SUNDAY FOR SUCIA ISLAND ❖ ❖ 1894

Steamer BUCKEYE
ca. 1892. 

 

"It was a happy party that boarded the steamer Buckeye for an excursion to the Sucia Islands, last Sunday.

There were small and large people, young and old people, men with their families, and boys with their sweethearts, all bent on having a good time. Well-filled lunch baskets were placed on board, with great care, which was amusing to behold. The trim little steamer left the wharf at a quarter to ten and anchored in McLaughlin's Bay a little after noon. The party landed near Mr. McLaughlin's home, and dinner was spread on the grass under some nice shade trees near the beach.

The Sucia Islands in the 
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
The four photographs are by 
Clyde Banks Studio and 
James A. McCormick,
the latter being one of the earliest 
photographers to catch scenes 
away from the county seat, where 
he had set up his studio.

Click the image to enlarge.

After dinner, several hours were spent roaming around the beach looking for curios, for which these islands have become famous. But the most "curious " thing found was the fact that the party could find nothing curious enough to be worth bringing home.

About half-past four, in the evening, the merry party gathered on board, the anchor weighed, and the steamer started for home. The evening was fine, the water smooth, and the trip home was a very pleasant one. A stop was made at Olga to land some passengers, and at Newhall, a stop of fifteen minutes was made, and a number of the passengers availed themselves of the opportunity to inspect the sawmill and the wonderful waterpower at this place.

The steamer arrived at Friday Harbor about nine o'clock, with all on board tired, but glad they had been at the party."
San Juan Islander newspaper. 1894

The BUCKEYE was built at Seattle in 1890 and purchased three or four years later by Mr. Newhall to take the place of the little steamer Success. She was well-known to people in San Juan County for more than 18 years.
        The BUCKEYE was last operated by the Olympic Towing Co when she was destroyed by fire at Stavis Bay, Hood Canal, WA., in 1930.
        There is another post about this vessel suffering an accident the year following this party day at Sucia. Click HERE

NIEDER AND MARCUS, MARINE SALVAGE YARD ... with Captain Ed Shields

The JEFFERSON

(ex-ALASKA) passenger steamer.
1615 tonnage 
Fate: Nieder & Marcus Marine Salvage Yard,
1925.
Photo from the Saltwater People Historical Society.

The SAN JUAN
 
 284 ton halibut steamer 
built by Sloan & Hill yard of Seattle
for San Juan Fishing & Packing
(later passing to Libby, McNeil, Libby)
Fate: Nieder & Marcus Marine Salvage Yard.
1939
photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society

The firm of Nieder and Marcus was established in Seattle in 1908 by Michael and Harry Nieder and Ben Marcus and was located on West Waterway just north of the Spokane Street Bridge, on the Harbor Island side of the channel. Their principal business was dealing in scrap metals and other used merchandise salvaged from ships. Today, the word is recycling. Their yard was littered with scrap metal and marine hardware.

Many stories have been written about shipyards and how the shipbuilders assembled or put the vessels together. In the Nieder and Marcus yard, most vessels were taken apart. Over the years, many vessels passed through the yard. For most, it was the end of the line, although a few saw the light of day again and returned to useful service. The list of vessels at the end of this story contains the names of many well-known local vessels, showing the firm was active for over thirty years.

Harry Nieder served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I and, on his return to Seattle, assumed an active role in the firm along with Ben Marcus. From the beginning of 1909 until about 1924, there were only a few vessels being scrapped. However, during World War II, the War Shipping Administration and the U.S. Shipping Board contracted for the construction of an enormous number of both wood and steel vessels to meet the needs of the armed forces. With the end of the war in 1918, the shipbuilding progress was just getting well underway, but with the end of hostilities, many contracts were canceled, and others were extended just sufficiently that the vessel would be launched rather than leave the partially completed hull on the ways. Lake Union in Seattle became the mooring ground for many of these hulls, some complete and others without machinery.

