"Yachts Don't Wait for Barges!": Schooner Days DCCCLIV (854)

by C. H. J. Snider

Further Adventures of Capt. Michael Kelly

AFTER swimming ashore with his trunk—and $600—from the wreck of the John A. Macdonald, nearly 80 years ago, Capt. Michael Kelly, of Toronto, sailed the smaller schooner Caledonia for six years, for a Toronto dry goods man named Fraser, who had a clothing store at St. Lawrence Market. Many merchants then were also ship owners. Capt. Lundy, who took the Reindeer of Coldwater to England, had sailed the Caledonia before Capt. Kelly got her. This was the Caledonia which was wrecked on Bluff Point below Oshawa after Capt Hugh Rooney sold her, in 1880, and whose anchors, chains and bottom timbers were recovered by Hon. Gordon Conant in time to take their part in World War II as much needed scrapiron.

Brother Hugh, who had prospered at blacksmithing in Toronto, left his forge for a while and went mate with Michael in the Caledonia. He had had some sailing experience before and got captain's papers when they became necessary. He always sailed with his brother, or in his brother's vessel, for they were business partners. But Hughie always hankered for the hammer and anvil. He was a good blacksmith, but as a sailor—well.

They sold the Caledonia to some man up Oakville way, and Michael went as master of the Andrew Stevens.

"YACHTS DON'T WAIT"

In the 1870's, Wm. Benson Hall, of Toronto, had three large vessels for towing behind the timber tug W. T. Robb, whose wreck later lay at Victoria Park, where the waterworks palace now expands. One was the Marquis, another the John Bently, and the third the Andrew Stevens. The latter had been a fast barquentine, painted black. Her topmasts had been taken out for towing and only her lower sails left her. The Robb and the tow barges got down to Oswego and loaded coal there, but couldn't get home for the westerly gales So the steambarge W. B. Hall, a fifth member of the Hall fleet, was sent down to help. They got as far as Fairhaven on the way home, when the southwest wind got too much even for the two tugs, and they decided to run in for shelter with their consorts.

Capt. Kelly signaled not to cast off the Stevens' line until he could get canvas on, and proceeded to set the mizzen, mainsail, foresail and jibs on her remaining lower masts. When the line was cast off, he let her go across the lake on the port tack, the shortest road to Canada.

She fetched Presqu'isle before night. And then the wind came around and blew fresh off the land, smoothing the water. Around came Michael on the starboard tack after the shift, and up the lake the Stevens went, with a free wind and a started sheet. Off Toronto Point next morn he sighted the Robb and the Hall, vomiting black smoke, with the Bentley and the Marquis in tow with straining sails set to help the tugs—and he sailed in ahead of them.

"How on earth did you do it?" demanded Mr. Hall.

"Sail don't wait for steam, nor yachts don't wait for barges," rumbled Michael, loud enough to be heard above the panting of the tugs' engines.

A FIERY FATE

The Andrew Stevens, ancient and cropped of her topmasts, was blowing up for the Exhibition fireworks of 1878, a fate which seven other old schooners, deserving better, have shared. Which brings us to another chapter in the Kelly family saga, the Dundee. She well deserves a special number of Schooner Days, and shall have it.

LAST OF THE "CALEDONIA"

HON. GORDON CONANT, former Premier of Ontario, present Master-in-Chambers, loading the CALEDONIA'S anchors and chains for scrap salvage during the war, from where her remains decorated his Bonnybrae lawn at Oshawa. He recovered her timbers and ironwork from Bluff Point some years earlier.