Iron Horse Made Mate a Captain: Schooner Days MXLIV (1044)

by C. H. J. Snider

IN the late Capt. James B. Foote's comments on Owen Sound harbor in the 1880's, he spoke of Capt. Edward Anderson in command of the steamer North, later named Campana, and of the CPR steamer Alberta when she was new.

The Capt. Anderson mentioned, we were told by the late Magistrate J. J. O'Connor of Thunder Bay "was a typical Oakville sailor of the highest type. When he was 18 he found himself mate of a schooner at Port Colborne — then Gravelly Bay —-bound for Chicago with a cargo of railway material, including flat cars and a locomotive. The captain of the vessel thought she was overloaded, funked the trip, and disappeared. Anderson took her through to Chicago and delivered the cargo as per bill of lading. This made him. He was for many years in the old Beatty line out of Sarnia to Lake Superior and had many thrilling passage. When the C.P.R., started he went with them under Henry Beatty, father of Sir Edward Beatty, later president of the company. His last command was the 'Assiniboine.' Capt. Foote's treasured last letter to Schooner Days continued:

SCHOONERS IN CORN TRADE

"Pretty well down the harbour on the west side of the river the dry dock was located and no doubt some schooners were moored nearby for the winter season.

"It is to be regretted that there does not appear to be any complete story of the Chicago to Owen Sound corn trade of the late eighties.

"After the Canadian Pacific Railway Elevator was built at Owen Sound about the year 1884, a number of smart American schooners of twelve to twenty thousand bushels capacity, and for a period of four or five years, brought cargoes of American corn for unloading and forwarding from Owen Sound to the New England states.

"The names of some of these schooners as I recall some of them were the 'Winnie Wing, another the 'J. H. Mead' a smart little ship. Two others were the 'J. Kelderhouse' and the 'Lottie Wolfe,' which vessel if I mistake not ended her career on a shoal now known as the Lottie Wolfe shoal, and located and buoyed near the westerly tip of Hope Island, in Georgian Bay.

"With kind personal regards I am,

"Yours Sincerely,

JAMES B. FOOTE."

STRENUOUS

We all have to go, but Capt. Foote, of the Foote Transit Company will be missed more than many of us. The Chicago-Collingwood schooner trade of which he wrote extended over a long period. It began as soon as the railway got through from Toronto to "Hen-and-Chickens," as Collingwood was first called, for this cut in half the miles of lake voyaging between Chicago and the foot of the lakes.

It began with the provision trade in the 1850s and spurted, as Capt. Foote said, in the 1880s, when western corn production became high. Grain of all kinds flowed from the golden west, by this route. In fact, one of the schooners was called Golden West. There was great racing, and some fast passages were made—-and many hazardous ones, some of them disastrous. We have already told of some of these and hope to tell more.

Owen Sound harbour in old sailing days.