These new Shipping Board vessels, at least the wood ones, were moored at anchor side by side in two rows comprising nearly forty in number. They were of the Hough and Ferris types intended as coal-fired steamers.

Other shipyards on the West Coast turned out many wood sailing vessels even into the early years of the 1920s. At this time, there was a great demand for vessels to carry lumber from the west coast mills to Australia and the islands of the South Pacific Ocean. However, the spurt in shipping soon ended, and as the vessels completed their return to Seattle, they, in turn, were moored in Lake Union or Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island. Around 1925, the owners of older, slow vessels had replaced them with newer, larger ones. Many vessels floating in or near Seattle would never see active service again.

Lake Union, Seattle, WA.
with a few of the inactive ships awaiting their fate, 
at Nieder & Marcus Marine Salvage Yard, Seattle.

As the owners became convinced that the shipping boom was over for good, they were finally willing to sell off those older bottoms to the scrappers. The firm of Nieder and Marcus was ready, willing, and able to reduce both the wood and the steel vessels to scrap, salvaging all that might be usable.

Beginning about 1925 and continuing through 1939, a steady flow of vessels passed through the control of this firm. Generally, the vessels were brought to the yard under tow and once there, with few exceptions, it was the beginning of the end. All the deck fittings were removed for possible sale to some other ship owner. For the iron or steel vessels, the workmen with their torches started the slow but fatal task of cutting the metal first into large pieces that the stiff-leg crane could lift onto the wharf and next into smaller pieces that would fit into the doors of the blast furnaces of the steel mills.

The masts, lifeboats, davits, stairways, smokestacks, lockers, storage racks, cleats, steering wheels, tables, port lights, running lights, and even dishes were removed intact if possible and stored in a covered shed or warehouse. At the top of the vessel was opened, exposing the interior. Other possibly reusable items were taken out intact, including engines and boilers. There was a market for steam boilers for the salmon canneries of Alaska or some of the sawmills. It was seldom there as a market for an old steam engine so those beautiful pieces of machinery were cut up.

As the removal of the vessel progressed, it would rise in the water until only the bottom and turn of the bilge remained. The propeller was generally brass or bronze with a high value and could be removed without the need for dry dock. The last portions of the keel and bottom plates were often towed to the local drydock, where they could also be cut. I believe some of the vessel bottoms were beached alongside the wharf at high tide and then the workmen could complete the cutting up at low tide. All steel was reduced to the small pieces mentioned above, then picked up with an electric magnet on a crane and placed in a large pile until it was again loaded with the magnet into hopper railroad cars for shipment to the steel mill.

Wooden vessels were also scrapped by the Nieder and Marcus firm. After the vessel was moored at the firm's wharf, all that was possibly reusable was removed. The masts were cut down, with the rigging wire being saved intact, especially for the logging industry. The turnbuckles from the rigging were stored in the warehouse along with the pumps, sails, stones, windlass, anchors, chain, lanterns, tank, donkey engine, etc. The masts and the spars, along with burnable material from the yard, were piled in the hold or on deck to provide additional fuel for the final fire that consumed the hull. When all was ready, the hull was towed to Richmond Beach at a site about one mile south of the present Edmonds Ferry Terminal and beached at high tide. Wires were stretched to shore and attached to stumps and winches that had been removed from other vessels. On a selected day, the hull was set on fire. Often, a generous amount of oil had been spilled throughout the vessel to start the fire.

These wood vessels were of a most heavy construction, the builders having made use of the finest and largest timbers from the mills on the coast. Outside planking of four to six inches thick was normal. The frames were of double-sawed type from ten to fourteen inches square, while the inside planking could be up to fourteen or more inches thick. The decks were at least four-inch plans with massive deck beams to support them. All in all, there was more timber in a vessel than that vessel could carry as cargo in many cases. Hence, there was an enormous amount of fuel for a fire that was required before the ship breakers could salvage the steel fastenings.

