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SEPTEMBER 20, 1900. THE MARINE RECORD. MJ SASS A SSS SS SSS SC EE SSS STEP TE OES rtecpcs nema aeoep EEE SE LAKE SUPERIOR HISTORY. No one in all the Lake Superior country is better able to speak with authority of the old days here than the Hon. Peter White. His reminiscences have made him famous “not only through this region, but also through the state and even farther afield. Ten years ago he wrote an article for the Mining Journal on the history or early navigation on this lake. Since then lake traffic has grown wonderfully, and a comparison of its present day proportions with its very small beginnings are even more interesting than when Mr. White wrote his article. For this reason the Mining Journal has prepared the article for publication again. It is condensed and somewhat changed in form, but the main facts of the original story are all retained. The article follows: For six years after the loss of this fleet, the canoes and batteaux had the lake to themselves. The next vessel was the John Jacob Astor, built above the Soo in 1835 by George W. Jones. She was 113 tons burden. She was wrecked at Copper Harbor, Sept. 20, 1844. Capt. C. C. Stannard, her first master, discovered Stannard rock while sailing her up the lake on her maiden trip. The schooner William Brewster, which was named after the agent of the American Fur Company at Detroit, was built above the rapids in 1838, but after a few years service on Lake Superior, she was taken to the lower lakes. The fifty-ton Algonquin was the first boat to be hauled over the portage and made her first trip on the lake at the opening of navigation in the season of 1840. Mr. White re- lates that in 1849 the Algonquin took on a load of settlers at Sault Ste. Marie to bring them to Marquette. When the vessel had passed Laughing Whitefish Point, though it was a bright, clear day in August, Captain McKay said he had ’ been into Marquette bay many a time, and that it was no place to be when an east wind was blowing. ‘‘There is sunken rocks,’’ said he, ‘‘that bay isfull on’em.’’ With that explanation, he ran past the harbor and landed his thirty-five passengers on the beach at Little Presque Isle, ten miles north. They were dumped out indiscriminately on the sand with their baggage, but no food. They were obliged to camp for the night, and next day walked to Mar- quette, reaching here in an almost famished condition. In those early days Marquette, in common with all other northern lake cities, was absolutely cut off from civilization and supplies during the winter months, and the failure of a boat to arrive with a cargo which was destined for the place was apt to mean several months of hardship. A story of this kind is told in connection with the schooner Sis-co-wit. In November, 1849, she took on a load of oats at - the ‘‘Soo’’. for Marquette. For some reason instead of com. ing in here her captain ran her straight through for I,’Anse or Baraga, and laid her up for the winter. But the hardy settlers of Marquette did not intend to suffer for want of the cargo, and two of them, Capt. Sam Moody and James Broad- bent, went from here to Anse on snow shoes, took forcible possession of the vessel, refitted her and sailed for home on Christmas eve and arrived here Christmas day. The thermometer registered fifteen degrees below zero. It was an heroic effort. After the precious cargo was discharged Capt. Moody attempted to get the schooner into the mouth of Chocolay river, but either from lack of water in the channel or too much ice he failed to make the river. The schooner went on the beach a few hundred feet southwest, where her hull now lies buried under the sand. In 1845 the monster schooner Swallow, eighty tons, was brought over the ‘‘Soo’”’ portage. She finally became the property of Capt. James Bendry, of Baraga. Bendry con- sidered the Swallow altogether too large for this lake, and after the canal was opened sent her below. The Merchant was brought over the portage the same year. Two years later she went down off Grand Island with crew and pass- engers allon board. This is the first serious wreck in the history of Lake Superior navigation. Up to this time none of the vessels—unless the fur com- panies’ boats may be considered to have paid for themselves indirectly—either built here or brought over, had made any money. The schooner Fur Trdder, ninety tons, was the first to break the spell. She was brought over the portage in 1845. Capt. Calvin Ripley sailed her. About this time the great copper excitement sprang up and the Fur Trader coined money from the start. She was a favorite passenger craft even later on, when there were a few steam