'Fitting Out' Great Lakes Schooners

Fitting Out in the Days of Sail

By Richard F. Palmer

  The Harbor — The work of fitting out vessels preparatory to the opening of spring business has commenced in our harbor, and the sound of the caulking hammer, and the cheery voices of the sailors will be heard again. The work of refitting vessels is fairly begun, yesterday and today being the busiest of the season. Quite a number of vessels are taking on their canvas, and soon our noble blue Ontario will be flecked with snowing sails - We’re glad of it.  - Oswego Palladium, April 8, 1864

  The harbor presents a gala appearance today, a large fleet of grain and lumber vessels being in port. Such a forest of spars has not been seen on the river since the good old days of yore, when Oswego rivaled the grain receiving ports of the lower lakes.  Oswego Daily Palladium, May 18, 1874

   Oswego residents could sense the navigation season rapidly approaching when sailors left their winter quarters at the local hotels and boarding houses and hurried to the waterfront to fit out their vessels, idle for five months. For owners, time was money and there was always a flurry to get these vessels seaworthy.

At times the harbor was so busy one could easily cross the Oswego River  hopping from deck to deck. During the winter of 1859-1860, there were 68 sailing vessels and 80 canal boats laid up in the harbor.  In the off season one would be hard pressed to find a room for the night as the local hotels and boarding houses serving as winter quarters for hundreds of sailors.

  The docks, shipyards and satellite businesses employed hundreds of men and boys.  The maritime life of Oswego centered on the First Ward, the waterfront of the west side; and the Second Ward on the east side.  The 1850s, 1860s and 1870s was a period of prosperity and activity for Oswego harbor.   To this city came masses of European emigrants to work in the shipyards and factories.

   Fitting out vessels was a ritual dating back to the dawn of navigation. It was a time when Oswego resembled an ocean seaport, the harbor was choked with vessels, reflected in the newspapers of the day. Canal boats with merchandise from the Hudson are rapidly coming in. On the whole, the movement and business of the day assumes a cheering aspect.  -- Oswego Commercial Times, May 20, 1856.

   The Spring Fleet. - Our wharves and river have this morning truly assumed the bustling appearance and busy hum of spring. The sun shines out warm and bright upon the river, so crowded on either side by the western fleet of yesterday as to show only a contracted, silvery streak stretching up its center to mark the channel. Under the elevators this morning the vessels lie in a tier six deep and yet still they come. Our harbor presents today one of the most animating scenes. A change of wind has brought in a large fleet of sail vessels and the British and American flags float gaily from many steam vessels in the harbor. There are four propellers of the Northern Transportation Line in port loading and discharging cargoes. - Oswego Commercial Times, April 28, 1858.

   It is certainly refreshing to look upon the business activity prevailing in our harbor at the present time, adder the usual stagnation of the winter months in all northern lake ports. The click of the mallet resounded on every side - the decks of the numerous vessels are manned with busy crews engaged in “fitting out,” and everything presents an aspect of business. Everybody predicts a season of prosperity. May these predictions be verified, and the approaching season redeem the losses of the past. Vessels are arriving and departing daily, and our business men are actively engaged in completing their arrangements for heavy commercial transactions. - Oswego Commercial Times, April 3, 1860

   NAVIGATION. Vessels in our harbor are now commencing to fit out. We noticed several this morning on which men were engaged in arranging rigging, &c. The opening of active business, however, will depend on the time the Canadian authorities open the Welland Canal. The severe cold of the present month will probably prolong  this desirable event, but before many weeks we will again hear the din and business of commercial transactions on our docks. - Oswego Commercial Times, March 24, 1863

  The early opening of navigation is causing considerable activity among the lake craft in our harbor. Many vessels have already bent their canvas and are only awaiting the opening of the Welland Canal to clear for upper lake ports. A large quantity of grain has been kept afloat at this place during the winter, and is now being stored in warehouses or transferred to canal craft, for transportation to the East. We notice many of the latter craft already loaded and lying in the basin above the Iron Bridge awaiting the opening of the ditch. (Referring to the Oswego Canal). - Oswego Commercial Times, April 5, 1864.

                                                                _____

    Fitting out is thus described as a particularly interesting routine to watch, seemingly well organized down to every detail. This was particularly so in the mid-19th century when as many as a hundred ships wintered in such ports as Oswego. As soon as the ice melted, Oswego came alive like a bear awakening from his long winter’s nap. The newspapers are suddenly filled with advertisements from the local ship chandleries, grocery, clothing, boot and shoe stores.

