Passing Hails from Old Cat Hollow: Schooner Days CMII (902)

by C. H. J. Snider

WILLIAM WALLACE DUNCAN McGLENNON, clerk-treasurer of the Corporation of Colborne, who wrote so appreciatively recently of the "Emerald Flashes" in Schooner Days, departed this life very suddenly with one wish, probably only one wish, unfulfilled.

He had asked, it may be recalled for further particulars of the schooner Emerald, to whose life story he had himself made appreciated contributions. An "Emerald Flash" was prepared for him and other readers, but before it could see print he was called away by the longest of long distance calls, the one beyond the horizon.

He had built a fine big new house in Colborne, and was happily "moving in." As he passed to and fro between the old place and the new through the busy day, he called on friends and acquaintances and made plain to all his zest in life and his satisfaction in the transition. Towards the end of the day he left the old home for the last time. He died on the way to the new. Say rather, he arrived immediately in one of the "many mansions" we all think as so far off and such a long way ahead.

"Wally" McGlennon was sixty-one, and had a rich happy life, full of interest to and for himself and hosts of friends. His brother, Dr. Archie McGlennon, and his son, Duncan, carry on the name. For years he was the White Star steamship agent in Toronto, then the agent for the United States Steamship lines. An old Cat Hollow boy, he went back to Colborne and built up a very large insurance business. He was born down on McGlennon's Point, a lake shore farm which has sent its quota of captains to steamers' bridges and schooners' cabin-tops, besides shipping thousands of bushels of barley. "Wally's" grandfather kept a priceless series of diaries.

You can't find Cat Hollow in the post office guide or road map, but just burr into any ship-to-shore telephone "Calling Cat Hollow ... calling Cat Hollow ... over, please," and a dozen pilothouses on all the Great Lakes will jamb the wireless with "Who's wanting Cat Hollow? That you Tom? Dick? Harry? Bill? Joe? George? Steve?" Cat Hollow, with Lakeport, Ont., pop. 200, as its centre and Colborne and Brighton on its circumference, has sent forth more sailors, engineers, masters and mates all over the lakes than the biggest city on freshwater, bar none. There is or was a whole street of captains' houses in Lakeport.

We do not feel like giving the prepared Emerald flash today. It will come soon. But we have another hail from or about Cat Hollow, from Ohio, which would interest Wally.

OJIBWAYS RESTORED PRESQUILE CABIN

Sir,—We were pleased a few days ago to receive from a friend in Brighton, a copy of The Evening Telegram of Jan. 29th, containing your story, "Sailing for the Devil's Horse Block," and a picture of our cabin on Presquile Point. My father was a native of Colborne. My uncle and my brother had summer places at Presquile, and I have spent many vacations there. Once when I was quite young I remember sleeping in the loft of the old log cabin. However it remained for my wife to see the possibilities of the place, and we must have purchased it at about the time you took your picture in 1938.

We were fortunate to have Moses Marsden and his two sons do the work of restoring the cabin. He caught our idea and, using the old hand-hewn logs and wide floor planks as far as possible, retained the simple lines and rusticity of the original building. Mr. Marsden is an Objibway from Lakefield, He was a craftsman, with an axe, and one of the finest men I have met. He later helped in the building of the John Foster Dulles place on Main Duck Island.

We are enclosing a picture of the cabin as it is today. It must look somewhat as it did when it was built over a hundred years ago with a great lilac bush in the front yard and wild roses near the door. To the prejudiced eyes of our family it is the loveliest spot we know.

I doubt if it is the building mentioned in Mr. Edward's letter, for it is not as large, and I do not think as old as the building he describes. There is nothing in the papers which we have concerning our cabin which would indicate that it was ever anything but a schooner captain's farm house.

Very truly,

DICK DONAGHY,

443 W. Main St.,

Kent, Ohio

Ohio Hails About Charming Presquile Cottage

This is the schooner captain's farmhouse on which Lakefield Indians did such good restoration work.