Marine City High School - Mariner Yearbook (Marine City, MI)

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soloist and later came to this country. He then toured the United States and Canada, appearing as soloist with many of the principal orchestras of the country. He also toured the country with the Mozart Opera. He since has been instructor of piano at some of the leading Conservatories in Chicago and New York. Raye Roberts Platt, a graduate of this high school, is now doing research work for the American Geographic Society in New York City. Judge Carr of the State Supreme Court, who married a graduate of the Class of 1906, was once Superintendent and Principal of the school here. Dr. Parker, now one of the most famous oculists of the country, was born here and educated in our schools. SAILING By Bruce Beattie It is known that the majority of people in Marine City make their living by sailing. Therefore, anything pertaining to sailing is of vital interest to the citizens of Marine. This article is not only the result of information gleaned in the usual way, and of questioning various old sailors, but also is from an interview with Captain Harry Lawrence, who sailed on the Great Lakes from the early seventies until about ten years ago. The first boats that were navigated on the Great Lakes were huge canoes which were paddled by crews of from eight to ten men. Then the French intro- duced a boat which they called the bateau, which was was a flat-bottomed boat with sharp pointed ends. In 1679 La Salles Griffin was the first sailing vessel to pass up the St. Clair river. In 1765 there were two sailing vessels traveling be- tween St. Clair and Detroit. The first steamboat to sail up the St. Clair river was the Walk-ln-The-Water, which was also the first steamboat to sail on the Great Lakes. She was built at Black Rock, near Buffalo, in 1818. In the latter part of the 1 9th century schooners were the most prominent of the boats on the Great Lakes. These schooners were towed through the St. Clair and Detroit rivers by tugs. A tug would tow from one to eight schooners up the river into the lake until they were able to use their own sails. Then they would cast off the tow line and pick up the schooners that were bound down the river. They did not go through the South Channel of the St. Clair river where our boats now go, because there was no cut through which the boats could enter into Lake St. Clair from that channel, as there is now. They went through the North Channel by Algonac, around Point Duchene and then out into Lake St. Clair by the way of the Middle Channel. These tugs had no lights to guide them in the rivers, so they had to drop anchor if the night was too dark. There were very few light- houses at this time. About the only lights there were were those like the one at Fort Gratiot, above Port Huron, to guide the boats to the entrance of the rivers. The schooners had no heat on board except that which was in the galley. Con- sequently sailing was rather a cold job in the spring and fall of the year. 14

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In regard to a teachers wages, and the age at which they usually received certificates she related the following incidents: “1 received my first certificate for teaching early in 1863, at the age of 18 years, and was hired to teach the summer term in the small school in District No. 1 in East China. This school provided for all children of farmers living west of the north limits of the same township. My wages here were one dollar per day with board among the parents of the scholars. Then in the winter of 1863 I taught school two and a half miles below Algonac. The scholars were nearly all grown up, and while I received credit for teaching a satisfactory term of school, I objected to and disliked more than any- thing else the boarding around. My wages here were two dollars per day. How- ever, even though I received double the wages down there, I still longed to be back home, teaching among people whom I knew.” Although school days of the past were pleasant when she brought them back to mind, she is not one of those who see good only in the past, for she said as she closed, “Reminiscences of past school days prove that our progress must be on- ward and upward in the future, as improvements are introduced; with the Golden Rule in view, parents or children will not wish to turn backward to the school days of the past.” MARINE CITY’S “WHO’S WHO” By R. P. Though Marine is only a small place, it can claim at least several famous people as its residents. One of the most interesting of these people is Aunt Emily Ward. At an early age she came to Michigan and settled on the St. Clair river in what was then New- port. “Helping school and church in the forest hamlet, nursing the sick, dutiful, helpful, and fearless amid the toils and perils of pioneer life, inspiring all, especi- ally young men, to true and useful efforts, few lives have been so helpful.” As Stebbins in his “Upward Steps of Seventy Years” says: “She was ‘Aunt Emily’ to many from Michigan and others far over the wide land; Grandmother to twenty children and their children (fifty-seven in all), at her home and far distant, all children of her adoption, some of them no kinship in blood. She never married, but her mother’s death left her, at ten years old, her good father’s friend and com- forter, the child-mother of a brother and two younger sisters with a mother-heart that in after years took home their children, and others left orphans, and a loving wisdom that trained them for useful lives and larger responsibilities.” Aunt Emily Ward used to live in the house where Mr. Hanks and Mr. Roach now reside. It was there that she did the greater part of her work. She was also a pioneer of academy education. Her school was what is now the Hose house on Main street. When she taught there it was on the site of the present high school. Many of her scholars have become famous through her untiring efforts. One of the proteges is Theobald Osjen, Mrs. John Baird’s uncle. He was United States Senator from Wisconsin for 12 years. It may be interesting to know that Mrs. Ben Armsbury was named after “Aunt Emily.” Eber Ward, Aunt Emily’s brother, is another person who helped make Marine. He was a pioneer of industry in this section, building and owning many steam ships which provided transportation for the lake ports. Another interesting person from Marine is A. Calzerin. Graduating from the Holy Cross School of Music in 1901 at the age of 16 years, he attended the Michi- gan Conservatory in Harmony, studying the organ and piano. After graduating from that institution he went abroad with his teacher, Mr. Jones, to Berlin, where he made his debut four years later. From that place he toured the continent as 13