  Also soon appearing are the new spring schedules of the steamboat lines serving Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Everyone read with interest the list of captains and their vessel assignments could take up half a newspaper column. Oswego in those palmy days of sail had the infrastructure required to support the mammoth commerce it was then famous for — from sailmakers to iron foundries that produced such maritime related items as capstans, winches, anchors and steering mechanisms. The ship chandleries catered sailors’ with the latest mariners’ tools — compasses, barometers, spyglasses, marine clocks and other nautical instruments.

   The Oswego Times and Journal of March 31, 1854, offers a glimpse of the waterfront excitement of fitting out:

   We took a stroll yesterday down among the shipping and our ears were greeted on every side by the Merry Yo! Heave Ho! of the sailor getting his craft ready for sea, and the click of the caulkers’ irons, which to us are pleasant sounds, denoting as they do the opening of a season ever busy in our city. We noticed that the Oxford which was used so roughly in a gale last fall recovering her former appearance. Both her spars were carried away - and in fact everything above deck - which are now being replaced by the finest looking “sticks” we have ever seen. 

  The propeller Dayton has just arrived from Toronto with 3,500 barrels of flour and 800 bushels of peas which she was discharging at the government warehouse. The main channel of our harbor is free from ice, so that the arrival and departure of vessels is not in the least difficult.

  The Oswego Times and Journal of April 26, 1856 reflects:

 A general fitting out of the craft in our harbor is going on, which makes business extremely active. Jolly tars are seen dangling from the peak down to the lower rattlin, and busy as bees, getting their ship ready for sea: painting, scraping, tarring, caulking, greasing, reeving, &c., &c. Nothing to us looks more cheerful than scenes like these, where industry and agility are combined with labor. Then occasionally comes the “cheerily up boys,” from down the stream, as the winter cable is taken in and stowed away - “all pleasant sounds.”

   In those antebellum days there were fortunes to be made and Oswego’s three or four shipyards were turning out vessels to meet the demands of the grain and lumber merchants who also owned the elevators that lined the banks of the Oswego River. Schooners are said to have virtually monopolized the bulk carrier trade at the time. No expense was spared on these vessels and only the best materials were

used. They were the pride of the master carpenters who built them to strict underwriter’s specifications.

Even artists were employed to letter them and paint colorful scenes on transoms.

  Spring fit-out was was an exciting time of year on the waterfront. The sailors would be chanting:

    Hey they’re bowlin’, the captain he is growling.

    Hey they’re bowlin’, heave and haul!”

 Some vessels required more work than others. A marine reporter for the Oswego Palladium on March 10, 1875, detailed the major work being done on the 28-year-old schooner Carlton to make her seaworthy. Although her frames and floor timbers were still sound:

  The owner of the Carlton, Charles Guthrie, will spare no expense to put the vessel in good shape, and judging from the work already done he will succeed. She will receive new ceilings throughout, the bilges being three inch oak bolted through on every frame, and the rest of the ceiling oak plank two and a two and a half inches thick. As soon as the weather will permit, she will be taken on the dry dock and a seven-inch keelson will be put on the present one and securely bolted. New stanchions will be supplied wherever needed, and she will be given new bulwarks and stringer. Her stern, which was damaged last fall, has received all new work and is now quite presentable. The repairs, which are under the supervision of an excellent ship-carpenter, John Shepard, will cost over $1,500. Captain John Gibson is giving his attention to the work in hand.

   Mother Nature didn’t always cooperate and on occasion vessels found themselves playing tag with ice floes well into the spring. Then a sudden southeast or southwest wind would blow in and clear up the problem. We find such a phenomenon recorded in the Oswego Palladium of April 30, 1873:

  The Ice Bound Fleet. - The wind veered around to the southeast last night for a short time, and forced the ice up the lake so that an opening was made opposite the harbor, thus allowing nearly all of the fleet to get into port. This morning the wind changed to the westward, and the outward-bound vessels, fearing a blockade, took their departure in tow of the tugs.

  There are yet several vessels in the ice below the harbor embedded so that it is impossible for the tugs to get to them, and it is feared that some of the crews are suffering for provisions. The tugmen have worked well, and are deserving of credit for running the chances they have to get the vessels out of the ice. If the west wind continues, several days must elapse ere the ice ceases to be an annoyance to vessel men and disappears entirely from sight.

