Advertisement 1

December 1893 was a hard time for vessels on the Thames

Article content

You know that Christmas carol with the line, “I saw three ships sail in, on Christmas Day in the morning” … or something like that?

Advertisement 2
Story continues below
Article content

Well, in December 1893, a similar vision awaited the citizens of Chatham, but I bet few of its citizens knew the horrific voyage that these boats endured to arrive in Chatham on Dec. 24 of that year.

It all began innocently enough in November when Capt. Morden and his crew aboard the United Lumberman unloaded their cargo at Buffalo and proceeded to meet three other ships  – the Stanley, the Dolly Morden and the New Dominion – at the mouth of the Thames River in Lake St. Clair.

Article content

All four boats met as planned and proceeded out into Lake St. Clair until they got about 24 kilometres from the Thames. At that stage, they ran head first into masses of frozen ice and a blinding snow storm that blew all of the boats back to the mouth of the Thames River.

Advertisement 3
Story continues below
Article content

Although the boats felt they would be safely anchored just off the sand bar protecting the entrance to the river, huge masses of ice were blown with such force against the crafts that a hole was put in the side of the Stanley. The ship’s crew had to quickly shift their load of lumber to keep the boat from sinking.

Caught in the ice with no where to go, and provisions on board running low (they had been stuck there for a week), the boats decided to attempt to clear the bar at the entrance to the Thames and head for safety in Chatham. The water, however, proved to be too low for them to get across, so they decided to head once more towards Detroit.

After sailing only five kilometres in Lake St. Clair it became obvious to everyone on board that they were making little progress in the storm that still raged on the lake, and that they would have to return to the relative safety of the mouth of the Thames.

Advertisement 4
Story continues below
Article content

By the time they had once again anchored near the mouth, the boats had used up all their fuel and, as a result, had no power, no heat and no way to cook. To solve this situation, they obtained a hand sleigh and sent a crew ashore, over dangerous ice, to cut timber and painstakingly transfer it back to the ships for heat and fuel. They also sent two crew members to Tilbury – by foot, of course – to bring back much needed food supplies.

Getting desperate, the crews managed to cut a channel through 25 centimetres of ice for about 183 metres. This allowed two of the craft to get across the sand bar. But just as they got across, a heavy ice jam came down the river and pushed all four of the vessels back onto the bar. A short time later, the wind shifted once more and the boats were freed from the ice jam, but the Dominion was blown helplessly onto the shore.

Advertisement 5
Story continues below
Article content

At around 10 p.m. that same night, the wind shifted once more and a strong west wind, accompanied by another blinding snow storm, turned the ships around again and blew them back onto the same sand bar in which they had just recently escaped!

Once again low on supplies, Capt. Morden sent two men to Stoney Pointe to get provisions. By the time the men returned, a strong current had eroded the ice between the ships and the shore and, as they attempted to make their way across the treacherous ice, they were left stranded on the ice between the shore and the boats. Fast-moving currents roaring on either side of them made progress, to say the least, quite daunting.

Morden yelled to the men to get down on their hands and knees and crawl on the ice and head back to the shallow waters near the shore. As they neared the river’s edge, the men broke through the ice and had to wade through the icy water to shore.

Advertisement 6
Story continues below
Article content

The next change in weather brought a southerly wind, which caused the Thames River to rise and, with the arrival of the tug named The Vick, all four of the vessels managed, after 12 hours of back-breaking work, to make it over the sand bar and to be headed towards Chatham. Progress up the Thames River was slow until the legendary, local tug, The Owen, arrived and speeded up the progress considerably.

All of the vessels managed to arrive in Chatham by Dec. 24, and the good people of the town took in the crew members and feted them over Christmas and New Years with turkey, spirits and good cheer.

Although the boats had sustained hundreds of dollars worth of damage, a few crew had some bad colds and Capt. Morden sustained a severe foot injury, there was not one man or woman (yes, there were women on board the ships) who lost his or her life.

I also bet that the image of the town of Chatham appearing around the last bend in the Thames River must have been the best Christmas gift that any of the crew on these vessels could have ever hoped to receive in that unbelievable December in 1893.

The Gilberts are award-winning historians with a passion for telling the stories of C-K’s fascinating past.

Article content
Comments
You must be logged in to join the discussion or read more comments.
Join the Conversation

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

Latest National Stories
    News Near Tillsonburg
      This Week in Flyers