Northumberland Strait Steamer Lady Le Marchant became US revenue cutter

Advertisement in Haszards Gazette 12 July 1854

Several recent postings have dealt with steamers serving Charlottetown which had come onto the service after having been on one side or the other in the American Civil War. These include the blockade runners Minna (Oriental) and Greyhound and the US Navy vessels which were later named the Worcester, Carroll and Somerset.  But for other boats the war service followed a period of shuttling back and forth across Northumberland Strait.

One of these vessels was the Lady Le Marchant. The Lady Le Marchant was built at the Rue End Yard in Greenock, Scotland by Robert Steele & Co. Launched on 21 July 1852 she was named for Margaret Ann Le Marchant, wife of Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant who had been named Governor of Newfoundland in 1847.  Registered in Liverpool and owned by “a company in Newfoundland” she was intended for coastal service in Newfoundland.  She was scheduled to sail from Greenock to Harbour Grace Newfoundland in September 1852.  The vessel was returned to the United Kingdom after two years as “too expensive for the purpose for which she was employed in Conception Bay.”

She was purchased in Liverpool by Lestock Peach Wilson DesBrisay of Richibucto, New Brunswick who was related to the prominent DesBrisay family of Prince Edward Island. The vessel was re-registered in Miramichi, New Brunswick in 1854  and she began service the same year between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick calling at ports such as Charlottetown, Bedeque, Shediac and Miramichi. Lestock’s cousin Theophilus DesBrisay was the P.E.I. agent for the line. The following year the Lady Le Marchant was contracted to carry the mails between the Island and the mainland with service between Charlottetown and Pictou, Nova Scotia and Charlottetown and Shediac, New Brunswick.

Advertisement Haszards Gazette 24 October 1855

In December of 1855 the ship was advertised to sail from Charlottetown to Liverpool. In 1856 she was once again the mail steamer on the inter-colonial route. Throughout the period Phillips F. Irving is identified as the captain. By 1858 however, another steamer, the Westmoreland, appears to have secured the mail contract and the Lady Le Marchant does not appear to have been on regular service to the Island.  In 1859 the vessel was chartered for use in the hydrological survey of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland under the direction of Capt. John Orlebar.

At this point the activities and ownership of the vessel become clouded. Although the Lloyd’s Registers through 1865 show DesBrisay continuing as owner, the America Lloyd’s Register of American and Foreign Shipping shows Sanford & Co. as owners. However, in January 1862 the Lady Le Marchant had been purchased from an Arthur Lear by the U.S. Government for the revenue cutter service and she was commissioned on 11 March 1862 as the USRC Miami.  Named for the Indian Tribe of the same name she should not be confused with the USS Miami which was a paddle wheel gunboat.

The Coast Guard sources describe the USRC Miami as “a 115-foot schooner-rigged steamer with a hull of teak planks over oak frames.”  After her purchase she was fitted out at New York and sailed for Washington, D.C. In April, 1862, she carried President Abraham Lincoln and other VIP guests to Hampton Roads, Virginia, soon after the famous battle between the ironclads CSS Virginia and USS Monitor. She then served out of New York. In March of 1864 she was ordered to convoy the Confederate steamer Chesapeake from Halifax to New York. On 14 November 1864 she was transferred to Newport, Rhode Island. She underwent repairs there in October of 1865. She was laid up at Staten Island from 8 June to 19 November 1867 and was repaired at a cost of $1,200. She then saw service out of Wilmington, Delaware, before being sold to Mason, Hobbs & Company of Philadelphia for $2,149 in 1871.   Her final disposal is unknown but she does not appear in the American Lloyd’s Register after 1869.

No photographs have been found but the adjacent painting is found on the U.S. Coast Guard site captioned as follows: “Revenue Cutter Miami supporting the landing of Union troops on the beach at Ocean View, Virginia for the invasion of Norfolk on 10 May 1862. Painted by Charles Mazoujian.”  The artist however was active in the late 20^th century and it is unlikely that the vessel is accurately depicted.

First Across the North Atlantic

Medal struck to recognize the voyage of the Cape Breton as one of the significant events in the history of Great Britain and the sea

Although commercial steamboats had been to great extent developed in North America beginning with Robert Fulton’s Clermont, by the 1830s the technology was world-wide. Even in Charlottetown the steam boat was the coming thing and in 1832 the first of the revolutionary vessels, the steamer Pocahontas, began a regular service between that port and Pictou in Nova Scotia.

However it was the appearance of a new vessel the following year that gave Islanders a real glimpse into the future of transportation.  In mid August 1833 a vessel that had been built on the banks of the Thames the same year sailed, or rather steamed, through the channel at the harbour’s mouth. The vessel was called the Cape Breton and her voyage across the ocean  is the first known passage of a vessel equipped with steam engines across the North Atlantic.

The steamer Cape Breton had been built by Benjamin Wallis & Company at a shipyard in Blackwall on the Thames and was launched early in 1833. She was a schooner rigged paddle vessel 104 ft long and with a beam of just under 21 feet. Her registration particulars described her as having one deck, one funnel, three masts, a standing bowsprit, a square, stern and a bird figurehead. Her engines were 35 horse power each and were probably side levers, each comprising a single cylinder with the associated transmission mechanism, an early engine design. Her service speed was rated at only 6 knots.

