Luck of the Black-and-Grays: Schooner Days CMVII (907)

by C. H. J. Snider

IF several Garden Island schooners, with their characteristic black and gray paint — black above, with white covering board and lead color below — were lost in the timber trade, so were other vessels. The perils of it became greater as the vessels had to make longer and longer trips, and load heavier and heavier cargoes. From the beginning the Calvin firm built its own ships, and so successfully that it built many more on order for other traders, and was repeatedly urged to venture its schooners in the growing lake trade to England and South America. Calvin always declined, foreseeing a slump in this trade, but the firm built one saltwater barque, the square-rigged Garden Island, which sailed the Atlantic for 30 years.

As the lake charts show, the back of the little island which was the base of their fleet for three generations, is still lined with hulls of Calvin vessels which came to a quiet end after a long life of usefulness, so well built were they. Hundreds of crews and carpenters had made a good livelihood in them, without mishap.

It is true that the Minerva Cook drowned her timber-horses and the captain's sister when she was totally wrecked in 1868. The Sweden foundered in 1877 with the loss of all her crew. The Norway capsized and drowned her crew of seven in the Great Gale of 1880, and the Bavaria lost her crew of eight in 1889, and the Jessie H. Breck lost hers in 1890 by capsizing within sight of home, and the Oriental sank about this time or a hear earlier, with some loss of life.

Some of these, such as the Minerva Cook and the Jessie H. Breck had been sold out of the fleet before their tragedy. There are also many reports of strandings, collisions, losses of spars and deckloads, and canal damage, all without loss of life. All or nearly all the firm's vessels were built in their own yard at Garden Island, and some bore the names of the family or partners, from time to time, Brecks, Cooks and Counters. There was the Harriet Calvin, the Dexter Calvin, the Laura E. Calvin, Minerva Cook, Lafayette Cook, Marian L. Breck, Jessie H. Breck and Hannah Counter, beside all the "geographies," the Aurora Borealis, Queen Victoria, Britannia, Plymouth and London and in addition a fleet of river barges, steamers to tow them, and wrecking steamers, all owned by the firm. The Stuart H. Dunn was the Calvin firm's last and finest schooner. She had a square topsail and two centreboards. She was not built at Garden Island, but she carried timber thither from Toledo for many years, and was afterwards owned by the Conger Coal Co. and supplied Toronto with thousands of tons of fuel. She lived until she was fifty and died happy.

This "barque London," 1852, although smaller than the later "geographies," was thought too big for the lakes. She measured 340 tons, and could carry 15,300 cubic feet of timber. She was 134 feet long, 24 feet beam and 10 ft. 8 in. depth of hold. The Plymouth, 1854, about the same size, but a smaller carrier, was of "solid oak throughout," as were all the island vessels. She had gunwale plank four inches thick, butt bolted, ceiling plank 2 1/2 inches, except five bilge-strakes, where the weight of the cargo came, five and six inches thick. Her spikes throughout were 10 inches long, round (then an innovation), and made in the island blacksmith shop. All her frameheads were soaked in oil before covering.

The late D. D. Calvin said well in his Saga of the St. Lawrence: "Year in, year out, the firm's schooners, steamers and barges were well handled. If such a statement could be prepared it would probably show that for miles traveled and, for necessary risks faced, the island vessels had a very good record—even though there were nine collisions in one unhappy summer of the mid- 1890s."

Last and Largest of the Black-And-Gray Calvin Schooners, the Stuart H. Dunn, Later Owned in Toronto.