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Page 6 THE COLBORNE CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 22, 1978 ^T/^, &s )t^J $rt*^e^ 4^ >^ ^ ^^^^ y ^< Above right the signature of a medicine touring company from the register of the Union Hotel Left-early meetings of the Castleton U.C.W. Right-Apractice now long since gone. A woman stretching her newly laundered curtains. Right-A threshing crew with their steam engine near Castleton The shorter of the two men at back, standing on the wagon stood 6ft tall His friend must have been a giant. Picture Peeks Into The Past Back Row: Harold Bellamy, William Everden, Winnie Black Eileen Grant Gladys Black Miss Blanche Coffee (T) Etta Carter Madeline Cockrane Ruby Bellamy Alice Masters (Miss Coffee later became Mrs. Howard Swain, of Salem. 2nd Row Arthur Peacock Theron Turney Thomas Everden Irene Chatterson Vera Murphy Marjorie Chapman Alice Turpin Doris Grant Front Row Bruce Black George Branscombe Donald Chapman Jack Armstrong Grant Whaley Fred Quinn Bob Black Gladys Hall Jean Carter Stan Oldham Harold Quinn Sailing days in Lakeport i Lakeport. formerly termed Cat Hollow was prepared by Lakeport historian I do not know the date when the wharves were built but the Campbell dock was last rebuilt in 1910 and extended 700 ft out in the Lake. The last government repair of the wharf was in 1934. Since then, through lack of use and repair, the super-structure has all been washed away but some of the cribs are still plainly visible. At one time this was a port of entry with its Customs House and the last Customs Officer was Harry Chapin and his brother-in-law, John Dougherty was the last Harbor Master. The steamers Caspian and North King stopped here on the regular run from Rochester, Brighton, Lakeport, Cobourg, Port Hope and back to Rochester with passengers and freight. And sometimes the Argyle would run a trip to Toronto. The return fare was 75 cents and sometimes an excursion rate was 50 cents return on the last run of the season. But the schooners were the back bone and life line of Cat Hollow. The younger generation has no idea of the vast number of these large sail boats on the lakes. It was very seldom you could look out and not see a boat, and it was fun to see how many you could count that were visible. Capt. Walter Kirk says he remembers counting 18 at one time. He says he has seen one unloading and two waiting at anchor waiting to be unloaded, they would bring in coal and load out again with grain, lumber or other freight. It was indeed a beautiful sight to see those schooners sailing along before the breeze or coming in close to shore and out again on a long tack to take advantage of a headwind. One time the Katie Eccles was loading on the East side of the dock when the wind freshened from the South-East so they moved her around to the West Side. Then the wind shifted to the South-West and started to batter the boat. The crew solved the problem by boring holes in her bottom and scuttled her at the dock where she road out the storm at the bottom of the lake. After the storm, a diver went down and plugged the holes and they pumped her out, raised her and took her to Kingston for more permanent repairs. Finally in 1922 she lost her rudder coming from Oswego to Kingston and her captain steered her by her sails until her chains sawed a hole in her and she sank between Timber Island and the False Ducks, after her crew had abandoned her. Several of these schooners were built or rebuilt here. The Trade Wind was the learliest recorded launching in 1853. She burned at Kingston in 1910. The James Leslie was built in 1854. The Alice Grover and the Mary , Grover in 1855. Capt. Connacher built the Thistle in 1862, and Capt. John Shaw built the Jura the same year. The Octavia was built in 1866-67. In 1870 the Octavia, Capt. Jas. Dougherty in command, was unloading at Lakeport dock when a sudden squall broke her lines and drove her clear through the dock,-landing up near the cedars to the West, there the undertow turned her around and she again headed for the wharf and went through again, this time putting her jib-boom through the freight shed on the end of the dock and came out with a brand new coal scuttle hung on the end. She landed on the East beach, but was on a cargo of cordwood for Toronto. | There she loaded lumber for Oswego where she went on drydock. The only-damage was a piece of plank off the dock at Lakeport lodged between her frames so tight it made it watertight and had to be cut out to repair the hole in the boat. When they built vessels in Cat Hollow they built them -white oak frames and maple bottoms. But the pride of Cat Hollow was when they rebuilt the two-masted Paragon into the three-masted Keewatin in 1889 for Archie Campbell. Some of these schooners were taken to the salt water during the First Great War and never returned. The Keewatin sank in the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane in 1917. Sixteen vessels are said to have been owned in Lakeport. These vessels and many others were captained and sailed by Cat Hollow folks. As many as 42 Masters, Mates, Sailors, and Cooks went every year down to the sea in ships, and it was customary to hold a Mariners' Service i n the church previous to the opening of navigation. There were Taylors, Shaws, Hendersons, Kirks, Redfearns, Keiths, Matthews, McGlennons, Hoskins, Padgintons, Smiths, Seeds, Cuthberts, Browns, McMurrays, Peebles, Conroys, Scott, Ker-naghans, Connachers, Peacocks, Haynes, Haights and many others. Some of the boats were built by Alex Cuthbert, carpenter. The greatest tragedy for this port was with the sinking of the Schooner Blance on the night of May 28, 1888, coming from Oswego, coal-laden for Brighton. She was caught in a sudden storm which blew up black clouds on a moonlit night. She disappeared somewhere between PresquTle and the Scotch Bonnet. Her empty yawl boat was picked up in the St. Lawrence near Cape Vincent, Y.Y. in June, and her Captain, Johnny Henderson, washed ashore near Lakeport in September and could only be identified by his mother by the woolen socks on the feet, socks which she herself had knit and given to him when he went away in March. Four Lakeport homes were bereaved with the death of John Henderson, Captain, William Seed, Mate, William Haynes, Sailor and Annie smith, Cook. Across the road, in the cemetery, just inside the gate, is a fine monument erected to their memory by this Presbyterian Church, relatives and friends, and the Colborne Masonic Lodge of which Capt. Henderson was a member...