THE MAPLE LEAF'S CANADIAN
 HISTORY
 By Gerald T Girvin

The Maple Leaf Adrift
An American Conflict

A Thorough Overhaul.
    Although she had cut her cross-lake trips to two each week in the fall, she continued to run late in the season,

    running across Lake Ontario when snow squalls and gales are a daily occurrence.

    The Maple Leaf finally completed her last trip on December 4, and the following day departed for Port Dalhousie to be placed in the floating dry dock there for the winter, "for a thorough overhauling."¹¹⁹ The Maple Leaf had been to the Port Dalhousie facility the year previous, and Captain Schofield was very pleased with the work done there. The floating dry dock had been built at Port Dalhousie in 1850 by Alexander Muir, whose family operated it for many years. It was built on Martindale Pond above the first lock in the second Welland Canal, hence the Maple Leaf had to be "locked up" before the creek at the entrance to the canal froze up for the winter. In order to thoroughly examine the interior of her hull, it was necessary to remove her engines, boilers and other machinery. This had to be done while the Maple Leaf was still afloat, before the water was let out of the dry dock.

    During the winter the Maple Leaf was given the most thorough and complete overhaul since she had been built in 1851. Her engines, boilers and other machinery were thoroughly inspected, repaired and adjusted. Her hull was carefully inspected inside and out, and caulked and repaired as needed.

    An examination of her hull showed that the timber was entirely sound...shipwrights pronounced her hull a superior piece of workmanship so far as relates to strength. Engineers added that her engine is in good order, boilers strong and of unusual capacity.

    It had been planned to bring her back to Charlotte as early in the spring as possible, so that she could be thoroughly painted and otherwise fitted up for the season. All of her furniture had been removed and placed in storage at Charlotte and had to be replaced in the steamer. But weather in the early spring was not conducive to an early departure from Port Dalhousie as planned. Unlike the Genesee, Twelve Mile Creek above the pond was still frozen solid and as a result no water was flowing in to raise the level of the pond. Engines and machinery could not be replaced in the hull until sufficient water was available to float the Maple Leaf So it was decided to do her painting and some other spring refurbishing at Port Dalhousie while waiting for the ice to melt and the water to rise to a cooperative level.

    The Maple Leaf was finally floated in the dry dock on March 27, her engines installed and she passed through the lower lock into Lake Ontario on March 31 at 7 P.M. and headed home to the Genesee.

    There was only the necessary crew on board to work the steamer, but there was plenty of fuel. The Lake was very rough, and the steamer had a very stormy passage.

    A trip normally requiring eight hours or less took 17 hours, and Maple Leaf tied up at her Genesee dock the next noon.

    The steamer will take on her furniture and other stuff at Charlotte as speedily as possible.

    Her first trip did not take place, however, until eight days later, on April 8, one of the latest dates on record for the Maple Leaf to begin her spring season.¹²⁰

    There had been repeated requests for a Maple Leaf call at Wellington, a small port east of Presque'Ile not served by the railroad. Captain Schofield obliged and made a call at the port, but decided not to make it a regular stop due to the lack of an adequate wharf and an unprotected position on the open lake. It was decided to rather make a weekly stop at Brighton Landing, a small port with a safer harbor, "to better accommodate the people to the eastward of Colborne."¹²¹

    The summer offered lake steamers a slow season, especially in passenger travel. War clouds had cast a shadow over a good number of festivities, and the gaze of many was turning south. In October, service to the north shore ports was cut to two trips per week and the remaining days were used for freight trips down to the St. Lawrence ports terminating at Ogdensburg. This arrangement continued until the navigation season closed on December 5.¹²²

    Despite the fact that business may not always have been very profitable, Captain Schofield's priorities demanded the very best care and maintenance for Maple Leaf, as is evidenced by the work done on her routinely each year in winter lay-up. During the cold weeks at Charlotte, through the winter of 1861¬62, a completely new main deck was installed by Hosea Rogers' ship carpenters. In early spring the usual preparations were being made for a complete repainting, a ritual which Captain Schofield insisted upon before the beginning of each navigation season. But this spring's plans were to be disrupted by an unforeseen accident in mid-March.

