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16 MARINE REVIEW. SCHOONER MARTHA IN DRY DOCK. With the possible exception of the Pontiac, which was sunk in Sault Ste. ‘Marie river in collision with the Canadian steamer Athabasca in 1890, the schooner Martha, which was sunk in Lake St. Clair in collision with the steamer E. P. Wilbur in October last, has the worst looking snout that was ever inflicted on a vessel. The Martha was bound down with a cargo of ore when the collision occurred. After several weeks: work in placing a bulkhead in the vessel and lightering about a quarter of her cargo, she was floated and towed to Lorain where she discharged her cargo. After she was unloaded she was towed to Cleveland and placed in No. 1 dry dock. From her stem 35 ft. back her plates and shapes were a mass of twisted iron and the work of cutting the damaged parts away was no small job. Some of the damaged material was cut away in chunks weighing tons. It could not be removed in small parts. It is estimated that with the wrecking bill the cost of repairing her will be about $60,000. The Martha is owned by the Minnesota Steamship Co. and was built in 1896. DEATH OF JOHN GORDON. In the death of John Gordon, which occurred at Buffalo last Thurs-- day evening, the great lakes district loses one of its picturesque and pro- gressive characters. While the later years of his life were somewhat clouded from a business standpoint, Mr. Gordon had been an active force on the lakes. He was born ‘in Detroit in 1841. When eighteen years old he entered the employ of the Michigan Central Railroad Co. Two years later he became an employe in the Detroit postoffice, returning later to the Michigan Central, which he again left to take the position of purser on one of the Ward line boats. He rapidly acquired a knowledge of the lake shipping business, and in 1868 went into that business on his own account, buying the steamer Forest Queen and two other boats. In 1873 one of the vessels was burned and two others lost in the ice with no insurance on them. Mr. Gordon returned to the service of the Ward line as its agent in Duluth. In 1878 he bought two more vessels, the Manistee and Metropolis, which he sold in 1879 when he became the agent.of the Lake Superior Transit Co. at Duluth. From 1880 to 1889 he was the Chicago agent of the Anchor line. Mr. Gordon’s greatest achievement was in inducing President J. J. Hill of the Great Northern Railway to place the two great steamships North West and North Land on the route between Buffalo and Du- luth during the three months of passenger travel. built by the Globe Iron Works at Cleveland at an approximate cost: of $750,000 each. Gordon had been for years the manager of the Northern Steamship Co., operating six package freighters between Buffalo and Duluth and was in the complete confidence of Hill. Conditions arose after the construction of the passenger steamers which compelled him to resign the management of this Northern line in 1895, and he set about to organize the Union Transit 'Co. He disposed of his interest in this concern in 1896 and organized the Great Ikakes Steamship Co., operating between Manitowoc and other Lake Michigan ports and Buffalo. This venture was not financially successful. The last three years of his life were devoted to the promotion of a company to operate a passenger ser: vice between ‘Chicago and Buffalo. His idea was to put two switt steam- ships on the line and have them ready for operation by the time the Pan- American exposition opened in Buffalo in 1901. He approached the Am- erican Ship Building Co. with plans for the construction of the steam- ships, but the enterprise never got beyond the paper stage. In fact it is doubtful if the route outlined could ever be made commercially feasible from the passenger standpoint. One part of the scheme was to build the vessels in such a way that their cabins could be removed so that the; might be used in spring and fall for the transportation of grain and pack- age freight between Chicago and Buffalo. Mr. Gordon is survived by a widow, who was Miss Elizabeth .F. Wilgus of Sheboygan, Wis., and by three sons, F. B. Gordon. Robert Gordon of Buffalo, and John P. Gordon of Vancouver, B. C. > " Quite a large foreign trade in capstans of the well-known Providence kind, is being built up by the American Ship Windlass Co. of Providence, R. I. Two of these capstans have just been furnished for the steel sailing ship Comet, building by Wm. Hamilton & Co., Port Glasgow, Scotland, for Montgomery & Co., London, and two more are to be shipped to the _same builders for steel sailing ship No, 161, to come out in May for the same owners. The Providence company has also lately shipped a capstan ordered by cable, to Liverpool, for the barkentine Enterprise. ‘ These vessels were® [January 10, MOVEMENT OF COAL, FLOUR, GRAIN AND LUMBER ON THE LAKES. Everybody who has had to do with the collection of statistics dealing with commerce of the great lakes knows that customs house records are not reliable, on account of the shortcomings of laws relating to the arrival and departure of vessels. The customs house records are of an approxi- mate kind and are interesting to that extent. The treasury bureau of statistics has been sending out of late reports of lake commerce made up from customs house statistics. They are printed in the Review for what they are worth. A complete report of the lake ore movement during 1900 (exact to a ton as it came from the dock managers) was printed in these columns a short time ago, and it would be useless therefore to publish the treasury department figures on that score, but a