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SSS ee NEWS AROUND THE LAKES. ee sek 9 BUFFALO. THE “STRIKE OF THE UNEMPLOYED’—CoAl, SHIPMENTS Goop—TROUBLE AMONG THE PASSENGER BoATS WILL, not Occur THIS YEAR—NEWwS FROM THE WELLAND CANAL, special Correspondence to The Marine Record, “ BUFFALO, June 9. Permit me at the outset, to pitch into the people who are making me trouble by pretending that there is a strike on the Buffalo docks. After denying anything of the kind as positively as possible by wire and inevery other way I received by mail a bundle of clippings from a Buffalo paper filled with a statement that the ‘‘strik- ers’? marched up Main street and calied on the mayor. Certainly such a pilgrimage was performed one day last week, It was a sort of Coxey’s army, not a man in the lot being in any employ, according to good authority. At the same time the regular scoopers and stevedores on the docks were at work without interuption. ‘There has never been a week or a fortnight when so many reports have ‘gone out from here of fast work on the docks as during the last. Boat after boat has exceeded any time she has ever madeand the Plankinton broke the record of the port, for that matter. This ‘‘strike” business is the work of a newspaper, trying to hurt another news- paper and it has failed miserably, as it should. Business is good here. he coal shippers complain that rates are too high, but they are getting off the average amount of coal. Grain receipts fell off some- what last week, but they are already better and will im- proveright along for sometime. Ore still comes down in moderate quantities and lumber is slow, but there is enough of all sorts to keep the whole port busy. I went to Port Colborne Saturday and found business there so far much better than last season. The water was 13 feet 9, though the boats were not allowed to pass through drawing more than 13 feet 6. The upbound car- goes of coal to date numbered 59, which is nearly twice that of last season and the size average larger. Other traffic is on a par with coal. Carter Bros. are about to start out after the schooner G. W. Davis, which went down with coal off Peacock Point, this side of Long Point last fall. They will pump out the coal and leave the vessel, as it is 40 feet down and would not be much of a prize if afloat. They have not yet sold the burned steamer Fairbank, but have a customer for her. A meeting of deck hands was held Monday, June 1 when the question of organizing aunion was discussed. The deckhands want an increase of from $15 to $20 per month. ‘There were only about twenty-five men at the meeting and nothing was done. Henry E. Davis, assistant superintendent of construc- tion of the U. S. Life Saving Service, was in Buffalo last week. He is making a tour of the stations in the 9th district for the purpose of making estimates of pro- posed improvements at some of them. The steamer Simon Langell took a perch on one of the abutments of the International bridge last Sunday in the most unaccountable manner. She had the good luck to drop her tow before trying to go down the river, or there might have been more trouble. When the cap- tain found that the boat paid no attention to the helm he tried to back out of the scrape, but merely made out to back over towards the Canadian shore and lodge her middle on the rip-rap of the abutment, where she swung till lightered and pulled off next day, having been pin- ioned there about 24 hours. She had lumber for Tona- wanda. The old fight of the excursion boats with the freighters at the foot of Main street is off this season, so far at least, and when the big Northern Line passen- ger boats get here a little management is enough to put them into line. By the new plan the boats all have their place on the dock front, and there is no disputing or crowding. If all interests had done what they could to accommodate there would have been very little to complain of to begin with. I saw Mr. Patterson, of the Byng Inlet Lumber Co., here today. He speaks of his company as a new one with a mill that will do its best to hold Canadian logs at home till they are converted into boards. He esti- mated that abont 20,000,000 feet of logs have already crossed to Tawas and other Michigan ports and that 100,000,000 reet will go during the season. The launch of the steam yacht Enquirer at the Union dry-dock Saturday drew out a crowd of about 3,000 people in spite of the hot weather. The boat will be finished in about a fortnight and then she will bear in- spection along with anything that floats in these parts. The dry-docks have been short of work of late, but the Mills dock now has the steamer St. Louis to repair and the Union yard has put the excursion steamer Shrews- bury and Harrison, both ocean boats, in order, Ore carriers who have heard of the difficulties in get- ting up to the Buffalo furnace ‘‘around the horn’’ will please not come to the conclusion that there is anything radically wrong with that passage. ‘There used to be a bad reef, there and it is just in the work of removing it that the unevenness that always attends all dredge and