The Maple Leaf Adrift.
    On March 17, the Genesee River was in the middle of its spring thaw and the water level continued to rise all day as a result of melting ice. The Union and Advertiser tells us that about six 0' clock that evening:

    ...the ice broke up in the river below the city, between the Upper Landing and Charlotte. For half an hour it moved on towards Lake Ontario, in a dense and irrestible mass, sweeping all before it. The men on the docks at Charlotte had been watching the movements of the water, and were on the look out to protect the vessels moored there, but when the ice started it came quickly, and there was no time or means to avert the catastrophe which followed. The steamer MAPLE LEAF and the schooners COLONEL COOK and MINNESOTA were swept into the lake.

    The ice when it went down pressed most upon the west shore and there did the mischief. On the west side the vessels were moored in the following order: Steamers ONTARIO, NIAGARA and CATARACT, schooner GEORGE 1. WHITNEY, steamer MAPLE LEAF, schooner COLONEL COOK, schooner MINNESOTA, schooner COMMERCE, steamer BAY STATE.

    The ONTARIO broke loose last fall and extra chains and cables were put on her. When the ice struck her, though her chains were stressed, they held, and she covered the two steamers below her, though the wheel of the CATARACT was injured. After the ice had passed the schooner GEORGE J. WHITNEY, it gathered in near Holden's Elevator about the bow of the MAPLE LEAF and tore her loose, carrying her back upon the schooner COLONEL COOK, the jib-boom of which ran into her upper saloon at the stern, tearing it away and making an extensive breach, but all in the upperworks. As the MAPLE LEAF and COOK passed down with the ice, the MINNESOTA was swept away and all passed along together toward the lake. The schooner COMMERCE was injured somewhat, and the BAY STATE steamer parted a chain but others held fast.

    When the MAPLE LEAF was about to part her chains, Capt. Schofield and some of his men were on the dock endeavoring to secure the vessel and Palmer Wescott of Charlotte was on board. As the steamer broke loose, Wescott was hailed and told that the steamer was going. He declined to jump ashore as he might and went into the Lake the sole occupant of the vessel. There was no person on board either of the sail craft when they went out.

    As the steamer was running out with the ice, Mr. Wescott was heard overhauling the chain, evidently preparing to throw over an anchor somewhere. Just as the steamer drifted out of the jaws of the piers, he let go the small anchor but this was not sufficient to hold her and he was not strong enough to get the large anchor over. Dragging the small anchor, the MAPLE LEAF drifted a mile or more to the eastward in the Lake and there remained all night.

    The weather was fair and no sea was running on the lake. Measures were taken at once to go to the rescue of the vessels. The two government life boats were manned by about thirty men including Capt. Schofield of the MAPLE LEAF, his mate Mr. Henderson, and engineer Mr. Hunter. Finding it impossible to get through the ice which choked the mouth of the harbor, they drew the life boats over the west pier and launched them from the beach and so got outside of the ice, to some extent, and reached the MAPLE LEAF about half past eight last night. Some of the party then went to the schooner COOK, half a mile further east and threw her anchors over making her fast. The MINNESOTA meanwhile went ashore two miles east of the piers.

    Capt. Schofield and his men worked all night on the MAPLE LEAF to get her engine in order, and at ten this morning steam was up on one boiler, and the engine was in motion. Fortunately, there was plenty of fuel on board. The main deck of the steamer was being re-laid, and she was in anything but a favorable condition to stand a storm upon the beach.

    The Maple Leaf was back in the safety of the harbor and "fast at her dock" by early afternoon, but had not had enough power to tow in the schooner. An assessment of the disaster concluded that:

    ...the chief damage by the drift in the ice was to the Maple Leaf and that to her upper saloon, into which the jib-boom of the Colonel Cook was driven.

