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12-'PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, April 13, 1993 "Scugog's Community Newspaper of Choice" from swamp land to popular recreation destination Part Two of a story explaining the history of the lake, commercial and leisure activities fi om the 1800s to the present. By Kelly Lown Port Perry Star With the completion of the government lock in 1844, Lake Scugog was greeted with end- less possibilities. The river was now open and the lake ready for navigation. This lock would lead to an era of steamboats on Lake Scugog, a business which would thrive on the lake for 65 years, making Port Perry a prosperous town. The first transportation on the lake was in the form of small boats. A horse-powered scow built by two men Lasher and Haywood in 1845 began taking freight and passengers from Caesarea to Lindsay. Reuben Crandell's sons built a boat called the Firefly shortly after. Moved by oars and sails it car- ried migrants from Port Perry to Lindsay. With increasing traffic on the lake, the demand for a steamer to serve between Port Perry and Lindsay was increasing. Five years later steamboats would make their first appear- ance on the Scugog. Sorte say there were as many as 25 serv- ingon the lake at one time. Created mainly for the pur- pose of transporting lumber, the tugboats later began engaging in passenger service, as there was no railway from Lindsay to Port Perry. Improvements to the steam- boats came along a few years later thanks to two Whitby men Cotton and Rowe, who were in- terested in promoting trade be- tween Bowmanville and Scu- Sg enslns, GE Annu snd ul re These men hired Hugh Chis- holm to build a steamer which would later be called the Wood- man. One hundred and 10 feet long with a 25-horse power beam engine it travelled at speeds of eight miles per hour. It could carry four scows, heavily loaded with a variety of timber. The Woodman made its maid- en voyage on August 29, 1861, with thousands of people await- ing her arrival in Lindsay. The 'Woodman would go on to be a thriving passenger and tug boat for several years. The Woodman made a 30- mile trip daily to Lindsay as well as making occasional trips to Fenelon Falls and Bobcay- n. Be Port Perry had hit paydirt as the steamboat industry became a reality. Because of the success of the Woodman and the recent- ly built Plank Road from Port Perry to Whitby, mills were opened and land prices in- creased. Port Perry had begun to challenge Prince Albert, the once more prosperous town. The Woodman was popular and profitable, but it was not without its problems. Shallow water and stumps in the lake of- ten caused a multitude of prob- lems for the steamer. The boat's biggest problems turned out to be boiler flues and an ensuing fire which forced the owners to sell the boat to George Crandell. "Commodore" Crandell as he would later be known, became synonymous with steamboats on Scugog for the next 50 years. From a humble beginning steamboating was now catching on. In 1855, four steamers were serving the Central Lakes. The Woodman along with the Ome- gah from Fenelon Falls and the Fly and Peterborough from Bridgenorth were on the wa- ters. With the construction of the P.H.L.&B Railway in Lindsay in 1857 Victoria County became the place for business. It began to enjoy a rapid lumbering and Cora, originally owned by Company was the last steam vessel to use the waters of Scugog. The timber slide resulted in Lake Scugog being cut off from the rest of the Trent Lakes. With all steamboats positioned below Lindsay, there was no boat to work between Lindsay and Port Perry. With all the changes taking lace the township was forced to uild a flat wooden bridge, known as Ambrose's Bridge, to stretch across the lake. This bridge would later cause problems for a single-decked sidewheeler named Lady Ida. Built in Port Perry in 1861, the steamboat was stalled due to the new crossing. The bridge was sawed in half to allow the: steamer through, butitlater be- came too much of a strain and collapsed. Three years later the Lady Ida received companionship on its final trip in 1866 Crandell launched his third vessel the fol- lowing year. According to Mr. Tatley's book the lumber trade on the Trent had increased to an annu- al output of one million feet per year. Most of this was exported from Lindsay on the Port Hope Railway. Again Crandell responded to the demand, this time with the "Champion", launched in 1869. It would serve the Scugog for a decade as both a passenger and freight carrier. With the increase in shipping and the talk of a railway con- necting Port Perry and Port "Whitby the demand was high for a new lock at Lindsay. The new lock would give farmers and lumbermen an alternate shipping route, and would in- we Ca ain Bowerma milling boom and the area's pop- ulation