drill work shows. In a short time the lumps will. be gone and then the channel will be as deep as any going. The professional canal agitator has been about again. THE MarinE RECORD. They say you can make a person sign his name to a petition to hang him and the way the positive state- ments the of wretched condition of the canal came out while the agitator was here went far to prove the charge. One of the papers published a column of com- plaints of rocks, low water and eel grass and added that there were places on the tow path where mules had to wallow in the mud up to their bellies, when the fact was that the country was engaged in drying up. Can- nal insurance people say they have fewer accidents with more business than for several seasons. The report made early in the season that the prospect of a decided falling off in coal shipments to Tyake Michi- gan on account of the cutting into the trade by the cheap rail rates, does not materialize yet, and not ap- pear likely to. Rates to Chicago are higher than to Duluth, as compared with last season, and shipments are fully as much in that direction as ever. JoHN CHAMBERLIN. CHICAGO. Toe “DISASTER” TO THE VIRGINIA A VERY TAME A¥FFAIR—EVENTFUL LIFE OF Capt. “JIMMIE” FER- GUSON. OFFICE OF THE MARINE RECORD, t CHICAGO, June 10, The small fore-and-aft schooner Mary A. McGregor tran into the Goodrich Transportation Co.’s steamer Virginia last Thursday afternoon between 5 and 6 o’clock off Milwaukee in a dense fog. The schooner’s jibboom struck the bulwarks of the steamer just for- ward of the after gangway and knocked a small hole in them and then scraped the bulwarks slightly as she slid off and went astern of the steamer. Of the 200 passengers on board only a few were aware that the ac- cident had happened. The steamer Raleigh, loaded with grain and drawing about 16 feet, when going down the river last Friday morning, brought up on the La Salle Avenue tunnel. The tug Robert Tarrant soon released her, Officers in command of vessels, heavy laden, going up or down the river should keep as near as possible the middle of the river at this spot and thereby save trouble and expense. The schooner Commerce, Capt. Kdward Mullen, ar- rived here on the morning of the 5th inst. Capt. John Roberts, with the O..§, Richardson Fuel- ing Co. is one of the busiest and best known men that I meet with in strictly vessel circles. This is his seventh season with this well-known firm, and his close atten- tion to business, coupled with a genial manner, makes it profitable and agreeable for all of his acquaintances among masters and engineers to do business with him. Capt. James Ferguson, of whom it can be truthfully said there is no man on the lakes more widely known, is now working his hardest to extend and enlarge the already extensive vessel supply business of T. M. Sulli- van and D. C. Degan, with whom he is now associated. Captain Jimmy, as he is familiarly called, can be found every morning before sunrise around Rush street bridge with his horse and buggy waiting to accommodate mas- ters and stewards of vessels arriving in port. Captain Ferguson has a history well worth recording. He was born in 1883 at Belfast, Ireland, in 1846. He sailed out of that city on her first trip on the brig Undine and continued on salt water until 1852, when he came to Oswego, N. Y., where he shipped on board the brig Algomah, Capt. John Barrow, in June of 1852. In 1854 he was master of the schooner Henry Clay part of the season, and then went mate on the brig Pilgrim, Capt. John Gorham, who was better known as “Curly Jack,’? and the schooner took the first load of stone from Malden to the Sault to build the first lock there. In 1866 he was made master of the schooner Cuyahoga and sailed her three seasons, after which he sailed the schooners G. D. Norris, Hoboken, Frank Crawford, and others. In 1879 he gave up sailing and in the spring of 1880 he engaged his services with John Ford the well- known meat-market man, and remained with him five years, working up a good trade, after which he was in the employ of Magner & Co., for two years. J. J. Rardon & Co., chartered the steamer Phenix for corn to Port Huron at 1%c, and for wheat from Port Huron to Buffalo at 14%c; steamers City of Lon- don and Pasadena for oats to Buffalo at 1c. Capt. John Prindiville chartered the steamer Nor- walk for corn to Port Huron and the schooner Emily B. Maxwell for corn to Collingwood, both at 13c. James A. Calbick & Co. chartered the steamer Adella Shores for corn to Ogdensburg at 3c; the steamer John Spry and consort Johnson tor lumber, Ashland to Chi- cago at $2. H. W. Cook & Co. chartered the steamer Westover and consort Bliss for corn to Port Huron at 13c; schooner George Boyce for oats to Port Huron as 1/¢c; W. H. Wolf tor oats to Buffalo at i14%c; C. H. Starke for oats to Port Huron at 1%c; Aztec and Zapotec for corn to Prescott at 3c. The L. M. & LS. splendid steel steamer Manitou will make her first trip this season between this port and Duluth, which will be her first appearance at the latter port. She will leave Chicago on the 20th. After her return from Duluth