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NEWS AROUND THE LAKES. CHICAGO. : SoM# FURTHER DETAILS REGARDING THE Loss OF THE Mary D. AyER—Goop WorK OF THE REVENUE STEAMER CALUMET. Special Correspondence to The Marine Record, -CHICAGO OFFICE MARINE RECORD, May 19, 1896. Grain freights at this port took a tumble this week to 1%c on corn to Buffalo and uo improvement in grain freights is expected until there are larger demands for grain from eastern cities. J. J. Rardon & Co. chartered the steamer City of Lon- don, for barley to Buffalo at 134c; the steamer Phoenix for corn to Superior at 1%c on Friday last. Capt. John Prindiville chartered the schooner Emily B. Maxwell for corn to Port Huron at 1c. James A. Calbick & Co. chartered the steamer John Spry and consort Johnson for lumber from Ashland to Chicago at $2 per 1,000 ft. The Lake Michigan and Lake Superior Transporta- tion Co.’s steamer Peerless, bound up, broke her shaft when entering Portage canal last Sunday night. I have received from the Branch Hydrographic Office, Navy Department at this port a handsome chart of the explorations in the Arctic Circle, brought up to the present year. This delineation is one of the finest, latest and best that.I have ever seen issued by the Hy- drographic Office and is a modern record for the depart- ment as showing its importance to the maritime com- munity at large. The schooner Mary D. Ayer of this port, sank off Racine Sunday morning about 11 o’clock and Capt. Wil- liam Williamson, Mate Charles Matson and three of the crew Henry Sheim, Thomas —— and —— Fitch went down with the schooner,- William Grell and Alex Sturer, two other members of the crew were picked up by Cap- tain Maclean and the crew, of the steamer City of Du- luth, which had been towing the schooner prior to her foundering. ‘The Mary D. Ayer was owned by Edward K. Ayer, cedar merchant of this port. She was of 336 tons burden, 144 feet long, 29 feet beam, 11 feet hold. She was built in Saginaw, Mich., in 1854, rated Bland valued at $5,000. The schooner left this port Saturday night about 8 o’clock bound down the lake light and soon after midnight collided with the steamer Onoko, bound to South Chicago with iron ore—carrying away her jibboom, bow sprit and head gear, and crush- ing in her bow and doing considerable damage to the Onoko’s pilot house and rail. Captain Johnson of the Onoko offered to render assistance to the schooner but Captain Williamson said no and asked him tosend a tug from Chicago to his aid, which he did and the Dunham tug T.'T. Morford was out on Lake Michigan all day Sunday looking for the schooner. Between the time of the collision and the time she was sighted by the City of Duluth she had been blown about 45 miles down the lake. It wasthe intention of Capt. MacLean, of the City of Duluth, to tow the schooner to the nearest land but she was making such bad weather of it that he con- cluded to cast off the tow line and work to windward of the schooner and drift down towards her and take the men off, but She went down before he could do so. This season’s Beeson’s Marine Directory, issued a few days ago, meets with the unqualified approval of all with whom I am brought into contact. The work isthe most complete of its kind ever published and reflects very great credit on its well-known publisher. The revenue cutter Calumet, Capt. Dennett, U.S. N., is doing excellent work at this port, and there is now a semblance of law and order at the government piers along the outer harbor and a proper supervision of the tonnage frequenting Chicago. The handsome little craft is sailed under strict naval discipline, main- tains a searching and thorough patrol,and is a veluable addition to the marine service of the port, a feature which I think Mr. Russell, the collector of customs, should be prepared to fully endorse. Captain Fountain, keeper of the Chicago Ljife-Sav- ing Station, and his crew had all the work they could attend to during the gale on Sunday. Besides other work of minor importance they rescued the crew ofa handsome new yacht and sayed her from becoming a total loss. The business of fueling steamers is being attended to this season more than ever before. The O. S. Richard- son Fueling Co. have now in operation a large con- yenient dock at the mouth of the river, also floating der- ricks and scows which are transferred by the company’s tug A.B. Ward to fuel steamers at other points. In addition to this South Chicago is not being neglected as I find the P. & R. R. R. Co. have almost completed ex- tensive fueling and discharging coal docks at that place. THOMAS WILLIAMS. DULUTH AND SUPERIOR. Vesse, Men Taxinc More KINpDLY TO EFFORTS TO OBTAIN STATISTICS AT THE HEAD OF THE LAKES— HAPPENINGS AND MISHAPS, Special Correspondence to The Marine Record. DuLutH, May 19, 1896. The wheat rate shows signs of weakening, and offers of 2%c are being made, but no charters are reported at THE MarwinE