When set afire, the blaze would rage for hours. It was common to set the fire at high tide on a summer evening, so as the tide receded, more of the hull would be exposed on the outside. The blaze would consume the deck and much of the upper portions of the hull, but on the inside, the heat from the fire would dry out the planking during low tide, so on the returning high tide, the hull would fill with water rather than float as before. Hence the desire to consume the most as possible before the tide extinguished the fire. Some supper portions would remain smoldering the next day, as the timbers being so large, they would not sustain combustion when the light plans had burned away.

When the blaze was set, the vessel's funeral pyre could be seen for miles up and down the Sound, especially after dark.

The wood hulls, when first set on the beach, would draw from ten to fifteen feet of water, but as the fire consumed the upper portions, the remaining backbone with the frames would float with the incoming tide and then be hauled further up the beach at high tide. The winches on the beach hauled away on the old frames during these high tides, so at low tides, the exposed timer could burn.

When I visited the burning sites one day in the summer, there were several hulls there, each somewhat consumed. The workmen would, at times, use dynamite to break the sections of a vessel into small enough portions that the winches could haul together like the land clearing crews do now with stumps, thereby consolidating the remnants so the fire could be kept burning. A loose or individual timber would not burn of itself.

The purpose of the burning was to recover the metal fastenings that the shipbuilder had used in construction. Some of these hulls, when burned clear down yielded 100 tons of iron bolts! At low tide, the workmen went out on the beach and gathered up any piece of metal they could find. They had made steel sleds out of parts removed from other vessels, and these were filled, dragged up the beach by a winch, then loaded for shipment to the steel mills.

My father, Capt. J.E. Shields bought considerable quantities of ship blocks, turnbuckles, wire rigging, sails, anchors, chain, spars, etc., or use on the fleet of sailing vessels. I remember one day in the summer of 1930 when he had purchased everything he could remove from the ELINORE H. We took two codfish dories from Poulsbo over to Richmond Beach. At high tide, the company crew had thrown over the side of the vessel all the loose wood blocks and several booms and gaffs. We gathered up the heavy books at low tide and put them in the dories. The booms were tied in a long string. Then, when the tide came in, the dories floated with the load of blocks and other metal rigging and hardware that was on the beach. We returned to Poulsbo, where the booms were pulled up on the beach above the tide and the wood blocks in the warehouse. It was surprising how many of these salvaged items were later used. He also bought all of the sails from some of the vessels being dismantled, these being stored in our sail loft where, over the years, they were taken out, then cut down to a smaller size for the codfish vessels, or just portions of the canvas used as tarpaulins.

The main yard of Nieder & Marcus had a warehouse where the better "goodies" were kept in the hope someone with cash would come along. There was one portion that had a second story. The flooring was salvage teak decking, 4" x 4" they had bought after it had been removed during one of the overhauls of the USS SARATOGA. Other items I remember there, as I was a frequent visitor when accompanying my father, were many coal oil lanterns removed from vessels. How I would like to have them today. However, the one item I remember most vividly was a ship's bell removed from the USS PRINCETON. I never heard a more beautiful tone from a bell. It was mounted on a wooden frame where a person could strike the bell, and then the tone could be heard for at least three minutes. The bell, as I remem ber qa vour 24" across. At the time he vessel was built, the school children of Princeton, New Jersey, had collected money for a bell. They had donated dimes, silver 10-cent pieces, which were melted down to last the bell. Therefore, the bell was solid silver! A proud ship carried this bell. I have not been able to find the disposition of the bell. Nieer and Marcus had decided that, as the bell was donated by children from their dimes, whoever bought it had to guarantee it would not be melted down to recover the silver. If any reader knows the whereabouts of the bell, we would appreciate learning from you..

Mr. John Howelln, nephew of Joe Livingston, the last manager of the firm, has a scrapbook kept by the firm, and therein is contained the only remaining history. Some photos show vessels being cut down, and a few newspaper stories have been preserved. Of interest to me were the final bill of sale documents from the previous owner to N & M. The former owner was faced with a problem of disposing of he old vessels, and a fleet of sailing vessels such as those owned by Libby McNeil and Libby went for one dollar each. When N & M had a signed bill of sale properly notarized in hand, there was no question of ownership and the possible later claim for damages to the vessel or by the Coast Guard for barratry.