report of the depart- ment dealing with other commodities follows: | | ‘Chicago remains well in the lead as a receiving port for hard coal, a total of 678,094 tons having been unloaded on her docks. Milwaukee ranks second with receipts of 476,502 tons, and then come South Chicago and Duluth. In the neighborhood of two-thirds of the hard coal moved was sent from Buffalo, the shipments from that port aggregating 1,208,- 97 tons. Erie, Pa., the only other hard coal shipping port of any promi- nence, has had during the season a movement of 488,758 tons. Thé water transportation of soft coal presents radically different conditions. West Superior is at the head of the list of receiving ports, with a record of 1,270,183 tons. ‘Milwaukee comes second with 726,044 tons, and Duluth is a close third. By reason of the rail competition involved, the movement of flour by water presents some interesting features. There was transported by lake carriers during the navigation season up to Dec. 1 a total of 1,177,850 tons of flour. The heaviest shipments were from Duluth, which sent out 331,449 tons, and from her sister port, West Superior, with a total of 322,590 tons. Of the entire shipment of flour, 930,793 tons were unloaded at Buffalo. The extent to which the great vessels on the nation’s most important interior waterway are holding their own against the railroads as grain carriers is most strikingly evidenced by the showing made by the principal grain-shipping ports. A summary of shipments follows: Wheat, Corn, Oats, Barley, oil Ports. bushels. bushels. bushels. bushels. Gites BO Fagacy ass cee 15,222,610 47,114,149 13,958,064 221,534 Wuslitthivcs= 2) ececas 12,693,593 563,285 339,830 251,600 Milwaukee ........... 844,397 3,713,409 5,045,644 4,517,151 South Chicago ....... 4,250,913 12,849,621 3,061,203 193,150 West -Superior ....... 11,064,328 1,001,079 160,000 1,766,095 Buffalo so nearly monopolizes the unloading of this grain that it is scarcely worth while to consider the arrivals at other ports. The receipts at the elevator center at the eastern end of Lake Erie aggregated to Dec. 1 a total of 438,814,019 bushels of wheat, 57,175,069 bushels of corn, 26,133,- 424 bushels of oats, and 9,412,457 bushels of barley. Almost every port on the upper lakes has this year made fairly heavy shipments of lumber, Duluth alone sending out 359,264 m. ft. Almost half of the total lumber movement was directed to either Chicago or ‘Cleveland. The formet city received 538,246 m. ft. and the latter port 430,320 m. ft. Of the leaders in the movement of unclassed freight, Buffalo shipped 647,645 tons, and Chicago 402,889 tons. Chicago had receipts of 793,909 tons and Buffalo 652,872 tons. From the standpoint of vessel movements ‘Chicago is preeminently the leading port of the great lakes. A total of 7,099 vessels entered the harbor of the western metropolis up to Dec. 1. Buffalo, Cleveland and Milwaukee were close rivals for second place, as is evidenced by the rec- ords, which show 3,684 vessel entrances at Buffalo, 3,343 at Cleveland, and 3,057 at Milwaukee. ASSOCIATION OF MARINE ENGINEERS. Preparations are being made in ‘Cleveland for the national convention of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association, to open Jan. 21. Some of the business of the organization will be conducted in open session. Officers of several different branches around the lakes recently elected are: Cleveland—President, Henry T. \McAuly; vice president, William Kelley; financial secretary, Henry Burton; recording secretary, William Clucas; corresponding secretary, L. D. Weeks; delegates to national con- vention, John Hayward and James ‘Murray. _ Detroit—Past president, Frank McDonald; president, Frank Seiler; vice president, J. N. \Cretzinger; recording secretary, E. R. Dugan; finan- cial secretary, Frank Kenyon; treasurer, Edward R. Blanchard; trustee, John M. Cronenwith; delegates to convention, Frank McDonald, Albert L, Jones and. Thomas Tindall. _ Marine City—President, William Densmore; vice president, Markus Hill; corresponding secretary, Harry Stone; recording secretary, David Foster; financial secretary, John Conley; treasurer, Frank Parker; dele- gate to national convention, Wm. Densmore; alternate to national con- ss James Balfour; trustees, Harry Stone, Charles Burns and Brase aswell. Saginaw—Past president, Peter ‘McLeann; president, Amandus G. Moll; vice president, R. Edward Nantell; corresponding secretary, Miles Gaffeny; recording secretary, George A. Thrasher; treasurer, John Henry; financial secretary, Walter A. Henry; chaplain, Joseph R. Hall; conductor, Alex Frazier; door keeper, Fred Pfluger; representative to national convention, Jos. R. Hall; alternate to convention, Miles W. Gaffeny. Mr. Arthur Hawgood of Cleveland, who now has an office in New York and is looking after the Hawgood steamers Tampico and Eureka in the Atlantic seaboard trade, says that freights are now dull along the _ coast, but that unlike the lakes, the fluctuations are of a radical kind, and when vessels are wanted the rates are advanced by leaps and bounds in order to get them. Capt. K. A. Jensen, who took the Pertipice from the lakes, had prepared himself so well for Atlantic navigation that he dis- pensed with the services of a “salt water man” after a trip or two. At last accounts he had left Vera Cruz, where he discharged a cargo of 2,700 gross tons of coal taken on at Norfolk. .The Eureka has carried on the coast as much as 3,000 gross tons of coal and 400 tons of fuel. eS Ch ae eRe BR ee 9 Cc ae Pa al ree lak ML ld Nes coo) Sie eri aan tk oe aaa as SS a ke Sat ma ba ee TREE, CO Te aR RENT Te ee OM ee EES