P CHAPTER C CHANGES IN LAKE NAVIGATION EOPLE who watch the endless and constantly changing panorama of lake shipping that passes up and down Detroit River might be led to the belief that traffic had always been something like that of the present day. But there has been from the very beginning a steady increase in the volume of the traffic, and the number and capacity of the vessels; though perhaps most notable of all is the gradual change in the character of the vessels themselves. While steam navigation began on the lakes in 1818, steam vessels were in the minority for many years. Indeed until the period of the later 1880's there was a very large number of sailing craft on the lakes. The early tendency was toward the construction of vessels of the brig, brigantine and bark types. A brig was a vessel with two spars, both square-rigged. Another type had the foremast square-rigged and the mizzenmast schooner-, or fore-and-aft-rigged. A bark carried three spars, two being square-rigged and the mizzen schooner-rigged. More men are required to handle a square-rigged ship than to handle a schooner and reasons of economy caused a gradual drift toward the schooner type. Most of these schooners of the early days were two-masted vessels, but as their size and draft increased a third and finally a fourth and fifth mast were added to the larger lake schooners. This persistence of sailing vessels was also a measure of economy. Marine engines and boilers were very expensive. They and their coal supply occupied room that a sailing vessel could utilize for cargo. The construction of sailing vessels was much less costly and a small sailing vessel could pay expenses where a small steamer could not. For many years navigation was partially obstructed and the draft of vessels was limited because of shoals that existed in many of the navigation channels until the United States Government, by the expenditure of millions of dollars, deepened the Lime Kiln Crossing, the channel across Lake St. Clair, the St. Clair Flats Canal, Hay Lake, Livingstone and Neebish channels, and constructed a series of locks and a canal at Sault Ste. Marie. When navigation began, a draft of nine feet was about the limit. A 21-foot channel is now generally available and improvement may be expected to go on until a 25-foot channel is achieved. This persistence of sailing vessels made profitable business for Detroit. In many places the channels are narrow and crooked. Often the current is very strong and the wind unfavorable. In consequence of these conditions it became the custom to have vessels towed by powerful tugs from the foot of Lake Huron to Lake Erie and also upward from lake to lake. Thus valuable time was saved and accidents were avoided, for often a vessel would strand on the channel bank and then the strong current or the wind would swing it across the channel so as to completely block all navigation. The various tug owners and towing companies of Detroit used to find business for about 50 tugs which carried crews of 10 or 12 men each. At the head of the St. Clair River and at the mouth of Detroit River these tugs would lie in wait for tows up and down. Usually they would wait until three or more sailing vessels would be on hand to be coupled together by long hawsers; then they would start on the journey through the long straits channels. Unless the wind happened to be dead ahead each sailing vessel would keep its canvas spread to lighten the labor of the tug engine and to increase speed. Occasionally a tow of seven or eight schooners would come down Detroit River in procession behind a single big tug. They made a beautiful sight, for there is nothing more graceful than a sailing vessel under way with main and topsails set and jibs standing stiff as sheet iron in a quartering breeze. Today even a single schooner with weather-stained and patched sails and paint-peeled hull is a rare sight to remind the people along shore of the days that are no more. This tug business and the prevalence of many lumber schooners, scows and grain boats with cargoes to be unloaded at Detroit wharves made the river front of Detroit much like the average seaport. Sailors, tug men and a horde of double-fisted longshoremen, divided into rival gangs, were numerous along the water front. Their rivalries often culminated in a general mêlée from which some of the belligerents were pretty sure to be carried to the hospitals for repairs and recuperation. When political caucuses were being held in Detroit some of these gangs were subsidized by ambitious candidates to see that the caucuses were “run right," and to manhandle pernickety citizens who would question the eligibility of a colonized non FIVE-MASTED SHIP David Dows, and DETROIT AND resident voter who claimed the right to go from precinct to precinct voting early and often on election day. Along the river front were a number of sailors' lodging houses and "snug harbors" where the men of the lakes would "tie up" for the winter, or until their money was spent, when some would finish the idle months in the House of Correction. There were also many saloons which were frequented by sailors and longshoremen, in season and out of season, and the liquors dispensed at these were strongly tinctured with assault and battery. On Franklin and Atwater streets east of Brush Street was a section known as the "Potomac." It was a sort of subcellar for the underworld of Detroit and a cause of constant anxiety for the police department, which was obliged to keep an unusual number of its most effective officers on guard there. The name of this vicious quarter was derived from one of the earliest songs of our Civil War: "All Quiet Along the Potomac," which began: "All quiet along the Potomac," they say, Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle." So, when the roundsman who went about among the patrolmen on duty in the "Potomac quarter" of Detroit turned in his report: "All quiet along the Potomac," the headquarters authorities breathed easier, and the newspaper men seeking stories for the next day were compelled to skirmish in other quarters for news of a startling and sensational order such as the public taste of that day demanded. All this has changed within the period of 30 years. The sailors and longshoremen who kept the police busy 40 years ago have apparently given place to the bootleggers and smugglers of prohibited liquors. And now one may discover in the eastern sky the first flickering of the dawn of another day when Detroit will become not only a lake port, but a world port from which freighted ships will bear cargoes of goods manufactured in the city, and products of a great part of the Lower Peninsula of the state, which will naturally gravitate to this port through rail transportation. A city of more than a million population, devoted to intensive manufacture and holding first place in the world for the manufacture of a number of products, has a sort of compelling power to bring the traders of the world to its doors. Its commercial power should expand very rapidly from the moment when it can place a cargo on board a ship to go without breaking bulk or rehandling to any port of the world. The increase in the carrying capacity of lake shipping, due to the Government expenditures in deepening the channels of navigation, has been very striking in the past 40 years. In |