What Became of Owen Sound Annie: Schooner Days MVII (1007)

by C. H. J. Snider

"JUST a Hail for bearings, this time," writes friend Leon C. Julien of Owen Sound, congratulating Schooner Days on passing the 1000th meridian. "We know if you are unable to give they are not in marine records.

"In the late seventies and early eighties there was a little fore-and-after here, named the Annie E. Foster, As a bit of a child we trod her deck. She was a trim little vessel, fan tail, on yacht model, and from my childish memory would say around 45 feet keel. We never saw her under sail, but remembering her lines think: she should have been fairly smart in a good sailing breeze.

"She was owned and operated by brothers named Foster, who were lumber dealers. Their yard was located at the corner of what then was Division and Water streets, now 10th Street and 2nd Avenue East. This was all vacant north to where the CPR station is now, with the exception of a large warehouse owned by the late Capt. Wm. H. Smith, masher and owner of the palatial side wheeler those days, the Frances Smith, in 1888 renamed Baltic.

"Immediately south was the captain's home, another, that, of the warehouse man's family, and a few other small dwellings.

"The Fosters' dock was just on the north side of the 'swing bridge' that crossed the river at this point. How the appellation ever came into use has always been one of our unsolved mysteries. The bridge was never constructed to be moveable, being built on piling, and so never did until World War I, when a contractor got busy and removed it to make way for the present substantial single arch reinforced concrete structure.

"This two block area today is solidly built up, a business section of the city, and the river on both sides now have fine concrete dockage, able to accommodate the largest freighters, showing the steady growth of Owen Sound's north end during this period.

"We have often wondered what became of Annie. She faded from] our ken without us knowing when or where. Hope her bones are resting in some quiet shallow. Have you a picture of her, or the lumber yard she kept supplied from the north shore mills?"

Look aloft, brother. Look aloft. We hope to have more from you about Owen Sound soon.

—Schooner Days

"ANNA FOSTER" in Owen Sound harbor, 1882. She was wrecked later in the year on Manitoulin Island, after leaving Barrow Bay with cargo for Hay Island. Our information is that she was originally the schooner MOUNTAINEER of Penetangore, 45 tons register, built by Alex McLeod, Kincardine, 1855, later hailing from Owen Sound, probably rebuilt and renamed by Wm. Foster in 1878. Foster Brothers lost the schooner REGINA the year before the Anna or Annie E. Foster was lost. The Regina went down under the feet of Capt. Tripp of Collingwood. He was drowned while trying to cast off the painter of the yawlboat while she was sinking. One of the crew who survived was drowned later in the same year in the loss of the steamer Jane Miller.