she will run on her regular route between Chicago and Mackinaw City, commencing her first trip on June 30. The steamer City of Kalamazoo, of the H. W. Will- iams Line, arrived on her first trip this season on Sat- urday morning last. She had been delayed in getting out of South Haven in consequence of low water, the government dredge has now succeeded in mi deeper. The Williams Line steamer will in future ha their passenger dock office and waiting room at t northwest end of Rush street bridge. ee 2 On Tuesday grain freights were down to 1c on co! and 1%c on oats to Buffalo. There is good reason suppose that rates will rise in a few days as receipt all kinds of grain are very good. 3 : The hull of the schooner Clipper City, which had b sunk in the north branch of Chicago river at the foot Blackhawk street for some years past, and had beco: a menace to navigation, was raised with the assista of ‘‘Scotty” the well-known diver, who patched her so that she could be pumped out and raised. She w towed down the river and out into Lake Michigan Mo day afternoon by the tug Brown and was beached at the foot of Chicago avenue by the direction of Harbor Mas ter Moore, who accompanied her to her last restin place, The Clipper City was built in 1854 at Manitowoc. She was of fine yacht-like model, fore-and-aft rigg and carried a square foretopsail and top gallant sai When in good trim she could give many a larger schooner a long stern chase, = THOMAS WILLIAMS. — DETROIT. ; Customs OFFICER COWAN, AT WINDSOR, SUPERANNU- ATED—NEW EXCURSION VENTURES.—THE Tuc CHA! PION. Special Correspondence to The Marine Record. DeErrort, June 10, Vesselmen the length of the lakes will be interested to hear that Miles Cowan, for forty-one years in Hi Majesty’s Customs at Windsor, and for years acting co. lector of customs there, has been superannuated. M: Cowan was unique for his perfect courtesy and unf ing firmness, as well as for the liberality he constant displayed in small matters when arbitrary power might be used if so desired. Mr. Cowan has seen the com- merce of the Great Lakes grow from infancy to be the greatest in the world, and enjoys a wide and univer— sally pleasaat acquatntance among vessel men. Mr, Cowan has proved himself one of those rare exceptions, a model customs officer. : 2 Some Detroit capitalists have obtained control of t! resort formerly known as Des-kre-shos-ka, eight m below Detroit, and are fitting it up as a family res The yacht Roberta will make seven daily trips from t foot of Bates street, Detroit, during the waterin season. f on Be i The Delta Lumber Co. intend bringing five rafts fro: Georgian Bay during this summer, The contract towing has beer let to the Saginaw Bay ‘Towing Wrecking Co. 4 pe fate Chief Clerk Colbert, of the marine: postoffice, repor that the work of the office during May was nearly on half the volume shown by all five months the servi was in operation last season, nineteen-twentieths of being the reception and delivery of letters. Here it Received from main office—letters, 12,535; telegrams registered letters, 4; specials, 5; weather reports, 2,3 total, 14,888. Delivered—letters, 11,673; weather report 2,325; registers, 2; specials 5; total, 14,024. Receiv from boats—letters, 4,650; telegrams, 25; specials, total, 4,678. j 2 Mr. N. B. Conger, of the Weather Bureau, is no snugly settled in his new suite of offices in the sou west corner of the top floor of the new Union T Building. The suite consists of a large observati room, map room, Mr. Conger’s ‘private office, and va giving him about 400 feet more floor space than bef which will be needed for the new printing outfit nece sitated by the use of the chalk-plate process for print weather maps, which will be introduced sometim July. All the instruments exposed on the roof of t building are in place, and all are new. The flag sta stands on the southwest corner of the roof, and t electric night signals will be displayed from the sou west corner. The red light is of. 128 and the white: 64.candle-power, just double that of the old signals. These lights will undoubtédly be visible to the nake eye far into Lake St. Clair, and along distance do the river, thereby greatly increasing the efficiency ¢ the service. eee Charles A. Chamberlin has had the tug Champ formerly owned by the Grummond estate, put in dry dock at Port Huron for general overhauling to her bo tom. The famous old tug has had a thorough rebuil and with what was good in the old tug being added to © the new, is now in fine condition, and again takes her place as one of the most powerful tugs on fresh water. She is chiefly intended to tow rafts, but is also equipped that a little while anytime will transform into a wrecker of the first order. McC, © fe ar ot DULUTH AND SUPERIOR. How THE NEW APPROPRIATION WILL BE EXPENDE CAPACITY OF THE Two NEw WHALEBACKS. Special Correspondence to The Marine Record, DuLutH, June | ‘The official statement of the carrying capacity of. tl two new additions to the American Steel Barge Com- pany’s fleet, the Frank Rockfeller and barge 137, were forwarded to the New York office Monday. The equiv