Light of the ERIE WAVE: Schooner Days DCCCLXXVI (876)

by C. H. J. Snider

EXPLANATION?

SOMETIMES in calm broody weather before a blow sets in, there can be seen at night from the high bank of the Lake Erie shore in Norfolk County, a strange glow, like the headlights of a car under water or the diffused reflection of a light itself invisible. Old timers may mystify you by seeming to say that it is the Erie waves before a storm. What they do say is "That's the Erie Wave's light that shines before a storm comes up."

Hugh Crawford, substantial farmer of Clear Creek, with eight cats and a watchdog and a very pretty well-kept home, has seen that light, and cannot explain it. He lost a brother with the Erie Wave at the spot, 59 years ago this fall, and some boys tried to fool him with a lantern rigged on a pole, after the story of the light got around. He caught the tricksters, and the laugh was on them, not on him. But like many others he has seen the real mystery light, and though unable to account for it, doesn't believe it is supernatural or anything of the sort.

Whatever it is, it recalls a vessel happily conceived, launched, and named, but meriting the description,

"That fatal, that perfidious barque

Launched in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark."

LUCK OF THE ERIE WAVE

For this was the third time the Erie Wave had capsized and the third time she had helped fill the graveyard.

The first time was when she was new, which would be 1882, or soon after. She was built sharp and high in the side, with good proportions of length, breadth and depth—76 feet long, 20.7 feet beam, 7.4 feet of depth. Of hold—and was of 72 tons register, capable of carrying 150 tons dead weight. Her owner was W. Y. Emery of Port Burwell, where she was built. She was engaged in the grain, wood and lumber trade from Lake Erie ports to Cleveland and Buffalo, and sometimes brought home coal or other freight. Having good freeboard or height of side out of the water, the temptation was to pile large deckloads on her, and perhaps it was this which caused her first capsize, in which either two or three are said to have lost their lives.

The second mishap was in a squall off Long Point, in 1888, or a year earlier. Over she went again, and this time two were drowned. One was Mrs. Margaret McPherson, the widow of a lake captain who had perished by slipping from the ice covered deck of his own vessel, when she was wrecked. Mrs. McPherson's grandchildren live in Port Rowan. She was a passenger on board, a guest of the captain. So, too, was a man named Ted Strange, and he also was drowned. The captain and crew were saved.

THREE TIMES AND OUT

The Erie Wave was righted and a third master undertook to sail her, Capt. Tom Stafford of Port Burwell. He got her ashore near Clear Creek, west of Long Point and east of Port Burwell. Clear Creek then shipped out a lot of wood and lumber and brought in coal, for the village blacksmith and neighboring farmers. There was some fishing out of Clear Creek, by pound nets, and the miller at one time had 800 sturgeon in his pond. They were caught in the pound nets in the lake and stored in the pond for sale as required, big fish, running 100 lbs. apiece.

Whether the Erie Wave was after sturgeon, cordwood, shingles or lumber, she came in close to Clear Creek on her way back from Buffalo, and a big swell running hove her in against the high clay banks on Sept. 20th, 1889. They tried to get her off when the sea ran down, but she had filled with water, or perhaps been scuttled to keep her from pounding, and for 10 days efforts to release her were vain. On Sunday, Sept. 30th, with reinforcements from the countryside, a supreme effort was made in the quiet weather prevailing.

THIS WAS IN 1889

"My elder brother Bob and brother-in-law Courtney Treadwell were asked to work that fatal Sunday to get her off," said Hedley Abbott of Port Rowan "but they declined to go because it was the Sabbath. The old folks did not approve of Sunday work in those days."

But among the farmers' sons who did go to help was 16-year-old Charlie Crawford of Clear Creek, keen as mustard on anything pertaining to seafaring although the motion always made him seasick.

"It looks," said Joe Crawford, an older brother who had stayed home to do the Sunday chores "as though it was going to storm. I don't like the idea of young Charlie down there by himself.I'm going down to see how they're getting on."

What he found and what he reported will be told next week.

LAKE ERIE'S SHORE AT TWILIGHT LAST SATURDAY, JUST EAST OF THE MOUTH OF CLEAR CREEK

REMEMBER THIS ON TORONTO'S WATERFRONT?

From a "stereoptican view" published in St. Paul, Minn., many years ago and labelled "Wharf, Toronto." Which wharf? Yonge street? When? The schooner-caps and felt hats suggest the 1870's. The vessel is the Trade Wind of Port Hope when she had sternports in her transom, and that was before 1890.