H.M.S. "Nancy", 1789-1814 Comes to Town: Schooner Days DCCCXCIII (893)

by C. H. J. Snider

REBUILT from the keel up, H.M.S. Nancy, heroine of the War of 1812, is coming to town.

All that prevented her coming to Toronto earlier was that the Welland Canal was not built before she was burned in battle.

Now that the Welland is getting ready for the 1949 navigation season, and a maiden has no longer to jump over Niagara Falls in her birchbark canoe to get from Mackinac to Toronto, H. M. S. Nancy is on her way.

Commodore Allan Ward of H. M. customs and Harbormaster Snelgrove are not expecting her to report in, for the White Ensign is free from such formalities. H.M.S. Nancy, rebuilt light draught, will sail right up to City Hall and pay her respects to His Worship Mayor Hiram McCallum and the city fathers. Weather permitting she may come to, which is nautical for anchor, ye landlubbers in the Council Chamber at four bells in the afternoon watch on Monday, which is nautical for 2 p.m. any day in the week.

Some of the original hull was unavailable 160 years after the Nancy's launching, but her sound while oak keel provided a foundation for accurate reproduction. While all the rest is new, it is sedulously to scale, including her six guns, and the figurehead which went down with her in battle. Her carpenter recovered it from the wreck, for it was not burned - then - and kept it in the home he built in Simcoe County. His grandson, who saw it in his childhood, described it accurately, and his description was confirmed by Hon. John Richardson's correspondence.

She assisted Brock in his brilliant capture of Detroit, her birthplace, for she sailed down to the head of the Niagara River and took on board those scanty British redcoats who, marching repeatedly through an opening in the trees across the river from Detroit, made Gen. Hull think that the whole British army had arrived from Quebec. Her presence as an armed vessel, and the capture of one of his own with his medical supplies, so further impressed him that he surrendered to much inferior forces. The Nancy carried British troops in each expedition while we had the initiative, and was vital to the support of the garrison which we had flung into the captured fort at Mackinac. When disaster overwhelmed the whole British navy in the Battle of Lake Erie hers was the only British flag aloft west of Niagara or on the Upper Lakes.

She was given more guns and changed the Red Ensign for the White when Lieut. Miller Worsley, R.N., and twenty-one Royal Navy bluejackets took charge of her in 1814, reinforcing her sound Scotch-Canadian skipper, Alexander Mackintosh and his Canadian crew of eight. These alone had fought her out of the St. Clair River with her two guns, when she was surrounded by American infantry and cavalry. The Nancy continued to support Mackinac until chased into the Nottowasaga by an American squadron of five ships mounting fifty guns, which failed to retake that fort.

She was loaded with pork, flour and winter equipment for the garrison, forwarded by Noah Freer, from the commissary at York, at the present Toronto waterworks wharf. The cargo, and her navy crew, and passengers, had been assembled in Toronto and marched and portaged up Yonge street by the old military road to Holland Landing, and across to Barrie and over the Willow trail to the Nottawasaga.

Three American vessels were active in the attack on the Nancy, the brig Niagara of 20 guns and the schooner Tigress and the schooner Scorpion, with four heavy guns between them. The Nancy's six light ones were employed in a blockhouse built on the high bank above where she was moored. Lieut. Worsley fought all day, until his blockhouse was blown up and the Nancy burned and sunk.

Then the Americans sailed away. But he and his men loaded a leaky canoe with remaining supplies for Mackinac, paddling around Georgian Bay, relieved the starving garrison - and captured the Tigress and the Scorpion, caught napping.

"Port Credit Postcards"

These have produced so much response although return postage was not guaranteed, that only now can we find space for some of them, summarized.

GOOD MAN

Emanuel Hahn, sculptor, designer of Canada's best known coin, the Bluenose dime, and most pleasing postage stamp, liked so well the suggestion of statues to mothers of the port that he at once volunteered to model them gratis and execute them for a modest expense covering commission if the idea was taken up by the long-deferred harbor improvements. Department of Transport please copy. A noble offer.

CREDIT BOYS TO AFRICA

Mrs. Robert Maxwell, 20 Rothsay ave., Queensway PO, Toronto 14: "I was born in Port Credit and my father, Millan Evans, owned a stonehooker called the Betsey. I was told some years ago that the Betsey sank in the lake just off the lighthouse. My father died in 1885. He was one of the cabin boys on board the Sea Gull, the first sailing vessel to take a cargo of lumber to South Africa. The Sea Gull, built in Oakville, sailed from Toronto with the cargo in 1865. His brother, J. Hooker Evans, was the other cabin boy.

NOT THESE

"Do you remember the story of four Port Credit lads who took Al Hare's scow and set sail for Florida one night in May, 1902? They were picked up by the steamer Chicora the following afternoon more than half way across the lake?" (Yes, Mrs. Maxwell, Schooner Days recounted it in No. 681, Feb. 24, 1945, and admired the pluck if not the judgment of the young navigators). "One of the boys was my step-brother, Harry Stewart. He is living in Toronto at present. The ringleader, Eddie McBride, was killed in Los Angeles, poor boy. George Johnson is living in Port Credit, but I do not know where Bert Stewart is living. He was not related to Harry. I am sending Schooner Days to my brother, Kenneth Evans, at Pointe-au-Baril,"

DETECTED

"Undisguised Freminine Hand" With Orillia address bemoans good things being pushed around. Don't we all? But that makes them go farther.

WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

A swarm of correspondents have praised the Shrine for "Silent St. Lawrence" idea — but the credit should go to Dr. Stewart, Kingston MPP, and to Rous and Mann Press Ltd. for their fine support in color work, and to Warren Hasting's Canadian Motorist.

NO GORE

From Penetang, Schooner Days asked for a picture and info, on the Steamer Gore of 1838, Sorry, no pic and no more info, than the query has already.

ALL FOR FAMILY

Mrs. Norman Ritchie, Beaverton: "When up at our little town's nursing home a few days ago to see an aged friend, I found her reading with great interest Schooner Days 'Mother of Seven' . . . tells me that the name 'Blower' was originally 'Bloor' and that the earlier family claimed that Bloor st. was called after some one or other of the clan and that one member of the family, an aunt, later became Mrs. Abbs.

I thought I would like to let you know how much pleasure your account of the amazing Emily Blowers gave, not only to three people at the nursing home, but ..."

(That's right—no, I don't mean that, but I am quite sure the name Bloor, Blow, Blower, and Blowers is one. I have heard them all used for the same good family, and in the earliest Dominion shipping register the name of the owner of the sloop Catharine Hayes appears as "Emily Bloores." Mr. Bloor, first name unknown, who gave his name to the street, was a member of the same family. He was an Englishman respected by everyone, as Dr. Scadding says, who kept the Farmer's Arms at the old market in York and, retiring well to do, established a large brewery in the ravine up Yonge st. and was one of the founders of Yorkville. The name is said to be derived from a spot in Staffordshire called Blore, where was fought a battle in the Wars of the Roses. Thank you.

—Schooner Days.)

GONE FROM CAT HOLLOW

Capt. Charles Redfearn, who died at Colborne last month, was another graduate of that great school of freshwater masters known as Lakeport to the postal authorities but Cat Hollow to all sailormen. He was a good man with some big commands, among them the biggest car ferries out of Cobourg to Rochester. He will always be remembered as "Young Charlie" Redfearn, for so he was called when mate with his father in the schooner Keewatin sixty years ago.

UNDER WEIGH - This photograph of H.M.S. NANCY was taken by A. Van, Telegram staff photographer.