The list of vessels that passed through the hands of N & M is included here. Not all were reduced to ashes and scrap for the steel furnaces. The PATTERSON, originally a survey ship, was fitted out as a motor ship and engaged in racing to Point Barrow before finally being wrecked in 1938. MONITOR  became a fish reduction plant while K.V. DRUSE  became a log barge. The ferry SEATTLE was towed to Alaska for use as a fish plant. There may be others that saw the deep water of the ocean or inland seas under their keel again. 

Text by Capt. Edd Shields
for Puget Sound Maritime Society
Membership journal The Sea Chest, 1972.
Seattle, WA.

The MASSACHUSETTS, THE FIRST AMERICAN STEAMSHIP TO VISIT PUGET SOUND, all the way to San Juan Island.

The MASSACHUSETTS
Postcard copyright 1896
Click image to enlarge.
Published by the Metropolitan News, Boston.
from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"The Spring 1970 issue of Steamboat Bill, the quarterly of the Steamship Historical Society of America, carried a story on the "The Auxiliary Steam Packet MASSACHUSETTS." This historic vessel, built in 1845 at the East Boston shipyard of Samuel Hall, was given detailed chronological treatment of her rig and power plant changes with abbreviated accounts of her West Coast activities in between. The narrator related that she was transferred by the War Department to the Navy at Mare Island, CA., on 1 August 1849 and that she served as a storeship until 1853 when she returned to Norfolk, VA., to have new boilers installed. Then, he says, she sailed to the Pacific in July of the following year, and in 1855, she was listed as a storeship at Acapulco. Then he concluded that her name had been changed, and in 1862, she became the FARRALONES, which was still a storeship and coal ship in San Francisco.

Some of the most colorful chapters in the vessel's history were largely concerned with the Pacific Northwest, where her name loomed big in maritime movements. The MASSACHUSETTS performed so many important government duties in these parts that it seems fitting to give readers some details about these activities.

The MASSACHUSETTS was first heard of in this region when she arrived off the mouth of the Columbia River on 8 May 1949 with the first important contingent of American troops to be stationed in this area. On 13 May, the force arrived opposite Fort Vancouver and was landed the following day.

This was the end of a month's voyage from New York around Cape Horn. The vessel carried 161 officers and men of the First Regiment, U.S. Artillery companies M and Lk, commanded by Brevel Major J.S. Hathaway. Some would remain at Fort Vancocuver, where they would wreck barraks. Others were destined somewhat later to establish Fort Steilacoom for the protection of settlers on Puget Sound.

On the way to the Pacific Coast, the vessel created a stir when she entered Honolulu harbor on a calm day without the help of canvas. Astonished Hawaiian natives crowded the  beach to see the phenomenon, and an island newspaper headlined the went, "Arrival Extraordinary."

At that time, the sight of a vessel equipped with both sails and propeller was unusual. Steamboat Bill describes her equipment. The MASSACHUSETTS was 160 feet L on deck x 20 ft D x 32 ft B and measured about 776 tons. She was full ship-rigged and her steam power was strictly auxiliary to her canvas and was intended to be used occasionally when near land and in smooth water or to get in and out of port.

The motive power was a two-cylinder condensing engine capable of about 170 HP or a speed of nine statute miles per hour in smooth water. The engine and boilers were in the lower hold, with space in the wings for oal bunkers. The propeller was a six-bladed Ericsson screw 9 1/2 feet in diameter that could be lifted out of the water when the ship was under sail.

The MASSACHUSETTS was the first American steamship to visit Puget Sound. She anchored off Fort Nisqually on 25 April 1850. The story of how she got here goes back to the plea of Governor Joseph Lane of Oregon Territory for better aids to navigation and more protection for settlers and shipping.