   Adding to the myriad of problems caused by frequently boisterous Lake Ontario and its ice fields was the constant threat of fast-moving ice gorges on the Oswego River, which could quickly transform moored schooners and canal boats into kindling wood. Occasionally, ice above the dam in Oswego would give way while the center channel of the river was blocked. Then sailors could only hope a

strong west wind would create a sea which would break up the ice in the river.  Impatient captains occasionally helped spring thaws along with the help of nitroglycerine charges to blow the ice gorges. gorge.

   On March 25, 1875, the Palladium said:

   The strong south wind of yesterday parted the field of ice about three miles from the shore and sent the detached portion toward the Dominion, thus exposing to view a belt of blue water for the first time in several weeks. One year ago yesterday Ontario was lashed into such a fury by a northwest gale that the waves breached the east pier and damaged the shipping considerably in the East Cove. Today the caves of the wind might open and let hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones rush down upon the lake and a ripple that would swamp a cockle shell could not be raised.

   Old newspaper editors gave colorful descriptions of the period of fitting out. Said the Oswego Commercial Times on March 28, 1861:

  The approach of summer seems to give new life and activity to everything. Vessels are preparing to be off, and the river presents a lively appearance. Soon they will all begin to move. The puff of the tugs, as they extricate some vessel from its winter moorings, the white sails of departing and coming crafts, the line of smoke which the steamer leaves behind, will all be hailed as emblematical of the coming summer’s activity.

  Warm weather will fill our streets with people, and we shall soon present a stirring appearance. Business prospects seem to be unusually good, so far as navigation is concerned. He never dreamed that a 40-foot stick plus 90 feet up from the deck could be so tall.

  Fitting out was well within the memory of  George Henderson, an old sailor from Portsmouth, near Kingston, whose reminiscences are in the collections of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston. He said:

   "My dad often told me that he liked to climb, and he said they were fitting out a sailing vessel at Port Huron or Sarnia, I forget which. However, there were a number of vessels berthed there for the winter and amongst them a big tall three-masted ship from up on the upper lakes. This meant that she was too big to come down through the old Welland Canal.

 "During the winter months her signal halliards on the mainmast had got chafed so bad they broke and came down on deck. These halliards were a small rope about three-eighths of an inch in diameter that were used for hoisting a flag or weather sock (commonly known by sailors as a fly) for watching wind direction. Sailors tried to climb or shim up that topmast and reeve off a new halliard and none of them apparently, could make it. Now if they couldn’t climb this bare pole or mast and reeve this halliard through the truck or ball on the masthead, it meant that they would have to unrig or let go of the stays, pull the fidd and lower the topmast down to do this job. There was one sailor who knew my dad and he told the skipper of the ship. So the skipper sent for my dad and he said, “They tell me if you can’t climb that stick no one here can.”

  So, he said, “If you can go up and reeve off that halliard I will give you five dollars.” That was about a half a month’s pay in those days. So my dad tried it and he got up there all right and rove off the halliard but he told me afterwards he was sore for days in his legs and arms. He said he never dreamed that a 40-foot stick plus 90 feet up from the deck could be so tall. Well, when he finished the job the old man paid him the five and he said he and the rest of his mates went ashore that evening and blew the five. He didn’t tell me how but years afterwards I could have made a rough guess.

   The manner in which wooden vessels were built and maintained was closely scrutinized for many years by a private regulatory organization known as the International Board of Lake Underwriters. Made up of such member organizations as the Northwestern Insurance Company of Oswego. The board occasionally issued, what could be called state-of-the-art instruction manuals that set standards for construction, operation and maintenance of insured vessels. The manuals were written in technical but simple enough jargon an experienced shipbuilder could understand. It was a fair and honest organization whose rules for construction could be found in practically every reputable shipyard on the Great Lakes.

   Since so much time has passed, the actual procedure for fitting out a typical Great Lakes schooner at the time Oswego was a major port is all but lost.  One man still alive in the 1980s who could recall fitting out  was Carl A. Norberg, later  of St. Petersburg, Florida. In an interview, he said he went sailing  at an early age when there were still a few schooners left on the lakes. He could explain fitting out in great detail. He said in later years commercial schooners were not maintained as they once were when they were  kept in first class condition. He said only when autumn storms became impossible to withstand, sailors drowned and schooners were lost or driven ashore, owners would grudgingly lay up for the winter  in a river or harbor with fair protection.

