White Wings, Mary Myths and Money: Schooner Days CMXCVI (996)

by C. H. J. Snider

THE WHITE WINGS, as a stonehooker, had a "ghost" or double in the fleet. She, too, was an ex-yacht, and like the White Wings she hailed from Hamilton.

Each was black, each had but one mast and no topmast, each had a round stern and a hollow bow. Other hookers were white, square or blunt nosed, had two masts, topmasts, jibbooms, seven sails. No yachtsman would ever confuse the two ex-yachts. Landsmen could always pick out the black sloops from the white schooners, but they could never remember which single-sticker was which, so each was credited with the others exploits, both as yacht and stonehooker.

THE OTHER ONE

We first saw the "ghost" filling the new cribs of the Eastern Gap 60 years ago; smartly painted, black above and red below, with a red stripe and the red of her underbody following the sheer of her planks, high at bow and stern. She was just making sail for home when we came upon her, and her three-piece sloop rig was an attractive novelty among the patched and, mended sails of the schooners, though it was as much patched as theirs.

"Now," we said to ourself and two little brothers, "that vessel ought to he called the Rob Roy Macgregor, or the Robin Redbreast."

As she swung off we saw "M-a-r-y" crudely chalked across her round stern in deference to the threats of the harbormaster. Every so often Ottawa breaks out in a rash of requirements for everything that floats to have itself embellished with name, number, port of registry, etc., etc., etc., and this was evidently one

of those times.

What a let-down! Just plain Mary. Best of women, but not for a saucy yacht run away to be a stonehooker. As Touchstone had said, there had been no thought of pleasing us at her christening.

PSYCHIC PHENOMENON

This was a year or so before the White Wings got into stone, so we saw that lady's ghost before she died.

The Mary soon lost her rosy cheeks in the stone trade. Last we saw of her was five years later. Very dingy, very ragged, very leaky, she was being towed up the lake one calm day towards her birthport, Hamilton.

It was in the spacious days of Hutch, that mighty medicine whose name in yellow letters was a barnside word across the continent. Wherever there was room for a paint brush HUTCH would appeal next day in letters six to 16 feet high. We heard that it was the Mary's mission to spread the paint, a sort of floating studio or atelier for this pre-adamite form of surrealism.

How far she succeeded in this deponent saith not. To his knowledge she may never have left Hamilton again after a toolshed or workshop was built over her. There is legend, however, that she sailed around the lake distributing signs and that a yacht club two hundred miles away got one coat of paint for its premises tor nothing, and enough to pay for a second and finishing coat to boot, by a shrewd deal with the advertising salesman.

It seems that the club had put off painting for so long that it was going to be cheaper to build new quarters than to put on even a priming coat. Along came the Hutch man and closed a deal to paint the whole place over with his signs for, let us say, $500 for the privilege. The club members were horrified to find their weathered but dignified premises so bedizened. And then delighted to find the whole thing wiped out next day with a neat topcoat of fresh paint of pleasing hue, and the hon. treasurer reporting a cash balance of $37.83 after all was over! The sign painter had not leased the space for any specified time. He never came back.

The Mary was too decrepit to sail that far, but she—or the White Wings—got the credit for this, and more. It was said, for instance, that Aemilius Jarvis, after buying her for a song (the Mary was actually sold for $40) fitted her out as a yacht and won $1,800 prize money racing her round the LYRA circuit.

The two were confused, and the cart was put a long way before the horse. The myth was founded on fact, but fact is far from fancies.

TRUE STORY OF WHITE WINGS

The White Wings was built by Alex Cuthbert at Trenton in 1886, and raced that year at Belleville and Oswego without winning one first prize. Aemilius Jarvis, then the striving young manager of the Traders Bank, went to her disappointed owner with $1,600 in bills in his pocket. He hoped to buy her for himself and two partners, A. G. Osbourne and Henry Lee. The owner asked $1,800, Jarvis came up, with proper reluctance, to $1,400 - "cash, and our last offer." He was surprised when the owner said: "Show me the color of your money, and it's a deal."

VALUE THREE TIMES OVER

Jarvis was very successful with the White Wings, and did win more prize money in her first season than he had paid for her. In three seasons she won $4,300, for cash prizes were then in vogue. His greatest victories were on Lake Erie in 1888, when she defeated the schooner-yacht Wasp of Cleveland, the sloop Cora of Detroit, the, schooner Speranza of Toledo, and the sloop Alice Enright of Detroit, in four successive heavy-weather races. White Wings was a light weather performer, having a good sail spread but only drawing 4 ft. 10 ins. with her centreboard up. She was 43 feet on the waterline.

Following this she won the free-for-all at Put-In Bay against the international fleet, taking a cash prize of $100 and a solid silver cup which the three owners presented to the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club for perpetual competition. It was known as the White Wings Cup, and raced for for years on Burlington Bay.

The owner of the Alice Enright, Detroit flyer larger than the White Wings, challenged Jarvis to race again for $1,000 a side.

"I can't afford that," said Jarvis frankly. "White Wings is all I have, and I only own a third of her. But if you want a race I will race you for something I value more than $l,000-my Blue Ensign against your Stars and Stripes."

The Michigander was game. It was a hard race. But the White Wings sailed for home with a new Stars and Stripes at her masthead and her own Blue Ensign still at the main peak—and the Alice Enright had none.

END OF HER YACHTING

"When a winner, go to dinner." At the height of her fame, Messrs. Jarvis, Osbourne and Lee sold the White Wings to Messrs. Lester, Birely, Shambrook and Townsend for $1,600 at the end of 1889. These were not so successful with her, and sold her again. In 1892 she overran her anchor while trying to bring up short in shoal water in the harbor at Wilson, N.Y. She was able to reach Port Credit for repairs. John Miller and Abram Block, J.P., had a shipyard there where most of the larger Toronto yachts wintered.

A survey showed that the White Wings needed more work on her than her owners thought she was worth. They sold her to Lewis Naish for $300. He put some heavy planking in her ceiling, and shored up her decks after removing her trunk cabin, and took her into the stone , trade. He was a steady, thrifty worker, stonehooking till it froze and fishing all winter, and made enough from her in seven seasons to buy the big Newsboy, queen of the stonehooker fleet. That was how we came to get the White Wings from him in 1900.

WHITE WINGS IN STONEHOOKER GARB