    Concerns about the hull of the Maple Leaf were to prove unfounded - her hull was undamaged - but her upper works were to require some extensive restoration. After giving the vessel a careful inspection in port, and getting up her boilers to full steam, Captain Schofield lost no time in venturing out with his damaged steamer to tow the Colonel Cook safely into port. Those vessels tied up on the east bank of the river had sustained no damage from the drifting ice.¹²³

    It is to be presumed that good Captain Schofield was unaware of the fact that the schooner he towed back to the safety of the Genesee, the Colonel Cook, had what was probably the most notorious reputation of any vessel afloat on the Great Lakes. Under her previous name of Augusta, the Oswego-built schooner had been responsible for the sinking of the steamer Lady Elgin:

    ...in what still remains after over a hundred years the second-worst disaster in loss of life in Great Lakes shipping history.¹²⁴

    On September 7, 1860, the large side-wheel passenger steamer Lady Elgin sailed from Chicago up the western coast of Lake Michigan, bound for Milwaukee. On board were about 300 members of an Irish unit from Milwaukee known as the Independent Union Guards along with their wives and sweethearts, returning home after a festive excursion. While sailing up the lake in the dark, a storm blew up, and at about 2:30 AM. on September 8, when about 16 miles north of Chicago, the Lady Elgin was rammed by the schooner Augusta, which was running in the dark without lights.

    The sharp prow of the schooner ...thrust itself far into the port side of the steamer, just aft of the wheel, cutting it nearly halfway through below the water line.

    After the crash, the Augusta made no attempt to turn about to assist the stricken steamer, but turned and went on her course to Chicago.

    The captain of the Lady Elgin tried desperately to head the crippled steamer for shore, but she sank before land could be reached. A few passengers were able to make it to shore by clinging to parts of the wreckage, but it was recorded that 297 persons had perished in the dark waters.¹²⁵

    Survivors of the tragedy and relatives of the deceased vowed to track down the Augusta and bum the vessel. The Detroit owners, fearing their threats, tried to disguise the schooner by painting it black and renaming it Colonel Cook.¹²⁶

    But when the Colonel Cook docked at Milwaukee on May 1,1861, word of the vessel's real identity spread rapidly among the city's Irish, who sought to burn her at the dock. Hearing of the mob's plans, the owners ordered the captain to:

    Pull out at once. Take her down to the Atlantic. Don't bring her back to the Lakes."¹²⁷

    But in fact the Colonel Cook did steal back into the lakes in the fall of 1861 with a load of 96 tons of salt from Liverpool, England, and tied up for the winter behind the Maple Leaf at Charlotte. And the prow of the same schooner, which had sunken the Lady Elgin, mangled the upper saloon of the Maple Leaf. But Maple Leaf towed her back to the safety of the port without consultation with the Irish of Milwaukee.¹²⁸

    It was fortunate that the Rogers shipyard at Charlotte was equipped with joiner shops, which had achieved a good reputation around the lakes for quality of work. Hence the repairs to Maple Leaf s cabin structure could be done right at her home port Work on the repairs began almost immediately after the accident.

    But unexpected delays in the work dashed any hopes of Captain Schofield to get the steamer out on the lake at an early date. The spring run-off in the Genesee kept the water level usually too high to allow the local lumber mills on the river to saw "certain timbers requisite to repairs upon the steamer." Yet the work was eventually completed. The new main deck was finished, and the rear portion of the saloon and damaged cabins restored "better than new."¹²⁹

    The Maple Leaf began the navigation season of 1862 on April 17, a date even later than in the spring of 1861. Because business had not developed to any extent during the early spring, Captain Schofield was looking for new sources of revenue, and decided to alter the cross-lake schedule from Charlotte, with the Maple Leaf leaving on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays rather than Fridays. Eager merchants at Wellington had succeeded in extending the wharf at that port, and Captain Schofield obliged them by scheduling a weekly stop at Wellington every Thursday night, "there connecting with stages for Picton and with steamers on the Bay of Quinte." The return trip from Wellington would not cross to Charlotte, but rather to Oswego, transporting freight from Canada to that south shore port.

