W. W. Grant (Schooner), sunk, 13 Jun 1885

Schooner GRANT, of Port Burwell, 173 tons built 1867. Sunk on Lake Ontario with a cargo of coal June 13, 1885. A total loss. Value of loss $3,000.
      Total Losses on the Lakes, 1885
      Cleveland Leader
      December 7, 1885

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      The W.W. GRANT was a Brigantine, another member of the little argosy of six lake vessels which the late Ben R. clarkson, of Toronto, loaded with square timbers and sent overseas on a venture in 1875. Mr. Clarkson's extensive enterprizes afloat and ashore met with ill fortune at this time, but the W. W. GRANT came back to Lake Ontario after delivering her cargo of Oak and deals in London.
      She was the smallest of this Clarkson fleet, and only measured 100 feet on deck. She was 21 feet 6 inches beam and 7 feet 8 inches deep in the hold, and for some unexplained reason registered under 100 tons. Her carrying capacity was about 3OO. She was named after Mr. W. W. Grant, a St. Catharines merchant. She had been built at Port Burwell, on Lake Erie in 1867, and was only intended for Lake Navigation. Alfred Eccles, of Wolfe Island, opposite Kingston, was her owner in 1875, when she breasted the Atlantic, she was then 8 years old
      The W. W. GRANT came to grief on Lake Ontario, six years after her return from England Louis Hudgin, seventy eight and blind these last seven years, whose son-in-law, Kenneth McConnell, keeps the False Ducks light, recounted the circumstances to a Telegram man this summer. The GRANT had loaded coal in Oswego and began to spew her cakum in a hard spring westerly, on her way up the lake. They pumped till they were ready to drop, and the Old man squared away for the nearest beach.
They fetched in between the Scotch Bonnet and Salmon Point, or Point Wicked as it is well and truely named, on the west shore of Prince Edward; a frightful, array of gray boulders and limestone, with the breakers spouting high over them. Ere she struck they could see there would be no landing in the surf; to a man the crew could not swim.
      But there was no turning back, and with a crunch and a roar she began grinding on the beach. She lay so that the yawlboat on the stern davits could be llowered, and into this they all piled. Hudgin was the last man to leave her, for he ran back to the forecastle for some of his dumiage, and when he came up the boat was casting off. He jumped and alighted in her.
      She was far enough out that they were beyond the worst of the breakers, and after vainly seeking any soft spot where they might land they squared away in the yawlboat before the wind, and never stopped till they fetched up near Kingston next morning. Long before then the W. W. GRANT had gone to pieces under the pounding of the lake seas.
      Taken from Schooner Days
      Toronto Telegram
      August 2O, 1952
     
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WILLIAN W. GRANT 163 tons built at Port Burwell in 1867 by Foster and owned by Craig Co. Registered at Port Burwell. Valued at $8,000 and classed as A 1.
      Canadian Lake Underwriters
      Lake Vessel Register for 1869