vessels on the lakes, ‘‘Old Rip,’’ as the captain was called, was a great joker. He was for many years after a pilot on different steamers which came to Lake Superior, 1845 is a notable year in Lake Superior's history, for it marks the advent of the first steamer onits waters. ‘This was the propeller Independence, 280 tons burden. Capt- Averill was her master and part owner. Her career was a checkered one. She was full rigged like a vessel and had a powerful steam engine, but she was always in trouble. Neither wind nor steam nor both could make her go right. In 1849 on her first trip up the. lake that season she went ashore high and dry in Eagle harbor. A year ortwo later she was got off, and slightly after herrelease when she was about a mile out of the ‘‘Soo’’ bound up the lake her boiler burst and she was blown into fragments. Jonas W. Watson, the clerk, was among the saved. He says he went up in the air about 150 feet and ashe saw a bundle of hay passing seized it and came down withit. He was not even injured. It is said that so methodical was Watson that when about to go up he seized the ship’s books and papers and saved them. In river improvements at the ‘‘Soo’’ last summer parts of the old Independence, among them the propeller, was re- covered, In the summer of 1845 the schooner Napoleon, 120 tons, was built at the ‘‘Soo’’, The winter of 1848-9 she was over- hauled and changed into a propeller. She did a good busi- ness until the completion of the canal, when she went to the lower lakes, where she remained in commission until a few years ago, On her first trip she came into Marquette, then called Carp river, and anchored alittle more than 4 miles below the present location of the city. The passengers beg- ged Capt. Clark to weigh anchor and run a little farther up into the bay, but he declared that if other people had no re- gard for the safety of the vessel he had, and said he had ex- plored every square yard of that bay a thousand times and found it full of sunken rocks. No sane man he said would ask him to so endanger the safety of his boat. Vessels of thirty times the tonnage of the Napoleon make the harbor nowdays. In the autumn of 1848 the side wheel steamer Julian Pal- mer, belonging to Capt. W. F. P. Taylor came to the ‘‘Soo’» and the following winter was rolled over the portage and launched in Lake Superior early in the summer of 1847. At the end of her first season her machinery was taken out of her and the old hull was taken to Waiskia Bay and used as a wood dock. Her last trip she was 14 days out of sight of land and those on board of her had a most perilous time. The next steamer was the fast sailing staunch upper cabin propeller Manhattan, of 380 or 400 tons burden, commanded by Capt. Caldwell. She was brought over the portage and put on Lake Superior in the interests of Spaulding & Bacon, later on Spaulding and Childs. The Manhattan’s career on this lake began in 1850 and lasted until she went ashore and was wrecked while trying to enter the harbor of Grand Marais in the summer of 1858. In June, 1851, the propeller Monticello was brought over the portage by Col. Shelden McKnight. Col. McKnight had owned or controlled the Independence and Napoleon and brought on the Monticello asa rival to the Manhattan. Capt. John Wilson sailed the new boat. A fierce war on passengers and freight commenced. Inthe month of Au- gust of that year a collision occurred between the Monticello and the Manhattan. It could have been easily avoided but each boat was bent on destroying the other. The Manhat- tan was cut down and sunk near Parisian Island. No lives were lost. Her enterprising owners released and recon- structed her in six weeks time. The Manhattan was a popular boat, and on her reappear- ance at Marquette a deputation of young ladies dressed in white marched down to the Cleveland dock, where the boat was tied up, and presented Capt. Caldwell with a beautiful flag and bouquets of flowers. The girls sang a song named ‘‘The Manhattan,’’ and composed for the occasion, then a pompous old doctor, by the name of Livermore, mounted an old cast iron cylinder and read some high-sounding resolu- tions, which concluded with the remarkable prediction that Marquette would grow tobe the greatest city in the world. One of the twelve. resolutions, however, has had its pre- dictions more than verified. This particular section read- “Resolved, That the time is not far distant when the com: mercial business growing out of these rich and inexhaustible mountains of iron will alone require more shipping than at this time floats upon this lake.’’ The Monticello was thought at the time to be uninjured but she was doubtless cracked from stem to stern by the col_ lision, for, the twenty-fifth of the same month, after coming out of Ontonagon she was found to be making water fast. Her fires were put out by the water rising to her furnaces. She went on the rocky coast about twenty miles east of Eagle river and rapidly went to pieces. Several of her pas- sengers were drowned. The next steamer was the splendid two-piped, upper cabin, side-wheel steamer Baltimore, put on by the McKnight line’ She was put across the portage in June and July, 1853. In the season of 1855 she passed through the canal, just then completed, and was lost on Lake Michigan. The propeller Peninsula, put on by the McKnight in the summer of 1853) went ashore in Hagle River. She did not carry passengers to any extent, but was avery large freight carrier. The steamer Sam Ward, brought over by Capt. E. B. Ward in 1853, was a very popular boat and paid for herself two or three times over in the two years prior to the opening of the canal. When the canal was finished in June, 1855, there came the large steamers Illinois,"Capt. Wilson; North Star, Capt: J. B. Sweet; Northerner, Capt. Ed. Turner; Lady Elgin, Capt. Tompkins; the old Superior, Capt. Jones; also the propellers Gen. Taylor, Mineral Rock, City of Superior, Lac la Belle. The last three were successively ‘commanded by Capt. John Spaulding, Capt. Ben Wilkins, who afterwards sailed the Winslow for many years, first brought out the propeller Ontonagon. The Illinois was changed into a barge in 1868. later the Mineral Rock took the same course. The North Star was burned at her dock in Cleveland in 1862. The Notherner was lost on Lake Huron in 1858 by a collision. The loss of the Lady Elgin was attended with the greatest loss of life in the history of the Great Lakes. She was lost on Lake Michigan by a collision with the schooner Colonel Cook, then named the Augusta, and among the more than 300 lost was the gallant Captain Jack Wilson, who had sailed so many steamers on the Lake Superior route. He was in command and through his heroic exertion many lives were saved. He could easily have saved himself but would not at the cost of losing others who had trusted themselves to his care and skill. The Superior was wrecked on the Pictured Rocks on the night of October 26, 1856. She was a very old craft, fairly rotten at the time of her loss and should not have been per- mitted to carry passengers. Twelve of the passengers and four of the crew were saved. Itisa fearful story. Those who were saved caught on a shelf of rocks under a high cliff, where they clung with great difficulty for five days without food. A snow storm was raging with great fury all the time and the waves continually;washed over them. They saw Captain Jones swim to the foot of the rock below them but were powerless to aid him and he was drowned in their sight. Hight of the strongest of the crew clung to the paddle wheel, the last remnant of the ship remaining above water, and dropped off one by one as their strength gave out and they were unable to hold on longer. The last one had the watches and other valuables of the party on his person. All this happened in plain sight and within 200 feet of the party on the shelf of rock. When the news reached Marquette a hurried public meeting was held, money and clothing were given and a relief party was despatched to the scene of the wreck to aid the survivors. 2 or {THERE were 435 competitors at the Paris Exposition for the prize of $20,000 offered by.the heirs of Anthony Pollock for the best device for saving life atsea. Out of these only one was accounted worthy a tenth part of the total sum, the award of of $2,000 being made toa Mr. Rofer for a life say- ing raft bridge. The device has been fitted on the Polyphe- mus, of the British navy, and the Liverpool Journal of Com- merce says of it: ‘‘It is constructed of steel and therefore adanger. Itseems impossible that the talent of the British Navy should have adopted an appliance which of its very nature seems a most dangerous fitting, and one liable to bring about at the earliest possible moment a most undesirable state of things, which would give an opportunity for testing the efficiency of the life-raft. A bridge capable of accom- modating 600 persons is no mean structure, and unless every- thing in the launching and working of the same worked me- chanically, it will prove anything but a joke.”’ er io or ACCORDING to press dispatches, the views of Andrew Car- negie on the issues of the present national campaign will be fully detailed in an article he is preparing for the October number of the North American Review. According to his present plans he intends to return to this country about the middle of October.