'Saylors for My Money': Schooner Days MXCV (1095)

by C. H. J. Snider

GOOD SAILORS have always been scarce, as Davy Jones who gets the bad ones, attests. If they're really good they keep out of his clutches.

But the Old Boy says of late he can't get, any sailors at all, No matter how wide he casts his net he never gets a seaman or a mariner, of even a "hand." Nothing but "crew members," "personnel," "ratings" or "crew men."

Serve 'em right, says I, if that's what they choose to call themselves. Only hand I ever fired was a kid who said glibly: "Crew member requires glass of water."

Crew member! Glass! What was wrong with hand, or one of the boys? And mug, tin cup or dipper? And the scuttle butt?

What is wrong with such good words as mariner and sailor that they have fallen out of the vocabulary?

I know no better terms for distinguishing men from pantywaists. "Saylors for my money," as the old song says, "mariners" for all who use the seas, salt or fresh, with steam, oil or canvas, and to Davy Jones with all screwy-chewy-crewies. I wouldn't send gobs to his locker, though I abhor the word and the hat; and I would also spare matelots, for sailors are privileged to borrow all lingos except radio and PhDs.

There were once 15,000 sailors in Ontario. How many will you find in the Toronto directory between AAN and ZZL? Yet, mere stripling though we be, we recall a Port Hope muster which Charles McLellan, then of 63 Wheeler avenue, contributed, which showed seventy sailors for two cross streets of his old home port. Port Hope's double harbor was a pinery of masts, where, on a windy day, a hundred blue and white and green and crimson whiplash flies or windfinders tossed proudly above weathered shingled roofs of red grain elevators, and millions of feet B.M. of yellow square-fronted bristle-backed lumber piles.

NINE IN ONE FAMILY

The "floating population" had cast anchor where Caldwell street crossed King. On the northeast cornet was Capt. Haddon's house, oh the southeast Capt. Fox's. "Now beat this family for sailors," challenged Mr. McLellan:

"Old Captain Tom Fox, Mat, Joe, Tom, Bob and Jack Fox, all sailors, and some mates and captains, and Carrie Fox, Mrs. Tom Fox and Lyddie Fox, all good schooner cooks—-nine sailors ih the one family."

On Caldwell street were three McLellans, Big Alex, Eddie and Neil: three Uglows, old Capt. Tommy Uglow and Young Tommy and Duffy Uglow; and two Peacocks, Capt. Jim and his son, Capt. Bill, both of whom died only a few years ago; "Old Dick" Woodcock and "Young Dick," sailing for years in lake schooners and yachts like Commodore Jarvis' champion cutter Merrythought; Capt. Sam Reynolds, Bill Clemes and Hat Clemes, And the three Wakeleys, father and two sons—Capt. Charles Wakeley, Sr., last in the Caroline Marsh, Capt. Will of the topsail schooner Stuart H. Dunn and steamer Congercoal steam barge, and Capt. Charlie of the E. H. Rutherford and the Arthur, in the Elias Rogers employ.

King st. had, in addition, Capt. George Robinson, (Mary Ann Lydon, Great Western, Oliver Mowat, and other vessels) and his wife, who was both a good schooner cook and the best first mate and managing owner a vessel ever had.

Capt. Geo. Wright, tug and vessel owner.

Harry Hacker, shipbuilder, father the late Controller Albert Hacker of Toronto.

Capt. Jim Maddon, the Port Hope Baby, reputed to weigh 300 lbs and Mrs. Haddon, cook.

Jimmy Ham, sailor.

Capt. J. Jerretts and Billie Jerretts, sailor.

Capt. Nixon. (Would this be Frank Nixon, lost with the Maggie Hunter?)

"Old Capt. Dan" Manson, master and shipbuilder, and "Roaring Donald" Manson, whose last vessel was the topsail schooner Erie Belle.

Other sailors living near were:

Jim Stone and Lot Stone.

Alfred "Possum" Mercer and his brother Dyke Mercer—long the paid hand in Commodore T. K. Wade's perennial Patricia, Bob Harvie of Zelma fame in the RCYC and Mat and Tom Harvie.

Bill Johnston, Jimmie Hill, old Capt. Rankin, Bob Rankin and Bill Rankin.

"Old Capt." Edmunds, Capt Richard Edmunds, Capt. Dick Edmunds, and Eadie Edmunds.,

Capt "Hungry Joe" Braund and Capt. Bill Braund, who also had a good appetite, Capt. George Bennett, Capt. Strickland. Also Capt. Tommy Slight, drowned with the Emerald and leaving thirteen children, one living in Toronto now; Johnny Slight; Old Capt. Clark of the Anna Craig, "Young Bill" Clark, also a captain, Capt. Bert Greenaway, Charles Coleman, James A. and Robert A. Craig, sailors and shipwrights, Capt. Bob Colwell and his son, Capt. Walt Colwell, Mannie Cassidy and Jimmie McVenna.

Can' any Ontario town or city match this sailor list today—-barring, of course, the Royal Canadian Yacht Club? I hear a stirring in Cat Hollow—and you may hear it too, soon.