mud scows.

"The first time I saw the Metemora she was a big tug, not a freighter, taking a large tow of logs from French River to some sawmill on the American shore. That would be 1895. In the early 1900's Playfair had her. I have a picture of her tied up at the lumber dock in Playfair's yard. Only trouble her bow is partly hidden by the Reliance, which was the boat I took the picture of.

FROM TIMBER TO TANBARK

"She had burned all her cabins off and was lying alongside the old barge Albatross. This had been a fore and aft schooner, perhaps you have a record of her. (She was originally one of the great A fleet of timber droghers built by Muir Brothers Port Dalhousie and was in sailing commission up to 1898.) If my memory doesn't fail me Playfair sold her to Barny Dean and he used to carry tanbark and such freight as he could get but had to hire a tug, and the last of her was when the tug C. C. Martin, towing her, went down with all hands, and Dean was the only one saved. I can't remember the date of this but it must have been after 1908, because that year I towed her to Moon River and back to Midland with tanbark."

WHAT DUKE OF ARGYLE?

YEARS ago a quiz was started in Schooner Days to identify a picture which had been left in without information other than the name on the ship and her flags, which was "Marquis of Lorne." That name could not be found in the register, although there was more than one "Marquis." The beautiful beaver figurehead, and the decoration, both in the ship's flags and her paint, suggested that "Marquis of Lorne" had been at least the designed name of the vessel. Possibly some technical objection was raised when registration was sought and the original intention was abandoned, for none of the old timers, so far, has recalled a laker by that name. References to the Coldwater vessel "Duke of Argyle," about which little is known beyond the fact that she was built there, has brought the suggestion that perhaps the Coldwater vessel was intended to be named Marquis of Lorne but was named Duke of Argyle instead, and that this was she. Ingenious solution, if not quite waterproof.

"Marquis of Lorne" is the hereditary title of the eldest son of the Duke of Argyle, as Prince of Wales is for the eldest son of the British monarch. John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyle, was the Marquis of Lorne who married the Princess Louise, 4th daughter of Queen Victoria, in 1871, and came to this country as viceroy of Canada in 1878, remaining till 1883. He and his royal consort were undoubtedly the inspiration for the name of the vessel in the picture, for their portraits are medallioned in the long burgee at the foremast head. But John Douglas Sutherland Campbell's father, only died in 1900 when the marquis became the duke. That date is much too late for the Coldwater vessel. She might, however, be named after the 8th Duke of Argyle, George John Douglas Campbell, born in 1823. He was a "great British statesman," chiefly memorable as resigning as Lord Privy Seal in opposition to Gladstone's Home Rule bill. His son, the Marquis of Lorne was better known in Canada, both from his gubernatorial position, his royal connection, and his verse, which includes a favorite Presbyterian psalm:

"Unto the hills around do I lift up

My longing eyes."

The steamer Empress of India was renamed Argyle in his honor; we had Argyle street in North Parkdale, in Toronto—Lorne street, too—and the name of the dukedom was popular in the Dominion.

The vessel whose portrait (by Charlie Gibbons, long a harbor tug fireman) is here presented, may have been like the Duke of Argyle, if that was not her name. It has been assumed that the Coldwater vessel was a barquentine. This vessel is not a barquentine but a threemaster topsail schooner. The difference is not very great, although old sailors will argue about it till the milkman comes.