CANADA To the Rescue: Schooner Days MCCXVII (1217)

by C. H. J. Snider

THE FIRST fatal wreck at the western or natural entrance to Toronto harbor, which proved fatal for so many vessels up to and including the Resolute in 1906, was that of the schooner Prescott "of Toronto, the largest schooner on the lake, Capt. Ross" in April, 1831. It was intimated recently that 17 persons then perished in her.

This is corrected by the contemporary account appearing in the Cobourg Star and Newcastle General Advertiser April 22, 1831,"She foundered on the bar near York lighthouse during the severe gale of Friday night, April 18. There were twelve persons on board. Three passengers were drowned, five very badly frozen. Four sailors were saved by the boats of the Canada, steam packet, Saturday morning; 4,500 bushels of wheat belonging to Geo. Monroe & Co., of York, were lost. In this same gale was lost the Niagara, with rye and corn for John Brown, Esq., Port Hope."

Capt. Ross of Toronto was also owner of the schooner Pacific. The Prescott was raised and towed to "the wharf" three weeks later by the Canada.

This Canada was built in the mouth of the Rouge River, at the present Rosebank, in 1826, and towed to York to receive her engines. She was commanded by Capt. Hugh Richardson, harbor-master of Toronto, 1852 to 1870.

SHIPPING IN THE ROUGE

It comes as surprise, perhaps, that a 250-ton steamer could be built at the Rouge mouth a century and a quarter ago, where now only a small launch can get in. It may be a greater surprise to learn that a hundred years ago, in 1853 to be exact, a three-masted trading vessel was built in this same picturesque little gunkhole.

This last was the schooner Northerner, listed as a barque in the Landmarks of Toronto, and or by Gooderham, Howland and Co., and later by Gooderham and Worts.

Calling her a "barque" indicates she had square sails forward, besides her fore-and-aft ones. She was more likely to be a topsail schooner than a barquentine, and most unlikely to be a true barque, which has two of her three masts entirely square rigged. This Northerner was not large enough for that salt water rig, registering but 120 tons.

Her master was R. Disbrowe on June 28, 1855, when she cleared from Port Whitby with 4,390 bushels of wheat "and one canoe" for Ogdensburg—a slice of Crimean War prosperity for Canada. In 1856 her master was M. McCorquodale, and her insurable value was $12,000, high for the time. In 1860 she was carrying cordwood for Gooderham and Worts, the new steam plant at the mill and distillery replacing the famous windmill about this time.

CANADA AND THE ROUGE

Getting back to the Rouge, there is still deep water and plenty of room for shipbuilding inside the mouth, above the railway bridge. That did not block the river until after the Northerner was built. But even after the Grand Trunk Railway was built the mouth of the river was used by small vessels loading sand, cordwood, shingles and tanbark. Capt. John Miller loaded sand there in the Coronet in 1890, to our knowledge. We lay overnight in it in the little yawl Frou Frou in 1905. Thereby hangs another-tale. Ask Senator Roebuck!

The Rouge was one of several Indian trails of the "Toronto passage," and though it was not a recognized canoe route it was explored by the provincial surveyor John Stegmann early in the 19th century for a canal route to Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay. Poor Stegmann, "late lieutenant in the Hessian Regiment of Lossberg commanded by Major de Loos," was among the notable pioneer company drowned in HMS Speedy in 1804.

A long tack, this, from "the Canada, British steam packet" -- as her master and managing owner always described her -- built in the Rouge so long ago. Capt. Richardson was a smart sailor of the shipshape-and-Bristol-fashion school. Twenty-five minutes before sailing, his Canada always fired a small cannon, and up to her two mast-heads went her colors. Capt. Richardson's greatest pride was to ferry Their Excellencies Sir Peregrine Maitland and Sir John Colborne in turn, between York or Toronto and Niagara. He had an admiral's stripes somewhere under his skin.

The Canada, by the way, was built by Joseph Dennis, master builder from the Royal dockyard at Kingston, who built the famous Toronto Yacht in Humber in 1799.