On the last night of the 1850 session of Congress, Samuel P. Thurston, delegate from Oregon Territory, succeeded in founding up and getting into their seats enough representatives who would vote for his bill to set aside $53,140 for erection of lighthouses at Cape Disappointment, Cape Flattery, and new Dungeness, also installation of 12-iron-can buoys in the Columbia River. The measure passed, but the money was not spent immediately.

Meanwhile, the MASSACHUSETTS had brought the troops to the Columbia River and, after delivering the soldiers, had been sent back to San Francisco, where she was transferred to the Navy to transport a newly appointed commission. Its purpose was to examine the coast of the western United States lying upon the Pacific Ocean concerning points of occupation for the security of trade and commerce and for military and naval purposes." The ship was in command of Capt. Samuel Knox.

She sailed from California and was off the Columbia River on 20 April 1850. Her visit to Nisqually was duly recorded in the journal of the Hudson's Bay Trading post. It mentioned that Lieutenant Danville Leadbetter, representing the Army, was of the Topographical Corps and that he and the doctor called at the fort.

While in the area, the MASSACHUSETTS called at Victoria and Esquimault and continued north through the Gulf of Georgia to Beaver Harbor to take on coal. She rounded the north end of Vancouver Island and followed the route south. On the coast of Washington, she stopped at the mouth of Willapa Bay, where a party was dispatched to scrutinize the harbor. (This occasion was honored later when Leadbetter Point was named.) Part of the purpose was to determine how close the bay was to the Columbia River. A whaleboat was hauled over the portage between the two bodies of water with the help of a dozen or more Natives.

The commission reached Astoria on 30 June and examined the lower Columbia, arriving at Portland around the 11th of July. The MASSACHUSETTS next sailed for the Umpqua River and arrived back on San Francisco Bay around 1 September.

The Steamboat Bill article accounts for the MASSACHUSETTS next activity. After her return from Norfolk, VA., she came back to Puget Sound to replace the DECATUR, sent here during the Native American troubles of 1854.

In April 1855, citizens of Port Townsend requested the government to assign a war vessel to cruise between Bellingham Bay, Dungeness, Port Townsend, and Foulweather Bluff to guard against incursions of Haida and other Northern Natives from British Columbia. The MASSACHUSETTS was immediately sent back to Puget Sound and, early in 1856, was dispatched to Port Gamble to disperse a gathering of Canadian Natives. When they refused to leave, she opened fire and killed 27, which caused the Natives to vow vengeance. They later killed Col. Isaac S. Ebay on Whidbey Island in reprisal.  

The MASSACHUSETTS again played a role in local history in 1859 when she steamed out of Steilacoom with troops for the "Pig War" in the San Juan Islands. She also picked up Capt. George Pickett's company at Fort Bellingham and moved the soldiers to San Juan Island. The vessel played its final part in the unrest when Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott made her his headquarters while he was on Puget Sound on behalf of the president to settle the difficulty, resulting in joint occupation of the islands by both British and American troops. Scott left on the MASSACHUSETTS after his negotiations. 

After the MASSACHUSETTS name was changed to FARRALONES, she was drafted for the Civil War. In 1867, she was sold to Moore & Co. of San Francisco, and the last reference to the vessel as bark ALASKA, owned by that firm. No records of her existence after 1871 can be found but Steamboat Bill says she is reported lost on the coast of Chile in 1874."

Words by author/historian Lucile McDonald who wrote thousands of historical essays for the Seattle Times newspaper and many for The Sea Chest published by the Puget Sound Maritime Society. 

Some of her sources:  Steamboat Bill journal of the Steamship Historical Society of America.

Published in The Sea Chest journal of 1970 from the Puget Sound Maritime Society, Seattle, WA. 