    For several years, merchants at Oswego and Central New York had made repeated attempts to establish regular steamer service between that port and the north shore ports of Canada. But the amount of business generated was never sufficient to maintain a steamboat service on a regular basis. Captain Schofield announced on May 10 that the Maple Leaf would leave Oswego every Saturday morning after the arrival of the train from Syracuse, for Wellington, Brighton, Colborne, Cobourg and Port Hope. This time the Maple Leaf would make her return trip to Charlotte, placing her in position for her regular Monday morning departure for Canada.¹³⁰

    But by the spring of 1862, pleasure travel was becoming less of a profitable business. And freight movements were becoming more limited. Shadows of war were moving north. The Union and Advertiser was devoting more space to news of troop movements in the south and issues of the war - local battalions and enlistments - and less space to news about the Maple Leaf.

An American Conflict.
    Wars are only waged by men. Ships are involved in wars only as men engage them. So it was with the Maple Leaf There is little doubt that there was some real activity at the American ports of Lake Ontario in the 1850s involving the transportation of slaves to Canada from terminals of the Underground Railroad. But it is unlikely that the Maple Leaf was involved in this traffic to any extent. The American Line Steamer Ontario did board runaway slaves at Pultneyville and hid them in her piles of firewood. They remained securely concealed until the boat had cleared Charlotte for Canada, since it was well known that the Charlotte Collector had no sympathies for their cause. Since the Maple Leaf had her terminal and only American stop at Charlotte, and her passenger lists and freight manifests subject to Charlotte Customs scrutiny, it would have been extremely difficult to involve Maple Leaf in such clandestine trade.¹³¹

    The Canadians on the north shore had mixed sympathies about the "fratricidal war" in the states south of them. Many of them aligned their loyalties with their British comrades and supported the goals of the Confederacy. A good number of Canadians, however, felt a kinship with their many friends in the neighboring northern states and were quick to extend their support for the Union cause. On a Fourth of July excursion to Rochester, one brash young Canadian boasted on board Maple Leaf that he would spend his Rochester holiday "hurrahing for Beauregard." On arrival at Charlotte, he was admonished by a group of gentlemen that:

    ...if the name of Beauregard was heard to escape from his lips during the day, his time for prayer and preparation for the next world would be extremely short.

    The Canadian heeded the warning - at least until the Maple Leaf landed him back home in Canada.¹³²

    As we have stated, the Maple Leaf had developed an active trade in horses transported from Canada. When agents for the Union Army turned to Canadian markets to reinforce dwindling American supplies of cavalry horses, the Maple Leaf frequently carried cargoes of up to 20 horses on a trip to Rochester for delivery to the cavalry in the southern fields. When the Rochester recruiting office was busy enlisting volunteers for the Union Army, the Maple Leaf often brought over groups of young Canadian recruits seeking the adventure of foreign military service. One well known Canadian recruit was Robert Kerr, Jr., the son of Captain Robert Kerr of the "Maple Leaf, a most promising and rising man, and the pride of the old captain," who was "all through the American civil war" and returned to Canada to attain a "good position of trust in one of the chief railways."¹³³

    By 1862, spirits were running high on both sides of the border. Most activity in Rochester centered around recruitment and other war time activities. The Union and Advertiser was filled with news about the war in the south and notices of "war meetings," and Captain Schofield was becoming more conscious of the resentment of many Canadians toward his "Yankee boat."

    For the Fourth of July, the traditional excursion to Rochester was offered for Canadians from the north shore. The Maple Leaf had stopped at the usual excursion ports and gathered a rather large load of about 400 passengers before making her final call at Cobourg on the evening of July 3. A wealthy Cobourg citizen named Stanley had been married that morning and in celebration:

    ...gave the freedom of the hotels of the town to all. All the vagabonds of the place accepted the hospitality, and became intoxicated.

    When the Maple Leaf arrived, the Cobourg Band boarded, having been engaged by Captain Schofield to come over with the boat and play at holiday excursions from Rochester.

