Coming Up, the DUNDEE: Schooner Days DCCCLV (855)

by C. H. J. Snider

Further Adventures of Capt. Michael Kelly

WHEN the Andrew Stevens, W. B. Hall's old ex-barque for which Capt. Michael Kelly coined the phrase, "Yachts won't wait for barges," went up in fireworks at the Exhibition, Hughie, the blacksmith, Michael's elder brother, came in on a scheme to make the family independent of working for other men's fortunes. Probably Michael thought of it first. That $600 he rescued from the wreck of John A. Macdonald, at a cost of a long night swim in ice water, sounds as though he had something in mind.

Anyway, the Kellys—they were in their fifties now—bought the three-masted schooner Dundee. Michael sailed her and Hughie went on with his blacksmithing, making occasional trips as mate, and taking over when required.

ONCE A "BARQUE"

The Dundee had also, like the Andrew Stevens, been a lake "barque," that is, she had a square foresail, with topsail above, hoisting on a yard to the topmost head, and above that again she had a pair of three-cornered batwings, or little raffees. On her mainmast and mizzen she was fore-and-aft rigged. Possibly from the beginning she had a fore-and-aft foresail as well. If so she was properly a "topsail schooner," but the lakers called any three-masted vessel a "barque" if she had a square topsail. They meant barquentine. Three yards once belonging to the Dundee's former square rig long lay at the old Queen's Wharf.

The Dundee's port of registry was Montreal, pointing to an early origin, for lake vessels of Upper Canada had to register there before Confederation. She was not a new vessel when the Kellys got her, but she was good and they paid $5,000 for her. An old dispatch tells of a schooner Dundee, one hundred and ten tons register, clearing from Oswego for Toronto Nov. 4, 1856, and having to run back because she had sprung her masts. She stove in her bow on the sawmill dock in Oswego coming in, and sank. She was then eight years old, having been built in Kingston, where she was owned by J. Patterson.

This could hardly be the Dundee the Kellys bought, although the latter had the look of having been re-sparred, her mainboom being shorter than the foreboom. The Kelly Dundee's tonnage was greater than 110. She could carry 450 tons of coal. Her register gave her building date as 1870 (which might have been the date of a complete rebuild) at Port Dalhousie. Melancthon Simpson was the builder at this time. Capt W. D. Graham, of St. Catharines, new president of the Evergreen Club, wrote appreciatively recently of the Dundee's good lines, along with others Simpson built.

The Kelly brothers gave the Dundee still another rebuild at Oakville, at the capable hands of Capt. James Andrew, and made a good job of it, spending $3,000 on her. It kept her strong, but as the work was done while she was in the water, she straightened out in the process, and some of her keel did not fit the level of the blocks when she was drydocked.

The Dundee was a straight fore-and-aft rigged three-masted schooner, which the lakers called a a "three-and-after," when the Kellys got her, but she still had a foreyard , and set a squaresail on it. And boys wouldn't it lift her! She was a smart vessel anyway, stiff as a church, a grand lumber carrier, taking a big deck load which made faster handling.

MANY ADVENTURES

Michael Kelly's son, Edward ("Knucker"), treasures a spirited drawing he himself made of the old girl in which he sailed so often, showing her boiling along, with squaresail and raffee pulling like wild horses.

While the lumber trade flourished, and the grain was pushing up as the trees came down, the Dundee made money. Coal in those days was just a chance cargo; not even the new railways used it then. The Dundee brought the first cargo of "soft slack"—once considered useless coal dust—into Toronto for Milne, in the 1880's or early 90's. It caught fire of itself and burned the leather off the coal heavers' feet before they got her unloaded at the waterworks wharf.

The Dundee was a prosperous vessel, but like them all, had her ups and downs.

In the great gale of November 6, 1880, she was in the St. Lawrence river, having carried a paying cargo of grain to Ogdensburg. She had a chance to load lumber for Oswego at Brockville, but sailors were hard to suit then. They loaded their own vessels then, and had a 24-hour day and a seven-day week, and were rather particular about what they did. The Dundee's crew drew the line at getting splinters in their ungloved hands so close to Christmas — sailors at this time wore mitts or nothing — and demurred at this lumber cargo.

So the Dundee started home, light, and cargo free. So fierce was that gale that, although in the shelter of the river, her anchors would not hold her and she dragged on to an island. They got her off with little damage. But thirty vessels were stricken on Lake Ontario that night, and three, the Belle Sheridan, Zealand, and Norway drowned their crews. The crews of the Bermuda and T. C. Street escaped with their lives but their vessels were complete wrecks. Twenty other schooners ran out the gale with loss of spars and gear, or were stranded and refloated.

Later on the Dundee was carrying lumber out of Port Hope, following the Caroline Marsh of the same port, for Oswego. It came on to blow, but the Dundee was a stiff vessel, and carried sail and deckload well, and she wouldn't give up with the Caroline ahead of her. It proved too much for Capt. Colwell in the Marsh and he lowered the mainsail and ran back for shelter. The Kelley's gave him three cheers as the ship passed, going in the opposite directions, but soon the wind began to blow the boards into the belly of the foresail, and the Dundee gave up too, and ran easily for shelter, saving her canvas and deck load. But the Caroline was a hard roller, and they made their way back to Port Hope sailing through thousands of feet of pine planks shed by the Caroline as she rolled her sheer poles in, port and starboard.

There is still more to tell about the Dundee.

THE. DUNDEE making sail after a squall off the Highlands forty-four years ago.

LAKE "BARQUE" SO CALLED

THIS WAS THE JENNIE GRAHAM, not the Dundee, a larger vessel launched a year later than the Dundee, but of similar rig to that which the Dundee first carried. The rig shown is really not a barque, nor a barquentine, but a topsail schooner. "Barque" to the lake man came to mean anything with three masts and a square topsail.