AN IRRATIONAL ACT .... with added chart detail

NOAA paper Chart 18434
7th edition corrected April 2008

This captured detail depicts
Grindstone Harbor, 
and associated rocks on the coast of
Orcas Island, San Juan County, WA.,
and the WSF dock at
Shaw Island, SJC, WA.
Since this chart edition, the name of 
Harney Channel has been officially
changed to Henry Cayou Channel.
Click image to enlarge.
Chart from the archives of 
Saltwater People Historical Society

Album cover
from the 
Saltwater People Historical Society Archives©.

Graphics by Al Hamilton.
Click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

Words below by Matt Pranger

Published by the Journal of the San Juans

10 September 1999

 Remembering the ELWHA 

"The Washington State Ferry ELWHA is immortalized in song and as a geological feature. 

        A rarely seen rock was named for the ELWHA, which rammed it on 2 October 1983. Located 500 yards west of Grindstone Harbor off Orcas Island, Elwha Rock is visible at zero tide. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names officially christened the rock on 14 June 1990.

        A Native American word for elk, the ELWHA has a tragic-comic history. In a sworn affidavit, the ferry's captain said he showed a woman her home in Grindstone Harbor about 6 p.m. when the vessel hit the rock at 17.5 knots–full speed for the 382-ft, 2,813 G.T. ship.

        Calling it a 'totally irrational act,' the ferry system manager  compared the crash to a 'Pan Am pilot flying a 747 jumbo jet under the Tacoma Narrows ridge on the way to SeaTac.'

        After the crash, the captain proceeded to Shaw Island, unloaded and picked up passengers, and headed to Orcas before his vessel lost steerage. [The Orcas Island Fire Department met the ship with pumps to aid in the water coming aboard through the gash in the steel hull.]  

        According to a passenger, the ferry did a donut in the middle of [Henry Cayou] Channel. The crash rattled windows on shore, but no announcement was made to passengers that anything extraordinary had happened until 35 minutes later when the boat docked at Orcas.

        The ferry skipper, who had a history of skimming the shoreline and tooting ship's horns for female islanders, retired and was forced to turn in his pilot's license. The woman was dubbed the Siren of the San Juans.

        

THE ISLAND CITY JAZZ BAND
Band members: 
Lynda Travis 
Gary Provonsha, Tom Skoog, 
 Don Anderson, Tom and Bill Bassen,
Skip McDaniel, Vern Conrad,
George Burns, Don Smith. 
This press photo 
 was published by the 
sponsoring Jazz Festival in 1985.
Click image to enlarge.

The wonderful photo was taken by 
Al Hamilton, formerly of this port.
He tells of the car being a 1937 Cadillac
owned by the Tarte family of Roche Harbor.

The injured ferry was repaired,
 the rock in Grindstone Harbor was christened
with a name, and the much loved band
played on for happy islanders
 for many years.
Capt. Fittro lost his master's license and his job;
 Capt. Nick Tracy, the general manager
of the WSF also lost his job with the state.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

        Elwha On the Rocks was penned by island musician Gary Provonsha. His group, the Island City Jazz Band, recorded the tune with George Burns; it became popular in island watering holes and Seattle area radio stations. 'A light-hearted joke at what the Island City Jazz Band considers the best ferry system in the world, run by some of the most professional captains, skippers, and pilots. What can be said of a system that has safely carried millions of people through small islands, over shoals and sandbars, with no major incidents–well, almost no incidents,' the band stated on the 45 rpm record's jacket.

        Drinks, called 'Elwha on the Rocks,' were poured in local bars, and residents of the shoreline near the rock dubbed a half-mile road west of Grindstone Harbor, 'Elwha Road.'

        The ELWHA also made headlines in January 1994, after it lost power and drifted sideways into the Anacortes dock, causing $500,000 in damage to the ferry loading bridge. The ship was out of service one week after that rash.

        The ferry's most recent notable mishap occurred three years ago when it grounded briefly at the south end of San Juan Island. The vessel, servicing the international run from Anacortes to Sidney, B.C., was making a rare trip through Cattle Pass.