   Sails were removed and stowed. Running rigging was stored in a loft, or below deck.  This included the ropes used to raise and lower the sails. The standing rigging included the ropes, lines, chains and wires supporting the masts. Sailing vessel crews had an extensive working vocabulary.

   Usually one crewman kept watch of the vessel. But there was a cost - perhaps a dollar a day.

  So the winter would pass with snow and ice accumulating on deck that had to be removed.  Finally the first warm day of spring stirred the owner. Sails were inspected to determine which needed sewing. Newspapers would keep skippers informed on  ice conditions on the lakes and rivers.

                                               Fitout Begins

   It was soon time to get under way. A two or three master might need new gear such as throat and peak halliards; sheets for mainsail, spanker, mizzen, foresail, forestays’l, three jibs, and new lines on topping lifts which had to be renewed annually. Anchors and chains were inspected one link at a time, using the  capstan. Steering gear got close inspection. Norberg said “We have not mentioned dry rot, and sometimes in fitting out an ice pick or a sharp, long spike of some kind was prodded around on deck, cabin house,  hold, and on the topsides for soft wood. If minor, they might let it go. If major, it would be repaired.”

  In her last years, a schooner received minimal maintenance. “Owners always hoped for one more season,” Norberg said. “ It depended on the insurance rating she had to pass. Grain demanded a sound vessel; lumber, not so necessary.”

 In later years old schooners were not painted regularly and appeared very weather-beaten. “Newer boats in the grain, coal and ore trade were kept up better, some very well. Painting the hull was done from a yawl boat. It was important to properly maintain the running and standing rigging.”

  Norberg said properly maintaining the pumps was a must as they owed their survival to them.

Inspecting the hull for leaks might mean drydocking. “Most boats had double planking and some leaks could be stopped from the hold and others from the outside. If planks had to be replaced,  haul out was necessary. “They might scrub down the bottom and paint it, preferably with anti-fouling caulking."

   Norberg said even on the lakes, a growth develops that slows down a boat. When out of the water they could inspect the rudder and the bobstay (forward) fastening at the stern. There were probably two kinds of equipment to cope with this problem — a permanent or floating dry dock that lifted the boat up by pumping out the water in the dock; or a marine railway where a cradle hauled out the boat as it rolled up the track to a higher level.

   Hull caulking could only be done on the bottom when hauled out. A leaking boat might need the old oakum pulled out with a hook and replaced with new oakum, or cotton with a caulking tool and mallet. The ringing sound of a mallet and caulking iron is one of the sounds you remember the rest of your life. Caulking was considered an art reserved for skilled craftsmen able to drive it in — not too hard, not too soft.

   In earlier times vessels carried horses for loading timber as well as operating the capstan. It was said some of these beasts developed great seaworthiness. When the weather got rough and the ship rolled, the horses would walk up to the weather rigging and grab the rattlins on the shrouds with their teeth and hang on to keep from being knocked down or overboard.

   Norberg was especially familiar with the Lucia A. Simpson, one of the last three-masted schooners operated on the upper Great Lakes after which the replica Denis Sullivan was modeled. She had excellent lines and has also been a favorite of  model builders. When built she was considered the epitome of the Great Lakes ship carpenter’s craft.  But when Norberg remembered her, her glory days had passed and she was poorly maintained in later years, except mending sails and repairing the running rigging. “Down below, she was a filthy hole in the cabin house and forecastle.”

   George Henderson, mentioned earlier, said the old lake schooners, with their ingenious assortment of rigging would turn the so-called riggers of today green with envy.” He said there was a place for everything and everything in its place, and woe to the sailor who got sloppy in his work, as he would have the mate on his back in one hell of a rush. Hence came the saying, a sailor who does a rope belay, must coil it up then walk away.

  If sailors left any material or tools in the scuppers, (lying around on deck) when they were finished working on deck or aloft, it was damn near a criminal offense to the old man (skipper). In real hot weather there was another daily chore called slushing down. You turned to after breakfast and drew water over the side and wet the decks down. Some of those ships used a hand operated bilge pump on deck for that purpose. The main reason for those pumps was to keep the water pumped out of the hold if the ship happened to be leaking.

 There were many long hard hours of backbreaking work at those pumps in cases of bad leaks and stress of heavy weather. Thus came the old saying among sailors, “What will we do to be saved, skipper?” And the answer was always the same, “Pump, you bastards, pump!”

