First Sight, Last Days of Fenian Raid Veteran: Schooner Days MXXII (1022)

by C. H. J. Snider

KNOX CHURCH young folks had a dandy picnic at the Island last month, in spite of You-Know and high water. It recalled another Knox picnic, from the church on the site of Simpson's, in 1891. We all went aboard the paddle-wheeler Chicoutimi or the C. H. Merritt at the foot of York street, and "loosing thence" proceeded through the Eastern Gap to the great unknown inland ocean of Lake Ontario.

During a voyage seemingly endless and occupying a full hour at most, we encountered the schooners Ann Brown and Emerald, the latter outward bound for Oswego and sporting a three cornered sail never seen before by me, called a raffee.

We came so close to the little Ann Brown that our bow wave tossed her up and down like a tiderip, and she narrowly missed our starboard paddlebox. She was then over 60, and this did her old bones no good. Her patched sails flapped and flopped, and her booms and gaffs slashed to and fro like an epileptic in agony. There was no wind, she couldn't get out of our way, and there was no reason, except bull-headedness, why we should not have given her, a generous berth. Some steamboat men are princes. Others are not. Nothing was too bad to do to a stonehooker. We shall have more to say about the Ann Brown.

At length after many more minutes at sea we drew in to a wharf at Victoria Park, where another steamer was lying — permanently — for she was fast on the bottom On the east side of the wharf, and the gravel had built up around her, so that, on one side, she was high and dry.

It was much more fun to explore her than to play in picnic games, so we made a job of it, and obtained a piece of broken wood from which we made a pen. We have that yet.

It would be romantic to say that it has written every one of our 1,022 Schooner Days, including this one, but we do them on a typewriter.

The steamer had a hurricane deck like our excursion steamer, but no paddle-boxes. She was a propeller. She did have an elaborate wheelhouse, with a canopy top like a birdcage. She was a tug, but a big tug, with lots of cabins. On the stern was the inscription: "W. T. ROBB of DUNNVILLE."

"Mother, where's Dunnville?" we asked.

"On the Grand River, in Haldimand County," said mother. "Remember your Lake Erie counties?"

"Essex, Kent, Norfolk, Haldimand, Welland," We repeated in gratitude. Mother had taught school, and her pupils at least knew the geography of their own province.

We did not know that the Robb, while "of Dunnville" had been built at Stromness nearby, and was owned there until sold to Capt. W. B. Hall of Toronto, alderman and harbormaster. She was used in towing rafts of squared timber and the schooners John Bentley and Marquis, which Capt. Hall owned, in the lumber trade. Sometimes, when trade was slack, the Bentley would carry an excursion and the tug would tow her. Aid, Tom Davies had bought the outworn Robb and beached her to protect his picnic park wharf, She did so by gathering around her the sand and gravel the big seas of east blows washed from the Highlands.

To such defense of Canada's shores was the Robb devoted, after having fought the Fenians at Fort Erie in 1866. If mother mentioned the Fenian Raid that day in 1891 it made no impression. It was only 25 years past, but to us youngsters of five-to-ten it meant no more than the Battle of Jericho, which was also "a long time ago."

The Little "ANN BROWN"