        ELWHA, a Super Class ferry, went into service in 1967 and underwent a $25 million renovation in 1993. She was retired from state service in 2020." 

Here's a sampling from Maribeth Morris's "Action" column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1983; lyrics and music by Gary Provonsha, Friday Harbor, WA.

"Out in Friday Harbor where the jazz bands play,

You can take a ferry out there almost any time of day.

You can cruise through Grindstone's Harbor and when the ferry docks,

You pour a long, tall, cold one called Elwha on the Rocks.

With the lady in the wheelhouse, you can cruise along the shore.

You can blow the ferry's whistle as you pass by her front door.

You can blame it on the steering if the ferry rams the dock.

And we'll pour a long tall, cold one called Elwha on the Rocks.

We love our ferry system–it's always in the news:

We're changing to computers cuz computers don't drink booze.

As we cruise from Grindstone's Harbor and she comes around the bend,

The captain has her cruising–at three sheets to the wind.

You can have your Margueritas. You can have your toddy's hot.

But all we're drinking here tonight is Elwha on the Rocks."

CAPTAIN JAMES GRIFFITHS AND "SIR TOM"

 

 
Captain James Griffiths,
(1862-1943)

Griffiths grew up in a historic maritime
seaport of Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales.
He headed to Puget Sound in 1885 and 
 played a major role in the development of
Puget Sound commerce.
 He needs a book but here is a little below
by boatbuilder, Norm Blanchard, late of Seattle.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society.©

Essay by Norm Blanchard and Stephen Wilen (abridged)

Knee-Deep in Shavings, Memories of Early Yachting and Boatbuilding on the West Coast. Horsdal & Schbart Ltd, Victoria, B.C., Canada. 1999. 

"In 1912, a syndicate made up of ten wealthy Seattle businessmen, some of whom were Seattle Yacht Club (SYC) members, contributed $100 each and commissioned Ted Geary to design the Sir Tom to compete for the Sir Thomas Lipton Perpetual Challenge Trophy. She was built by my father and his partners, Dean and Lloyd Johnson, and Joseph McKay. The Sir Tom went on to become the most famous sailboat in the entire history of the SYC. Of all the various syndicate members who supported her over the years, even though he was not one of the founding members, it was Captain James Griffiths who really made sure that she remained in active competition as long as she did.

Captain James was one of the most prominent people around the Seattle waterfront in general, and the SYC in particular, since he served as commodore three times, in 1921, '22, and '28. He was the first person to be made an honorary life commodore in the club. He was a Welshman, born in 1861. He had the characteristic British small stature, with red hair. 

He emigrated to Victoria, B.C., around 1885, and set up a stevedoring and towboat company. He settled next in Tacoma, where he formed James Griffiths & Co Ship Brokers, and found the Tacoma Steam Navigation Co. He later moved to Seattle, where he began a towboat operation on Puget Sound, and formed Griffiths & Sprague Stevedoring Co. He had either a branch of that company, or perhaps a second stevedoring company which he continued to operate in Vancouver, B.C. He also owned, or was partner to, the Coastwise Steamship & Barge Co and the Seattle-Everett Dock & Warehouse Co and acquired his own shipyard, the old Hall Brothers yard, which he renamed Winslow Marine Railway & Shipbuilding Co at Eagle Harbor over on Bainbridge Island.[ see photo below.]

    Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island, WA.

Back-stamped with inscription 
"James Griffiths & Sons
Burke Building, Seattle, WA.
View from the west end of property, 
showing undeveloped portion of the plant.
Yacht at anchor is MAUD F,
Steamers at the dock are the 
FLORENCE K. & BAINBRIDGE."
click image to enlarge.
Undated, from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

Later, Captain Griffiths became involved with James J. Hill, the "Empire Builder," in the business of importing silk from the Orient, and Griffiths is the man who is credited with bringing the Chinese silk through Seattle. He simply went to China and contacted the right people, who were with the Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line. He had to work through interpreters entirely, but he convinced them they could get the silk to market faster if they came to Seattle rather than San Francisco. This was a huge gamble on his part, but it paid off for the Captain: his company became agents for the NYK Line, Hill's "silk trains" met the ships at the pier and rushed the silk express on specially cleared tracks all the way from Seattle to New York City.