  Norberg had in his possession an inventory or check list of the two-masted schooner Columbian taken at Chicago on November 25, 1871, (probably in preparation for sale of the vessel or at winter lay-up). It reveals the  amount of gear required to keep the vessel operational and self-sustaining. This list was undoubtedly checked off by the captain or an experienced mate to ensure each item was aboard.

Any needed items were usually available at the well-stocked ship chanderlies.

1 spirit compass; 3 marine compasses; 1 patent log and line; 2 trolling lines and hooks; 2 fog horns; 1 lead line and lead; 29 pound paint and 8 paint brushes; 1 hatchet, 3 marlin spikes; 1 serving board and mallet; 1 crow bar, 4 normans; 7 capstan bars; 2 winch cranks, 4 chain hooks; two patent pumps, 1 patent capstan; 1 provision box, 1 hawser box; 5 oars, 2 windlass brakes; 1 fish hook, 1 devil’s claw; 3 hatch bars, 1 cold chisel; 1 drawing knife, one plane. 2 caulking irons, 1 caulking mallet; 3 balls sewing twine, 3 palms; 8 sail needles, 1/2 bale oakum; 9 pound ratlin line, 3 heaving lines; 6 reef plates; 1 pair signal halliards; 1 suit of colors and color bag; 1 set of weather cloths; 1 ball of spun yarn; two ring stoppers, 2 shank painters.

   1 main sheet and main sheet blocks; 2 main boom topping lifts; 2 boat davits, falls and blocks; 1 set boat grips; main throat halliard; new main peak halliard and blocks; 1 fore sheet and blocks; 2 fore lifts; fore peak halliard and blocks; fore throat halliard and blocks; fore staysail halliard and blocks; jib halliard and blocks and downhaul, flying jib halliard and blocks; fore topsail halliard, block; new downhaul; fore gaff topsail gear; fore staysail sheet and blocks, fore staysail gye; squaresail gear new; squaresail lift, braces and out haulers new.

  Raffee sheet, halliard and clewline, new; main gafftopsail, new; 1 fore boom gye new; 1 main boom gye  new; 2 crotch ropes new; 2 boom tacklefalls; 1 fish tackle and blocks; 1 Berton block; 2 large purchase blocks; 1 snatch block; 1 squaresail boom, new; jib sheets; flying jib sheet, new; jib topsail sheets; 1.8 inch line, 6 inch line, new; 1 7-inch line; 1 5-inch line; 12 iron belaying pins; 2 rigging screws; 4 dozen belaying pins; 1 grindstone; 6 shovels; 8 brooms; 1 brace; 2 bits; 2 augers; 1 ax and saw; 1 water barrel; 3 tarpaulins; 1 ditty bag; 13 yards canvas; 10 pails; 1 draw bucket; 4 pump bars; 1/2 barrel salt; 1 pump hook; 2 signal lamps and screen; 1 anchor light; 1 globe light; 1 watch tackle; one nail box; 1 forecastle stove; 1 fore sail; 1 foregaff topsail; 1 raffee new; 1 squaresail new; 1 fore staysail and jib; 1 flying jib; 1 jib topsail new; 1 set back rope; 1 fly new; 1 anchor shoe; boats painter new; fore and main peak down-haul; 1 monkey wrench; and one spike mall. 1 extension table and 9 chairs; 1 cabin stove; 1 cabin lamp; 1 binnacle lamp; 1 kitchen lamp; 2 spittoons; 1 clock; 1 table spread; 2 tablecloths; 4 cabin mattresses; 6 forecastle mattresses; 10 blankets; 6 quilts; 6 pillows; 4 sheets; 1 Bureau; 1 looking glass; 3 oil cans; 2 water pails; 1 cooking stove; cooking utensils; 3 dozen plates; 2 dozen cups and saucers; 1 set knives and forks; 3 stateroom carpets; 1 bedstead; 2 carving knives and forks; 1 mean sack; and 1 caster.

    There was plenty of work for caulkers in the days of wooden ships and several different kinds of caulking irons. The tucking iron, three ‘making irons’ and a big ‘horsing iron’ were used on the sides and bottom of the hull. The seams were carefully filled over the oakum with pitch then scraped off clean. In the early days the dies or outer hull were painted and the decks painted or scrubbed clean with sandstone which the sailors called the ‘holy stone.’ 

   From this came the sailors’ Seven Commandments: “Six days shalt thou labor and do all that thou are able and on the seventh day you will holy stone the decks and scrape the cables.” A bit different were the skippers’ seven commandments ... the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh, “keep her going or she won’t make money.” - George Henderson