Lake Ontario Maritime History

  Schooner Cortez, wrecked on Lake Ontario, November, 1880 The Great Lakes Wooden Shipbuilding Era By Captain H.C. Inches (Inland Seas, Spring, 1951) The days of wooden ships and iron men the wooden ship building industry attained gigantic proportions nearly all the way around the Great Lakes. It was the forerunner of our modern metal shipyards. From the period just after the War of 1812, when the first start was made, until the late ’80’s, the construction of wooden ships furnished a great amount of labor much needed when the country around the lakes was being settled, the demand for hard-wood aiding the farmer to pay for his land and the clearing of it as well as for stock and tools. It also gave work for him and his horses during the slack winter months in getting out the timber and hauling it to the building yards. As a boy, I ran and played around and over these wooden ships while they were under construction. Many were built close to my home and I passed a shipyard each d

 

                           By Richard F. Palmer                       It was a sight for sore eyes to old sailors early in the afternoon of November 17, 1916 as they watched the lumber-ladened schooner Sephie gracefully entered Buffalo harbor under full sail. It had been years since such an event had occurred and it would be the last. It would also be the last visit to Buffalo  for the Sephie. The following year she would head for salt water.     An old Buffalo sailor nicknamed “Bo’s’n Slattery” said the day she sailed into the harbor “she looked spick and span and presented a pretty picture with all sails set. I haven’t seen a windjammer in the vicinity of Buffalo in over 15 years. The last one I can recall is the schooner Sephie which was bought somewhere up the lakes by Commodore Oliver Donaldson during the late war. She brought a big cargo of lumber down here in 1917 and came under the break wall under full canvas. She was a neat little ship and made a pretty spectacle with all

 

                                     Original Lackawanna Railroad coal trestle off West First                                     Street, 1870-71.                            New York, Ontario & Western (right) and Delaware & Hudson                           coal trestles on east side of the river.