Fisty Serves the Queen: Schooner Days MXII (1012)

by C. H. J. Snider

Old Yonge Street Slip

AS a frightened boy, Capt. Wm McClain of Toronto (died here 1914), saw the redoubtable "Fisty" Masterson throw Customs Collector Carfrae overboard from the rail of his schooner Christina in Yonge street slip when he chalked the broad arrow on her deck for smuggling.

"Fisty" was an ex-man-o'-warsman, who had lost an arm firing a royal salute on the occasion of the accession of William the Fourth, the Sailor King, and made shift for the rest of his life with a hook attached to the remaining stump. This hook saved the customs officer from drowning and Fisty from the gallows, for the brave tar, one-armed as he was, leapt overboard after his victim, caught him with the hook as he was going down for the third time, and held him up with the good arm until the wharf crowd hauled them both out.

The collector's gratitude and the dripping from the ducking did not erase the broad arrow from the Christina's deck. The seizure stuck. "Fisty" was lugged off and was fined heavily. On the way to the old jail on Court street he gave the constable the slip, and his next address was somewhere in the U.S.A.

The poor Christina was offered for sale in the Admiralty court, but nobody would bid for her. "Fisty" was a popular hero, Everybody liked him and his wife for whom the little vessel was named. When the auctioneer had shouted himself hoarse with no offers, someone bid one pound Halifax currency, $4, and the Christina was sold—back to Mrs. Masterson.

REBELLION RESTORED HIM

William Lyon Mackenzie was a great help to Fisty by bringing on his patriot rebellion ere the year was out. The vanished mariner wrote to Sir Francis Bond Head from his hiding place, telling how he was pining in exile while anxious to serve his Queen and country. So he obtained a pardon. To show his [gratitude] he offered the Christina for the government service, and got a good contract carrying provisions and military supplies all winter between Toronto and Niagara, On one voyage, going up the river to Queenston, the Christina was fired on. "Rebels in strong force." Fisty reported. He had rips in his sails and splinters in his ship's sides to prove it, besides boom "much cup up in his running rigging."

The reclaimed smuggler was tenderly placed on the government dock at Niagara and nursed back to health with two new strakes of planking all round, new bulwarks, new sails, and new rigging, even to shore lines.

The Christina was described by Capt. Wm. McClain who knew all the old timers well, as "no bigger than the Ann Brown." The latter survived into our own and was a little standing-keeler 36 feet long on deck, 11 feet beam, and 6 feet deep in the hold and drew 6 feet of water when loaded. Like her, the Christina had no centerboard, but unlike her the Christina's rudder was hung outside her stern, like a rowboat's. She and no topmasts and only three sails, mainsail foresail and one jib.

KNEW HIS MARKET

Rehabilitated thus at Government expense, Fisty the Bold knew it was a good time to sell his craft, and he did so at a handsome profit. He also mended his ways, bought a lot at the foot of Bay street on the south side of Front street, and built a cheerful bay shore cottage, with boathouse attached. Here he kept rowboats for hire, and prospered, aided by his douce wife Christina, after whom the schooner was named. His customers included the boys of Upper Canada College, a few blocks away, at King and Simcoe streets. Mrs. Masterson was very popular with them because of the tuck shop she conducted at the boathouse, She was a good Scotch Presbyterian matron, and a mother to many a lonely boy "going to Upper Canada" in the strange metropolis. Fisty, too, was the friend of all. He added scissor grinding to his single-handed occupations, and he was a runner—in our century "commissionaire"—for the steamboats and stage coach lines which in those pre-railway days handled all the passenger traffic. The Mastersons were liked and respected and deserved to be.

But the other Christina, the little schooner, did not take kindly to the change, You might say she died of grief. Somewhere it is recorded that she was lost with all hands—three at the time—off Presquile, where the Speedy perished thirty years or more before.

The CHRISTINA, as described by Capt. Wm. McClain, who saw her and sailed in her time.