Square Riggers on Lake Erie: Schooner Days CMLV (956)

by C. H. J. Snider

SIMCOE thought the twenty-mile finger which Long Point thrusts eastward into Lake Erie from the north shore should be called the North Foreland. The prosaic pioneers merely added another "Long Point" to lake geography already overcrowded with the obvious. But they conceded the likeness of Lake Erie to the English Channel by the name of Port Dover, at the mouth of the Lynn River, on the north shore, eighteen miles across from the easterly tip of Long Point, where the tallest lighthouse on the lakes flashes its warning beams. Port Dover was a great schooner port, and is now the greatest fishing port of the Great Lakes.

A schooner man of whom Port Dover is properly proud was Capt. Alexander MacNeilledge, of the schooner Lark and other vessels. He was a Greenock born Scot, who, after an exciting career at sea, came to Upper Canada, settled on a pioneer farm, with a neighbor named Fuller, near Port Dover, and went into lake trade, less from necessity than for his own amusement. MacNeilledge was a man of culture and imagination, with a gift for illustration. Some of his work is treasured still by his connections, Mr. King and Miss Erie Shand in Port Dover, and by the Eva Brook Donly Museum in Simcoe.

He made an excellent "Nautical Chart" of the North Shore of Lake Erie, from Point Abino up to Point Pelee Island, at Port Dover, C.W., June, 1848." It is colored and illustrated by beautifully executed portraits of sixteen vessels, apparently contemporary Lake Erie craft. It shows three fore-and-aft schooners, unnamed; two topsail schooners with topgallantsails set, a brigantine or topsail schooner, with a raffee above her square foretopsail—probably the earliest record of that characteristic lake sail—two sloops, a U.S. revenue schooner so labelled, and these vessels with names given:

The full-rigged ship Philadelphia, the full-rigged brig Greenock, the brigantine T. Barrett, the barquentine E. Webster, the steamer Ohio, steamer Experiment, and U.S.S. Michigan, the old square-rigged iron gunboat—then new—which lived for a century on Lake Erie.

GOLD DUST FOR NORFOLK

All the vessels depicted probably sailed in Capt. MacNeilledge's time, and possibly on Lake Erie as he shows them, along with the Michigan. There were a very few full-rigged ships on the lakes, besides those built for export. Among the full rigged ships which actually sailed the lakes were the Wellington and the Superior.

The two sloops may have been yachts, and of forgotten interest in Port Dover, Canada West. One has the inscription "Fagan on a Cruise" and the other "Returning with the Gold Dust for the County of Norfolk, C.W., Free Trade and Sailors' Rights."

Gold, be it remembered, had just been discovered in California, and in the following year the Lake Erie barquentine Eureka sailed from Cleveland, Ohio, to find it. MacNeilledge may have been having fun with a local politician or other celebrity.

HER MAJESTY'S GUNBOAT

Capt. MacNeilledge's diary has many nautical sketches, including copies of drawings he made of Her Majesty's teak-built, screw driven gunboat, Britomart, which came up from the sea for the Fenian Raids and was stationed at Port Dover for a year. He presented these to Commodore A. F. R. DeHorsey, Commodore of the gunboat squadron, and to Capt. A. H. Allington, commander of the Britomart.

The drawings show a low straight stemmed steamer, tiny to cross the ocean, barquentine rigged, with three square sails on the foremast, jib and flying jib, loose-footed mainsail and boomed spanker, one slender funnel, raking less than the masts, over-hanging stern, high hammock nettings up to the level of the gunwales of her two boats, a low black side, with a white stripe and a copper boot top.

NAUTICAL MOURNING

The diary has also a detailed drawing of a 16-gun ship-sloop, with three yards on each mast all cockbilled or slanted in opposite diagonals to form crosses for a funeral. The flags are shown at half mast, the ensign a diagonal cross on white at the mizzen, a white diagonal cross on a blue swallowtail at the main, the jack at the fore and a St. George's cross on a staff at the bowsprit cap. The ship is riding to a buoy.

This was used as a design for the tombstone of his friend buried in St. John's churchyard, Woodhouse, nearby. Samuel Gardner, the Simcoe sculptor, cut each line in the stone under the watchful eye of Capt. MacNeilledge. The epitaph which the lettered sailor also composed, mutatis mutandis, might have been his own:

"As the swift ships

So pass the days of man away.

Here lies interred

the mortal remains of

STEPHEN JOHN FULLER, ESQ.

"A native of the County of Kerry, Ireland, and for some years captain of a ship in the Hon. East India Company's Service. He emigrated to this country in the year 1832, and here, by the exercise of talents of no common order, earned for himself a position of public trust and extensive usefulness. He died at Simcoe, 17th October, 1856, in the 57th year of his age, sustained by the hope which maketh not ashamed."

As depicted by a Lake Captain who was a square rigger himself with a classical education

U.S.S. MICHIGAN, a centenarian which Capt. MacNeilledge depicted in her prime. — HMS BRITOMART, which he also drew, was of similar rig.