She began her voyage in London and she arrived at Plymouth in the south of England on 4 June 1833, “damaged and leaky”, but on 20 June, she sailed from Plymouth, arriving at Sydney, Nova Scotia on 4 August 1833, 44 days later.  During her pioneer North Atlantic voyage her engines would have been used intermittently when conditions suited and the rest of the time she would have sailed under her schooner rig. This was the normal practice with early steam ships. A fortnight later the Cape Breton made her first voyage from Pictou to Charlottetown.

The Cape Breton, like the smaller, North American-built Pocahontas was owned by the General Mining Association of London which had major mineral concessions and controlled most of the mining in Nova Scotia. On her record trip across the Atlantic she carried a cargo for the Company’s mines at Sydney and at Stellarton near Pictou. In addition to its coal interest the General Mining Association was also involved in other development in the area.

In the 1830s Miramichi was a major timber port and the whole area was being rapidly developed.  Ships regularly sailed direct from Miramichi to the United Kingdom and linking the New Brunswick port to other developing areas of the Northumberland Strait provided passenger and freight service in the region.  The Cape Breton and the Pocahontas both traveled the route from Pictou to Charlottetown to Miramichi and return.

In June 1835 the  Cape Breton sailed back across the Atlantic to England, arriving at Plymouth on 2nd August. She was damaged in a gale on her return passage to Nova Scotia but soon was once again a regular visitor to Charlottetown providing a packet service carrying the mails and passengers.  In 1838, she was sold to Joseph Cunard, brother of the founder of the Cunard Line. By this time her attractiveness may have paled. In August of 1840 Sir George Seymour on his visit to the Island described her as “a small & short & particularly dirty steam Vessell.”  At the end of the 1840 sailing season she returned England, where her engines were removed  and she became a fully-rigged sailing ship. She continued in trade until she was lost at sea in May 1857.

The service gap caused by the return of the Cape Breton to England in 1840 and her subsequent replacement by the unsatisfactory Pocahontas provided an opportunity for the newly-incorporated Prince Edward Island Steam Navigation Company to place the steamer St. George on the route in 1842.

The historic first crossing of the North Atlantic by the steam-powered Cape Breton has been recognized as one of the top 100 events in the history of Great Britain and the sea and a special medal (pictured above) has been struck the recognize the event.

P.E.I.-based boatbuilder receives international recognition

12.5 foot and 17.5 foot Norseboats on a P.E.I. beach

 

All too often we think of the golden age of sailing and boatbuilding as being something confined to the 19th century.  Of course, 150 years ago Charlottetown the harbour was the home of scores of small multi-purpose boats that served as fishing craft, lighters, dinghys, sculling boats, ferries, and yes, even as small yachts.  Boatbuilders both in Charlottetown and other coastal areas served the market for well-built small boats.  Not so much today.

Charles McQuarrie’s boatbuilding ad in Haszard’s Gazette 1852

The work of making small craft was one of the minor industries along with sail making and marine blacksmithing which often get lost when we talk about the wood, wind and water economy. We focus on shipbuilding with schooners, brigs and barques, often forgetting that the nautical arts  contained dozens of specialties which were a requirement for a community which, as an island, depended on boats for much of their existence.  As the economy changed and our dependency on locally produced  craft was reduced many of these minor skills almost disappeared. In the 20th century boat building became the preserve of those producing large motorized fishing boats on the one hand and home-built pleasure craft on the other.

But all has not been lost. In the most recent issue of the English yachting magazine Classic Boat, the Norseboat has been recognized as a “New Classic”.  See the story here.  The founder and president of the firm responsible for the Norseboat is Kevin Jeffery of the Belfast area just down the coast from Charlottetown.  He conceived of the boat as a multi-purpose craft which could equally well be sailed or rowed, had a classic appearance, and could be easily transported by trailer so that its range was extended to almost every harbour in the world.  Built originally in Pinette, PEI production moved to Lunenburg and then to Maine to tap the increasing market.

Norseboat 12.5t showing characteristic rig.

There are now a number of different craft in the range with boats at 12.5, 17.5 and 21.5 feet, all with a distinctive dutch curved gaff rig with a boomless mainsail.  The boats are now found all over the world and are admired for their classic style and their fine workmanship . In addition to being recognized by Classic Boat Norseboats have graced the cover of Small Craft Advisor and have been nominated for awards such as the Sail Magazine Best Boat award.  Kevin has described the boat as “the swiss army knife of boats” and his depiction is not far off. The webpage for the Norseboat has lots of video and photos of the various models in action in posts across the globe.

I have spotted a Norseboat from time to time in Charlottetown harbour and have seen them at boat shows. They are expensive boats but have a quality which matches the price. Like the Drascomb Lugger this seems to be a boat that does everything well.   I am sure DeSable’s Charles McQuarrie would approve.