60 Patches a Side Couldn't Save Her: Schooner Days MLXIII (1063)

by C. H. J. Snider

"I WAS interested in your "Schooner Days" of April 5th hails our old friend J. E. Masters from Niagara-on-the-Lake—yes, he has a good voice—because of the fact that I remember the P. E. Young, of Port Dover, very well. At one time she visited the Niagara River quite often. There was quite a fleet of those old hookers carrying stone from Queenston to Toronto before the turn of the century, the Paddy Young being one of them. On one occasion she was beating down the river against a northwest breeze, when she stood in too far bows on to Milloy's wharf. When about to come about, she missed stays on account of the river current, and barged into the wharf, carrying away her bowsprit, causing her skipper to lose his temper. No damage was done to the wharf.

"Do you have any information about the Snowbird, another of that same fleet. Your mention of tin patches reminded me of her, as she lay in Port Dalhousie one fall when we were herring chasing from the port. We counted over 60 patches of tin on one side of her. Two brothers named Marks had her, they being the whole crew. They were said to have borrowed her to get a load of sand from the lake beach. The weather being windy, she lay there for some time, but finally made up to Jordan Harbor, where they managed to get part of a load aboard. It was well into December when they made Toronto Bay, where understand she became icebound and finally sank. One of the Marks brothers, sailed the old steamer 'Gordon Jerry' for several years I thought you might be interested in this item, and perhaps add to it for one of your interesting articles."

The Snowbird surely needed those tin patches. I have seen her leaking so badly that the water from the pump, unable to get away fast enough through the scuppers, was running out of her hawsepipes, giving her the appearance of crying her eyes out. One reason she sank in Toronto Bay was that the bilgewater froze in- her before it could be pumped out, and although they tried chopping the ice out in blocks the leaks kept gaining faster than they could chop. Jimmy Quinn. "Toronto Quinn" he was called to distinguish him from the Oakville one, had her at the time and so lost her.

—Compiler, Schooner Days.

Old SNOW BIRD "on her last legs" running for Frenchman's Bay, while the H. M. BALLORY beats up for Toronto.