A Bluenose on the Lakes: The I. T. Wing by Robert Fraser-Lee
The last sailing ship in commercial service on the Great Lakes was the threemasted schooner J. T. Wing, which sailed the Great Lakes from the midl 930s into the 1940s, hauling wooden telephone and power poles, logs for wood pulp and other lumber cargos from the Upper Lakes into Port Huron and Detroit, Michigan. Built for saltwater sailing, she sailed the Lakes in solitary splendor, the last of the Lakes-built schooners, the three-masted Our Son, having foundered in Lake Michigan years before the Wing arrived. Built at Weymouth, Nova Scotia, by Beazly Bros., in 1919, the Wing was a sharp-bowed, wood-hulled gaff schooner, measuring 140.5ft between perpendiculars, 33.7ft in the beam and with a loaded draft of 12.3ft forward and 13ft aft. Empty she drew 7.8ft forward and 10.6ft aft. Her overall sparred length was approximately 174ft, and gross tonnage was variously reported at between 425 .3 and 431 tons. Cargos commonly averaged over 800 tons. Starting her career under the name Charles F. Gordon, she hauled mahogany logs from West Africa to Canadian and New England ports. Later, she was engaged for several years in hauling timber between Nova Scotia and Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas. After grounding on Key Sal in the Bahamas in 1925 she was sold to Americans Alexander and Lewis Stockwell. Under their ownership she sailed for ten years out of Boston, becoming quite well known as the J. 0 . Webster at East Coast ports between Boston and Florida, until grounding at Norwalk Island, Connecticut, in 1934. A brief history published in 1948 reports that she was seized as a rum runner and towed into Noank, Connecticut, by the Coast Guard. After repairs there, she was purchased by Grant H. Piggott of Detroit, Michigan. A survey made early in 1935 indicated that the Webster was entirely sound and had been completely overhauled and reconditioned, yet the selling price was only $750--apparently the cost of repairs ordered by the US Marshal. The ship was then renamed J. T. Wing, in honor of Mr. Piggott's business partner, Jefferson T. Wing, president of the J. T. Wing Company, ship chandlers in Detroit. Under the command of Captain J. L. "Louis" Larson, with a crew of eight, the ship went to Rimouski, Quebec, located seventy-five miles 1 up the St. Lawrence River at an elevation near sea level. There she loaded pulp logs for Port Huron, Michigan, located at the head of 24
Close inshore, the J. T. Wing lazes along on an easy reach. Photos courtesy the Dossin Great Lakes Museum.
the St. Clair River at the extreme south Lake Michigan and Georgian Bay are end of Lake Huron. The Wing arrived at the same level. Both the Lakes steamships of that era the Port Huron Sulphite and Paper Company on the Black River in August and the small ocean-going vessels that 1935 after a 48-day trip up the St. Law- plied between the Lakes and the Atlantic rence, through the locks of the old usually averaged only 10 to 12mph. Cornwall Canal to Lake Ontario, up the Northbound empty, with a good southWelland Canal to Lake Erie, 700 miles west breeze, the Wing could make an west across that lake beating into the honest 16mph and often surprised prevailing west and southwesterly winds steamer crews as they watched this to the Detroit River, up to Lake St. Clair, anachronism overtake and pass them. On the other hand , having come up to northeast to the St. Clair River and upriver-at last-to Port Huron, 580ft the Lakes, the Wing could no longer find above sea level. The voyage-the long- available stone ballast to load when est of the Wing's career on the Lakes- empty, a common practice in the ocean was uphill, and largely upwind, all the sail trades but one not used on the Lakes. way. Most of the ship's Lakes trips When sailing empty and going to windinvolved variations of only a few feet ward she made a lot of leeway. Lakesdifference in height above sea level. built schooners frequently got around Coming up the Detroit River from Lake this problem by having centerboards, Erie there is an average of 3ft difference; but having been built for saltwater work, the climb to Port Huron is another 5ft. the Wing had no centerboard. Fast under West of Port Huron, though, Lake Huron, sail with a decent wind, over 12mph even when loaded, often the Wing lay 1 Great Lakes charts show distances in statbecalmed and made very poor progress ute rather than nautical miles, and vessel toward Port Huron in the light southwest speeds are given as statute miles per hour winds typical of August on Lake Huron. rather than knots. For this reason, her masters rarely made SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1988