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

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Steamboats used wood for fuel instead of coal as they do now; consequently there were many wood docks along the rivers. The wood wouldn’t last as long as the coal, nor could they carry such a large amount. Another phase of early sailing on these rivers and lakes pertains to passenger and ferry boats. The first steamboat to carry passengers up the St. Clair river was the Walk-ln-The-Water, in the summer of 1819. The first passenger boat to run regularly between Detroit and Desmond (now Port Huron), was the Argo, in 1830. In 1840, Captain Samuel Ward, of Newport, placed the Huron on the river route, with Captain Eber B. Ward, also of Newport, as master of the boat. After this time regular passenger service between Detroit and Port Huron was established. The ferries which were operated at Newport ran across Belle river instead of St. Clair river. The fares were as follows: six cents for each person; man and horse, nine cents; horse and carriage, one shilling. Louis Chartier received the first license to run a ferry across Belle river in 1823. When the towns on the Canadian shore began to flourish, they began operating ferries across the St. Clair river. Quite a few strange sights have passed up the St. Clair river of late years — that is, strange to this generation of people. Among these was that of a dead whale which was dragged up the river in 1893. The men who were dragging it stopped back of where the Edison plant now is, and exhibited it for two or three days. The inside of the whale was furnished like a room, and they charged an admission to go down into it. In the same year three ships, exact duplicates of the boats in which Columbus came across the Atlantic, sailed up the river. These same boats, or boats like them, were towed up the river about seven years ago. Many boats have burned along the river, among them the Str. Wolf, which burned while making her last trip of the season. Two lives were lost. The Gettysburg burned while being repaired at Kenyon’s Shipyard. She was re- built and used on the ocean by the United States Government during the World War. The Tampa and Aztec, both very old boats, burned to the water’s edge at the mouth of Belle river during the past year. More boats have been built in Marine City than any other town in the county. Samuel Ward, of this town, built the St. Clair, the first of many built at Marine City by the Wards. Among the shipyards were those owned by Morley Brothers and by McLouth. Several ocean boats were built for the United States Govern- ment during the war at the McLouth shipyard. Only one steel boat has been built in Marine City, the Oliver H. Perry, a large steel fishing tug being built at the McLouth shipyard about three years ago. Shipbuild ing in the county has died out since steel ships are being used instead of the wooden ones. Sailing today is a pleasure compared with what it was thirty or forty years ago, for the ships were smaller and built of wood, hence they couldn’t stand the 16

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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

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storms as well as our freighters of the present time. Neither did they have the lights to guide them, nor the machinery to load and unload them. It took the schooners about three weeks to go from Buffalo to Chicago. Now a freighter will make it in about four days. Our largest- freighters of today carry from 350,000 to 375,000 bushels of grain, which is loaded on in from three to four hours and unloaded in about six hours. There are two different kinds of freighters today, the common freighter and the whaleback, or pig boats, as they are called. These whalebacks have a bow shaped like the nose of a pig, and are just about round so the waves will wash right over them. Then there is one freighter, the William McDougall, which has a bow like the common freighter, but the rest of her is like the whaleback. The passenger boats of today which operate on the Great Lakes and connect- ing waters are very fast and have the very best of accommodations. The White Star Line, which has been carrying on the passenger service between Port Huron and Detroit, has sold out, but we are to have a new company operating boats on the same route. The largest of the passenger boats to be made for service on the Great Lakes are the Greater Detroit and the Greater Buffalo, which were built at the Great Lakes Shipyard at Ecorse, just below Detroit. They are over six hundred feet long and have as many staterooms as the Leviathan. New types of boats and engines are constantly being turned out, so it is im- possible to tell what is going to be invented next. Last year Henry Ford turned out two boats, operated entirely by electricity, which can be heard coming a mile away. What will be the next kind of boat that will be as great an improvement over the present type? 17