    Just before the boat left port the band struck up 'Yankee Doodle.' The rowdies on the wharf demanded 'Dixie' from the band, and ... threw sticks of wood at them... Some indignant passengers on the upper deck forward hurled back the sticks to the dock... a signal for a general row When the gang from the dock tried to board the boat, a 'tall Yankee' from the crew 'dropped them back with bad marks upon heads and faces.' Captain Schofield discovered the row and cast off lines.

    The unruly gang scrambled on shore and the Maple Leaf sailed for home.

    On returning to Cobourg on July 5 with the Canadian excursionists, the Maple Leaf encountered a large crowd gathered on the dock, "in search of the long Yankee." Unable to find him,

    ...they threw eggs at the band, cheered for Jeff Davis and Beauregard and made themselves ridiculous generally, a cheap way they have of showing their sympathy with the rebellion.

    Newspapers on the south shore widely protested the incident, referred to as the "row at Cobourg" or the "Secession over the Lake." The Union and Advertiser remarked that:

    ...the day of reckoning will come sooner or later and the punishment that ought to fall on such loafers as those engaged in the row at Cobourg will fall upon the respectable people of the Province. A bad state of feeling is being engendered between the two peoples along the line which can result in no good to either.

    While the Maple Leaf continued her scheduled calls at the north shore ports, there were were fears about further excursions in Canadian waters.¹³⁴

    Conditions at Oswego were similar to those in Rochester - "war meetings," protests at the "row at Cobourg" and campaigns to stimulate recruiting. In early July, the recruiters had stepped up their campaign with vigor, in response to a call from President Lincoln for an additional 300,000 men. Canadian recruits were paid a "bounty" of $232 to enlist in the Union Army. One impetuous young Canadian landed from the Maple Leaf at Oswego, enlisted and collected his bounty and immediately boarded a schooner for Canada and home. When the schooner returned to Oswego, the captain was promptly arrested.

    In an effort to boost recruitment, the Oswego Odd Fellows lodge decided to sponsor an excursion from Oswego to Sackets Harbor where:

    ...an opportunity will be given to examine the seventy-four gun-ship New Orleans, lying on the stocks, also the battle fields of 1812.

    The goal was evidently to promote patriotism, and several "patriotic speeches" were to be made on the Sackets Harbor battle fields. It would be a "Pic-Nic Excursion." The Oswego Mechanics Sax Horn Band would be on board to provide music for dancing in the main saloon of the steamer. Excursion trains would come from Syracuse and other parts of central New York to meet the Maple Leaf at her Oswego dock at the foot of Cayuga Street. Citizens were urged to purchase tickets selling for 75 cents, and were assured that "the steamer will carry seven hundred passengers with ease and comfort."

    We are not told exactly how many people really sailed on the excursion, but the crowd was so large that there were some questions of safety.

    There was too large a crowd on the upper decks, and all efforts to trim the boat were unavailing. The MAPLE LEAF rolled from side to side in a manner not particularly agreeable, and greatly to the alarm of the ladies After a while a portion of the crowd were got upon the lower decks and the boat went easier, though necessarily slower.

    This was probably the only report ever printed about the Maple Leaf being slow or hard-riding - hence we might conclude that she was quite over-loaded. Arrival at Sackets Harbor was to have been at 12:30 P.M. with departure for the return to Oswego scheduled for 5 P.M. But the Maple Leaf did not make it into Sackets Harbor until almost 4 P.M., and the scheduled activities had to be canceled to allow the boat to leave for the slow trip back to Oswego.

    And there was another problem on the excursion which prompted a good number of complaints. While it was advertised that "refreshments will be for sale on board the boat to those who desire them," the Odd Fellows had requested that the bar on the Maple Leaf not be open during the excursion. It was with apologies, however, that Captain Schofield informed them that the bar had to remain open,

    ...as it is rented by the month and could not be closed without violating a contract.

    So the bar remained open throughout the trip on the slow, rolling steamboat, "which rendered a few young fellows a little more noisy than was agreeable." The Oswego Times was being kind - the Oswego lads aboard in fact got very little inspiration to patriotism.¹³⁵

CW 2/21/05