increased. This also gave way to in- creased work for the steamers as they began towing scows and log-booms along the Scugog Riv- er. The Scugog River, however, was never the ideal route for any type of navigation and did pose dangers to these vessels. Low water levels and sandbars made the river nearly impossi- ble to navigate. The problems came to a head in 1896 when the Woodman often stopped at one side of the lock and transported cargo to the Omegah on the op- posite side, which became an in- creasingly expensive practice. Port Perry residents urged the government to dredge and straighten the river and im- prove the lock. The government answered by dismantling the lock in 1861 and installing a timber-slide in its place. the lake, in the form of a much larger steamer the "Anglo- Saxon, which was built in Lind- say for the Bigelow and Trounce sawmillinginterests. Both boats, mainly tugboats, were also used for recreation at some points. Picnics at Wash- burn Island became a regular occurrence and often both ves- sels found themselves over- crowded as they sailed across the lake, often with bands ac- companying the passengers from sunrise to sunset. During this time the Wood- man was still busy on the Cen- tral Lakes and by 1862 was run- ning up to three times a week with the Omegah running the alternate days. Three years lat- er the Woodman would be rele- gated to towing duties, Richard Tatley writes in his book Steam- boating on the Trent-Severn. Mr. Crandell came back on the scene at this time with his second boat the Ranger, a 26- 1 horsepower paddle-wheeler. It was much smaller than the Woodman, but began to take over the passenger and freight- ingends of the business. When the old Woodman made crease shipping on the Scugog In 1870, Thomas Walters in- | stalled the new lock on the same "gills as the 1844 lock. The present lock and dam were built on the same location in 1908. With the timber slide re- moved, Port Perry was once again open to the steamers of the Central Trent lakes. Again the industry was flourishing as the number of vessels on the lake quickly more than doubled to 13. Port Perry received another helping hand as 20-miles of track from Whitby to Port Perry was laidin 1871. Prince Albert's population de- clined and Port Perry was boom- ing. Port Perry's population doubled to 2,000 in a few years and the village became incorpo- ratedin 1872. This time also marked the ap- pearance of a new face on the scene as Captain John D. Bow- erman of Port Perry, built the Marie Louise, which was to be- come a popular yacht, usedinlo- cal passenger trade, in conjunc- tion with a local hotel. In 1887, after several successful years she caught fire. It was re-built, but later left Scugog due to the low water level. Mill owners and lumbermen were mainly to blame for the low water as they often drained the lake. Naviga- tion suffered as no action was taken against them. The lake reached its record low in 1888. Mr. Tatley's book states the steamers were hit- ting bottom, churning up mud and bumping along the bottom. Still no serious effort was made to regulate the water level until the 20th century. : Serious competition for the Crandell line arrived in the ear- ly 1870s in the form of two boat proprietors captains George Rose and Clement Dawes. These two men organized the Whitby Streamboat Line and purchased two steamers, the Ogemah and Victoria to travel between Port Perry and Bobcay- geon. In 1875 another steamer, the "Maple Leaf" joined the Scugog fleet. It sailed daily from Lind- say to meet the Port Perry trains. Talk of a railway extension from Port Perry to Lindsay left area residents in little doubt of what would happen to the steamboating industry on Lake Scugog. Recreationally, the boat ride from Lindsay to Port Perry was pleasant but not ex- citing. The view included bull- frogs, stumps and water lillies, not enough competition if the railway was extended. On July 31, 1877 the Port Perry railway was extended 25 miles north connecting to the Midland Railway in Lindsay. As expected this put a quick damper on the boating boom on Lake Scugog. Rose and Dawes sold the Victoria and Igemah to the Port Perry Railway in 1876 foreseeing the inevitable. When the Victoria Railway was being constructed it offered Crandell $160,000 for his fleet. He rejected the offer, which lat- er sent him into bankruptcy. The machinery was sold out of the boats and the upper works were used in construction of houses on Crandell Street in Lindsay. Crandell would leave the boating business for the hotel buiness. After it was destroyed by fire, Crandell returned and built the Crandella which oper- ated as an excursion and pas- senger boat. He later sold out to John Carew and Joseph Parkin. Ten years later there were two men who dominated what was left of the boat business on Scugog, Captain Bowerman Turnto Page 13