Maritime Tales of Lake Ontario by Susan Peterson Gateley

Author:Susan Peterson Gateley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2012-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Fair Haven coal trestle, where the Emerald picked up her last load. Photo by Edna Williams from Sterling Historical Society.

We do know though—those of us who sail these waters today aboard small boats—that the lake in an angry mood leaves a captain and crew little margin for error or equipment failure. And luck and fate are always present to play a part in life’s story on such a day. Had the St. Peter left port an hour later than she did, she might well have heard word of the approaching storm and stayed in Oswego. And had she departed just one hour earlier, she might have made those last four miles to a safe lee under the western shore.

For pure straight-out lousy luck, it may be hard to beat the end of the schooner Emerald in 1903, if C.H.J. Snider’s theory about her mysterious disappearance is ever confirmed. Like the St. Peter, she was an old-timer, a survivor that sailed into the closing days of the schooner era. Built in 1872 on Lake Erie at Port Colborne, she had been purchased three years before her loss by an experienced, well-regarded lake captain, Frank McMaster. The Emerald, no longer painted green at the time of her demise, was 139 feet on deck with a 12-foot hold. She was rated by the insurers A2, and Snider says this was the highest rating any lake schooner of the time enjoyed. Those who knew her declared that her white painted hull was still sound, her spars adequate and her all-important propulsion plant—her fore, main and mizzen sails—was new.

She sailed from Fair Haven in November with six hundred tons of coal, bound for Toronto. Early one night, she was seen off the Devil’s Nose a little east of Oak Orchard. The crew of the steam barge Van Allen sighted her lights. They were also bound for Toronto when they overtook and passed her by. The ships exchanged greetings via whistle signals, and the Van Allen steamed on. That was the last anyone ever saw of the Emerald and her crew.

The November wind blew fresh that night from the northeast. It wasn’t a gale, just a good fair wind to send the old Emerald on her way home. But she never appeared. Days passed. Alarm, then concern and anguish, grew among the maritime community and the crew’s families in Toronto. Then came reports of wreckage east of Cobourg. A deck box with the Emerald’s name on it had washed ashore. Soon, more wreckage was found, including a small locker door. The captain’s wife recognized it by the hinges, for she herself had bought them. A woman said she had seen a three-masted schooner go down a little west of Brighton, near Presquile Bay. Had it been the Emerald? Somehow, somewhere between Oak Orchard and Toronto, the Emerald and all her crew had perished. Unseen and alone on an uncaring lake, they simply disappeared.

Many speculated as to the cause of her sudden sinking. It remains unknown to this day.

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