RECORD. that figure. The lumber rate, on the other hand, is stiffening and $2 is asked for Buffalo and Tonawanda consignments and $1.87% to Ohio ports. The Singer tug Zenith has gone to Portage to tow the disabled Peerless to Duluth. The Peerless has a broken crank. The cargo of the John V. Moran is damaged about 10 percent. The bulk of it was manufactured iron, but there were 300 barrels of sugar aboard. The steamer C. H. Bradley was aground in the St. Louis River for two days last week and was finally re- leased with the assistance of two tugs and a dredge. She was going up for lumber, but when released changed her orders and left with grain. The steamer Holland also went aground in the St. Louis River on Sunday and was released after a few hours. The tow post of the tug Pathfinder was pulled out on Monday, which incapacitates her for use for some time. The tugBennett, of the Cranberry Lumber Co., lost a raft near the entrance to Superior harbor this week during a heavy northeaster. The heavy winds have almost entirely stopped log towing. The government inspector who has in charge the work of gathering the reports of cargoes from the ves- sels arriving and departing from the ports..at the head of the lakes, for the use of Maj. Sears, the government engineer here, finds that the vessel men are taking more kindly to the regulation this year and are causing less trouble than last. The steam ferry Oden, plying between Duluth and Superior, has been sold by Ole Olssen to Capt. John Shay, who has been running her for the past six years. He will continue her in her present service. The steamer Rees carried the banner cargo of wheat out of here last week. She; took 134,000 bushels ina draft of 13 feet 3 inches forward and 13 feet 10 inches aft. i . The barge Clement, which has been leased by the Northen Steamship Company for use as a lighter, is being put in shape’ for use. A. house will be built on her and other improvements. made. Capt. B. B. Inman has sold his tugs Ariel and Lida to D. B. Stevens, who will use them in his log-towing work on the Nemadji river. oCapt. W. C. Brown, Marine Superintendent of the. Northern Steamship Company, arrived this week from Buffaloand willbe here several weeks. Capt. Singer’s new tug, the D. L. Helm, arrived from Chicago on Sunday evening, after a stormy trip. Ky, EK. BEEBE. BUFFALO. “MONSTER LEVIATHANS OF THE DEEP’? BECOMING A CHESTNUT—THE EXCURSION LINE Poor—CAPpTaIns AWHEEL. BUFFALO, May 19. These are the days of big steamers. ‘They sail in here in one, two, three order and tie up and wait for the good-natured marine reporters to give them a column puff. Some of them are getting it, but the thing is growing awfully monotonous, and they will soon be voted a bore and turned down witha line. ‘The owner of one of them confessed the other day that the day of some of his ‘‘monster’’ boats, as they were called when they came out, was over. They are commonplace craft now. ‘‘What are such as the Curry or Selwyn Eddy now?’’ he asked. ‘‘Might as well turn them over to the class that the canal schooners are in.”’ Some day there is going to be a harbor master here with his lungs split wide open. Capt. Soper is about the hardest worked man in the harbor now, and he is not afraid to order a vessel 10 move. His melodious voice is raised to a high key when business sticks fast on account of some 400-footer getting full length of a cross slip and sticks out over both branches of tne main harbor besides. Already the Sturges elevator, which stands on aslip, is barred from taking the end hatches out of the heavier craft. They will shut off the whole fleet if they tried it. The constan'ly improving condition of- the water in the harbor is adding to the general ease of movement. The government engineer is of the opinion that the levels will rise at least till July, when if the present dry weather continues they will subside again. ‘There is so far much less complaint against the shallow water in the Niagara than was expected, and there are noreports of striking bottom, though the Tonawanda fleet is now quite large. The lumber fleet appears to be busy, and Duluth paid $2 to Buffalo’a day or twoago, butit is a fact allithe same that this port is receiving less lumber than for many a spring. ‘The business is so dull that no one is laying in a board unless there seems to be a callfor it. The docks begin to be covered with red cedar shingles again, but everything elise in that line promises to be slow for awhile at least. Sloan & Cowles, the excursion boat owners, have at last accomplished, at least in part, what they have been trying to do for several years. ‘They were convinced that the boats ought to be pooled or in some way put under a single management, so that there would be no disposition to cut rates and the running expenses would be less. ‘They were able to announce last@Saturday that they had pooled all the boats but the Crystal “Beach and Schlosser