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It took a schooner three weeks or a month to go from Buffalo to Chicago. They did not sail straight up the lake, but tacked back and forth and then sailed into the port they wanted to go to. There was no way by which they could get on Lake Superior at this time. If a schooner wasn’t going to carry a load of coal to Chicago from Buffalo or Dunkirk, the men would put on a load of sand for ballast, and then when the boat was in the vicinity of Chicago they would drop anchor, throw the load of sand off, sail into the harbor and get a load of grain or whatever they were after. The loading and unloading had to be done by hand, as they had no cranes to do it with. The largest of the schooners in the seventies carried about 40,000 bushels of grain. This would be a small amount today. When copper was discovered south of Lake Superior, the mine owners used sailing vessels for a time to ship the copper. It was soon found that it was nec- essary to have boats that weren’t dependent on the whims of the wind and weather, so the mine owners combined and bought a small steamer, which was named after Samuel Ward, a resident of Newport and the leading shipbuider of the county at that time. The boat was built in Newport, now Marine City, and the Captain was George Cottrell of this town. As there were no canals at the “Soo” then, the owners hauled the “Samuel Ward” over the portage on slides and rollers, an under- taking which took seven weeks. Ten years later, in 1855, the first canal at the “Soo” was in the process of being constructed. The canal cost nearly a million dollars, and it took two years to build it. Much of the timber used in the building of this canal was chopped, hewed , and cured here in Newport. It was then loaded on the steamers Marquette and Wyandotte and taken to the “Soo.” This part of the work was directed by Samual Ward. Each lock at the “Soo” was three hundred and fifty feet long. When the boats ne ared the locks, they would drop their anchor and lower their yawl boat. The men in these boats would open the gates of the lock. In the case of the sailing vessels, they would pull the schooner into the lock, shut the gate, and then open the gate at the other end. The same process was repeated for the other locks. After the schooner had passed through the locks, she was warped, by using the anchor, out into the lake, until they were far enough to use their sails. This took a great deal of time and labor. Of course, the steamboats of that day went through the locks on their own power, but they, too, had to open and shut the gates themselves. The common sailor and able seaman received from ten to fifteen dollars a month only. The captains were considered well off if they got from eighty to ninety dollars a month. The able seaman of today gets a hundred and five dollars a month, while the captains get anywhere from three hundred up to six hundred dollars per month. The first port from which iron ore was shipped was Marquette. The ore was loaded by the use of dump carts and wheel barrows. Other ports on Lake Superior that were opened to navigation in the eighties were Ashland, Two Harbors, and Fort Williams. Captain Lawrence of Marine City took the first load of coal into Fort Williams in 1883 on the Tutonia. The harbor was so shallow that most of the coal had to be lightered ashore. 15