Maritime History of the Great Lakes

SCORPION, Escape Me Never: Schooner Days CMLII (952)

Publication
Toronto Telegram (Toronto, ON), 20 May 1950
Description
Full Text
SCORPION, Escape Me Never
Schooner Days CMLII (952)

by C. H. J. Snider


HIGHTAILED it for Penetang last week to see the remains of the late U.S.S. Scorpion, later H.M.S. Confiance, fourth of that name.

Swinging round the curve of Northwest Basin, two miles across the harbor dimpling in the first warm day in May, came there into view the larboard side, from a little below the deck down almost to the garboard, of what had been a ship maybe 60 feet on the keel.

The keel was almost but not quite out of water, for she lay on her starboard bilge, and had been dragged so close ashore that one could step into her dryshod. She was as open as the empty half of a walnut shell. Perhaps I should say a fat peapod, for she was long and sharp, though not green. Ends of decayed and splintered ribs showed above the staggered strakes of her remaining planking, like fangs in the broken jaws of a skull.

Though I found my first eighteen twelver in 1911, and have uncovered a dozen others since, what serves for a heart in me goes bumpety-bump just the same whenever I view a fragment of the warty planking and timeworn timbers of those old heroines of the War of 1812.

They may mean nothing to those who sing "Ow, Canadah" in place of "The Maple Leaf" and "Rule Britannia!" but they meant life and liberty to earn a living in this country to my great grandparents as well as yours.

DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT--

I could quite understand anyone taking this mass of wreckage for an ancient warship. It looked very much as did the Nancy, when exhumed at Nottawasaga, the Niagara from the harbor of Erie, and the Tigress from this very basin when she was raised 17 years ago. The Tigress was a smaller sister of the Scorpion, and her bleached ribs and backbone lie in the park across the harbor, plucked prey of tourists

But there was no bumpety-bump of the heart this time. There were no "warts" to excite it, by which is meant the little raised island of wood which have been preserved by the acid of the iron fastenings while the slow decay of a century's submersion has eaten away the surface of the planking elsewhere.

Hoping against hope, we clambered aboard. The construction did not correspond to practise for a sailing warship of 1813. The scantling was too light, there was no treenailing, too much steel, and too little blacksmith iron.

And what were those bricks and broken chunks of cement doing in the bottom of a schooner-of-war? The galley cooking hearth? More likely the bed of a fire hold!

Following that thought we slid outboard over the curved sternpost, and had to seek no further.

Four massive threaded bolts projected above the stout steel plate of a stuffing-box or propeller shaft stern-bearing, with a four-inch post in it for the shaft. This as certainly not the Scorpion. It was the bottom of a steamer perhaps fifty or sixty years old, but not sunk for the length of time.

Confirmation came from the neat new store kept by the Meilleux family, who have lived on the basin shore for a long time. They have also a saw-mill and breaking-up place on the shore. Eugene Meilleux had given his brother the contract for hauling this old steamer wreck out of the way of the launches. They were always breaking wheels on her disintegrating timbers. Brother had hauled her in out of harm's way with a power winch.

The hulk was either that of a large tug or of the clipper bowed steam yacht or pleasure steamer which lay sunk close to the hull of the Tigress, which I first saw in 1913. The steamer had not been sunk long then, but the deck was out of her, possibly burned. Thirty seven years was quite long enough to reduce her to the present state, and she was assuredly a menace to the launch navigation.

SCORPION STILL THERE

The wreck identified as that of the Tigress—with a cannonball in her keelson—was removed seventeen years ago. At that time I prodded with a pike pole and traced the timbers of what had been said by responsible persons- H. C. Osborne, historian of Penetanguishene, and James Thompson, a very old resident, among them-to be the "other one" of the two American men-of-war captured by Lieut. Miller Worsley in 1814. These two were the nucleus of the new British fleet for the Upper Lakes. One was the Tigress and the other the Scorpion. So the Scorpion is there yet, where we touched her, in 16 feet of water about 100 yards from where the wreck of the steamer lay.

While in Penetang I saw a mallet made from oak taken from this hull of the Scorpion eight years ago; and a few more things of interest which may be told next week.

We'll get that Scorpion yet.

A BRITISH FLAGSHIP

As H.M.S. Confiance - fourth of the name in the navy list, to gratify the pride of the commander in chief in having once captured a large French privateer so christened - the Scorpion was the flagship of the new British establishment for the upper lakes, based on Penetanguishene and was in commission there until 1826.

Later on, the establishment being broken up following the Rush-Bagot agreement the Confiance and the Surprise were dismantled and sunk in Colborne Basin, in one part of the harbor which became a sort of boneyard, and the Tecumseth and Naawash [Newash], larger vessels, were sunk in another part, under Magazine Island. The former Tigress was raised in 1933, and what souvenir hunters have left of her is to be found in Penetanguishene park. To such baser uses come the works of men's hands, even though built with heroic sweat, and won with the heart's blood and high courage.


Caption

Are those her ribs through which the Sun

Did peer as through a grate?

THE WRECK hauled out of Northwest Basin—Photo by A. Van, Telegram Staff Photographer


Creator
Snider, C. H. J.
Media Type
Newspaper
Text
Item Type
Clippings
Date of Publication
20 May 1950
Subject(s)
Language of Item
English
Geographic Coverage
  • Ontario, Canada
    Latitude: 44.80847 Longitude: -79.94449
  • Ontario, Canada
    Latitude: 44.7957046222756 Longitude: -79.9328494921875
Donor
Richard Palmer
Creative Commons licence
Attribution only [more details]
Copyright Statement
Public domain: Copyright has expired according to the applicable Canadian or American laws. No restrictions on use.
Contact
Maritime History of the Great Lakes
Email:walter@maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca
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SCORPION, Escape Me Never: Schooner Days CMLII (952)