interest and the steamer Columbia, which runs wild. ‘This givesthem che whole of the Grand Is- land resorts, the Canadian, Niagarg Falls route,and the south shore route to Woodland Beach. It would have been more satisfactory to get the whole of the interests — together, but there is now a chance to prove to the others that their idea is good. ‘The traffic is large, but the rates are so low that very little money has ever been made. Sloan & Cowles have sold the steamer Pilgrim to ocean parties and bought the Niagara steamers a Shrewsbury and Harrison to complete the deal. ~ EB. T. Hitchcock has been sviffing salt-water.breezes — ae harrowing tale of th board last week. 1,001 feet by 100, to be finished August 1. L slanting dock that will begin about a foot and a half be- low the older ones and rlse to a point above high water! line, mostly inside of the house is a novelty and will be watched with interest, for it looks quite feasable and may solve the dock problem. : The determination of the Northern Steamship Com- pany to build does not appear to be modified by the complaint of the western flour shippers against the st or age charges that have lately been laid on ex-lake freight that is not shipped out promptly. ‘The old plan was to allow a shipper, if he happened to come from the West, to leave his freight in warehouse as long as hg pleased without charge. Of course, such a privilege was bound to be abused, and the result was so much accumulation ~ that the roads were obliged to put on a storage charge: This was fixed at 12% cents per 100:after twenty days, for each twenty days or fraction of that time that the freight lay in warehouse, This created a great breeze among the western shippers and they protested that they could do nothing with their old privilege cut off. After considerable negotiation it was agreed to allow the shippers till August to get their old freight out.of the way, but the rule was made to apply to all new freight coming in. The new Cleveland liner City of Buffalo is coming in for considerable miscellaneous good opinion as she makes her way about theharbor. She promises to cleen up the freight that had accumulated very soon and there - seemed to be no doubt of her popularity as a passen- ger boat. ‘Then she has power, as. is shown ‘by the at- tention she gives toaturn of her wheels. One dock- man said as she went down stream this morning that if she should come inside at a good rate of speed she would throw all the other boats on top of the docks. : The date of launching W. J. Conners’ steam yacht has’ not been fixed, but it will have to occur pretty soon in order to carry out the programme of taking her to the Democratic National Conventton in Chicago on the 8th of July. A party isalready made up and the boat will be given a chance to show what speed there isin her. The big steamer Rees had to repeat a time-honored custom of wetting a part of her wheat cargo. This is too common an occurrence with anew boat, and isa very expensive way of finding a hole in a boat’s hull As the leak was of minor account and the gross freight was more than $4,000, the Rees will probably not- go out of the grain trade on that account. Fa, Capt. Ed. Maytham, head of the tug line of that name, is a most enthusiastic bicycler of the crop of 796. He is already off with the boys at night scorching to the towns in the neighborhood and appears to lead the-lot, whether old or new wheelmen. As itis sometime since he sailed the lakes he is somewhat rusty on the phraseo- logy of the deep and doesn’t have to hail the wheels he meets ‘‘hard a-port’’, as is said to be the case where a sea captain takes to the bike. Townsend Davis, the insurance agent, is taking to the wheel this season for the first time like a duck to water, but Capt. Charley McMillan rode one awhile last fall and retired. It is not stated how many close personal reminders he has of the experience. JoHN CHAMBERLIN, . IN GENERAL. 3 The Thompson Tug Line has fitted up a model eating house on its dock at the Government Pier, Sault Ste. Marie, for the accomodation of its employes. er The Thompson Tug Line, of Port Huron, has secured articles of incorporation as the Thompson Towing and Wrecking Association, with $100,000 capital stock. They are said to be preparing plans for a new wrecking tup. The excursion boats running out of Toledo have .ad- vanced their rates. se Geo. Lee, of the firm of McCullom & Lee, who are deepening the channel at the foot of Lake Huron; died | yesterday at Port Huron. He was 44 years old. A widow and three sons survive him, Mig 2 The Secretary of the Treasury has awarded contracis for the construction of the Forty-Mile Point light sta- tion, Michigan, as follows: For brick,'C. Clippert & Son, Detroit, $1,148; for factory work, the Delta .Lum- ber Co., Detroit, $551; for sub-station stores, John Bles- sed & Son, Detroit, $683; for metal work, the Russell Wheel Co, Detroit, $1,389. hE LEIS