A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River

by Barlow Cumberland

The paddle boxes were removed, the wheels taken to pieces, numbered, and put on the barges, and everything stripped off the sides of the hull, so that she was reduced to her narrowest width, cleared of everything, to go through the canal. The steamer was then put into dry dock, cut in two and the parts slid apart.

It was intended to take the steamer across Lake Erie to Port Colborne as a single tow. Two long sixteen-inch square elm timbers were placed on deck across the opening and strongly chained to smaller timbers; timbers were also put fore and aft to take the pull and keep the two parts of hull from coming together. It all reads easily, but took much consideration and time in working out the problems. And as the enterprise was unusual and not likely to be repeated the details are given as matters of interesting record. It was a strange looking craft that came out of dock. Two parts held far apart from one another by the big timbers, and the water washing free to and fro in the opening between. It was a tender craft to moor in a narrow river where heavily laden vessels coming and going banged heedlessly against one another. We were fortunate, however, in obtaining the permission of the United States Marine Department that we might lie unmolested and alone alongside Government wharf on the west side of the river while waiting for weather. A great deal of public interest was being taken in the venture and on every hand we received cheerful and ready assistance. Mr. David Bell, whose daughter had married Mr. Casimir Gzowski, of Toronto, was especially helpful, doing good work for us in the foundry and machine shops. The Dry Dock Companies seemed like old friends, the curious public often visited us, and the enterprising newspaper reporters kept us well in the readers' view. So we towed out of dock, dropped down the river and tied up at our allotted berth. The barges with their strange-looking cargo had been sent separately across to the canal to Port Colborne at the first opportunity.

It was the beginning of October when the weather was uncertain, the water restless, and we had to be very careful in selecting a day to take such a crazy craft as a steamer thus separated in two parts across the thirty-four miles of the open lake.

Buffalo in the seventies was a very different place from what it is at present. The lower city alongside the river and Canal Street, crowded with cheap boarding houses for sailors and dock gangs, reeked in ribaldry and every phase of dissolute excitements. The vessels frequenting the ports in those days were mainly sailing vessels, the era of great steam freighters not having come. The stay of the vessels was much longer, their crews more numerous, and being less permanent, were easy victims to the harpies and the drink shops which surrounded and beset them. The waterside locality of Buffalo had then a reputation and an aroma peculiarly of its own.

Crazy horse cars jangled down the main Main Street to the docks. The terminus of the Niagara Falls Railway operated by the New York Central, was at the Ferry Station, the cross-town connection to the Terrace and Exchange Street not having been put in. The Mansion House was the principal hotel of the city, and its lower storey on the street level, entirely occupied by the ticket offices of all the principal railway and steamship companies of the United States. The business centre of the town was in the vicinity.

Arrangements had been established with the United States Weather Bureau, whose office was well up town, to give us earliest advice of when they thought there would be from six to eight hours of fair weather ahead. Many a messenger trotted between, and many an hour was spent in their office, waiting for news, for there were no telephones to convey information.

The elements seemed against us. For a fortnight we had a succession of blows from almost every direction, one following the other without giving a sufficiently calm interval between. It was wonderful to see how quickly the water rose and fell in the harbour. A steady blow from the west would pile the water up at this east end of the lake and we would rise six feet alongside the wharf in a few hours, to fall again as the wind went down or changed, the outgoing water creating quite a rapid current as it ran out of the river.

It was during this waiting time an incident occurred which came within an ace of putting an end to one career. The last thing in the evening a visit was always made from the hotel to the boat to see that all was well. In front of the face of the Government Wharf there was a continuous line of "spring piles" for its protection, with the heads cut off to the level of the dock. One dark and rainy night, when stepping from the deck of the steamer, mistaking the opening in the darkness for the edge of the wharf the next step put the leader into the opening and he dropped through into the river. Soon Manson's voice was heard calling, "Are you there, Mr. Cumberland?" A lamp was lowered; the distance from the floor of the dock to the water was some six or eight feet, and many iron spikes projected through the piles.

A storm was subsiding and the water running out fast, but by holding on to the spikes a way was worked up until a hand was reached by Manson and the adventurer was hauled up to the top. Sitting on the edge of the wharf with dripping legs dangling in the opening Manson's exclamation was heard, "Sakes alive; he's got his pipe in his mouth still!" They say the reply was, "Do you suppose I'd open my mouth when I went under?" It was a close call, and Mrs. Cumberland was always anxious until at last we got the Chicora safely to Toronto.

At length advice was received from the Bureau that we could start, so the tug was called and about 6 a.m. we were under way. We had tried to get some insurance for the run across, but the rate asked was excessive that we determined to go without any, a determination which added zest to the enterprise. We didn't want to lose the boat and wouldn't have taken any the less care or precaution even if the insurance companies would have carried the risk for nothing. In this connection it is open to consideration whether the moral hazard of a marine risk is not of more importance even than the rating of the vessel, and that good owners are surely entitled to better rates than simply the "tariff schedule" which their vessel's rating calls for. The prevailing inconsistent system is very much like that of the credit tailor whose solvent customers pay for his losses on those who fail to pay their bills.