Despite his active involvement in heading up the syndicate that financed the building and campaigning of the Sir Tom, the Captain himself seemed to be only interested in power boats. By 1925, Captain Griffiths he commissioned Ted Geary to design his yacht, Sueja III and in 1926 the 117 foot yacht was launched at the captain's own yard, Winslow Marine Railway & Shipbuilding Co. Sueja III was, and is ––because she is still in the charter business on the east coast, now known as Mariner III. All of her woods were Oriental. She was largely built in China and shipped in knock-down fashion to Captain Griffith's yard, where she was assembled under the supervision of Geary.

There are many stories about the Sueja III, but one that I recall in particular occurred about 1927, which would have been the first full cruising season. One morning on a trip to California, when the yacht lay at anchor in Wilmington harbor, Art, a step-son, was standing up on the deck. He'd just finished breakfast when he saw a launch heading toward the Sueja III and he couldn't figure out who this would be, as their own launch was moored on a boom alongside. Well, this launch pulled up alongside the gangway and out jumped two fellows, and one of them came bounding up the gangway ladder. Art walked over to meet him, and the stranger asked, "Is the owner aboard? I want to meet the owner. I'm going to buy this boat."

Art replied, "Well, I'll tell the captain you want to speak with him," and went to find him. Naturally, Art hung around to hear what was said.

The Captain was really pretty short, and the stranger was pretty tall, and he said to Captain Griffiths, "I want to buy your boat," or something to that effect.

Captain Griffiths drew himself upon to his full height, and jabbing a forefinger at the stranger's chest, he sputtered, "Young man, this boat is not for sale, but if you'll keep a civil tongue in your head I'll introduce you to the man who designed her, and he can design one for you and you can build it."

Well, the stranger was none other than John Barrymore and so that's the story of how the 120-foot, Geary designed Infanta came to be built in 1920. She, of course, is now known to us as THEA FOSS.  She has been the Foss Maritime Company's corporate yacht for many years, and is still a beautiful yacht.

To get back to the Sir Tom. The R Class Rule had been developed by Nathanael Herreshoff in Rhode Island, and when Geary returned from M.I.T. and was commissioned by the syndicate to design the Sir Tom, he created a really fast hull shape. The Sir Tom was the first Seattle R Class sloop and easily won the right to challenge other candidates for the Lipton Cup, which she did, and she held it continually from 1914 until 1928.

     

SIR TOM 

Undated photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

My first memories of her competitive years date from right after WW II. We did all the practice racing on her in Lake Union right offshore from the Blanchard Boat Co at the foot of Wallingford Ave., where the Seattle Police Harbor Patrol dock is now. Captain Griffiths had two sons, Stanley, the eldest, and Bert. In those days, Stanley would be in the cockpit with Geary, and Bert was the mainsheet man. My dad was the foredeck man. I don't recall who was his partner up there with him initially, but Roy Corbet joined that group, in 1922, and that year was the first time the Sir Tom had her famous curved Marconi mast and new sails. Up until 1928 she never entered a race that she didn't finish first. She didn't always win because sometimes races consisted of a mixed fleet and there would be time allowances, but she was a very, very fast R Class sloop, as well as one of the smallest boats in the class, at 39 feet, 8 inches.

CREW OF SIR TOM,
dated verso, July 1930.

L-R: Andy Joy, Roy Corbet,
J. Swift Baker and Ted Geary.
The Seattle yacht was captained by Geary,
Commodore of the Seattle Yacht Club. 
The team regained the coveted 
Lipton Trophy at the PIYA regatta in 
Cadboro Bay, Victoria, B.C. 
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

Well, I think Bert and Stanley Griffiths were the first to leave the Sir Tom crew, and they were replaced by Ray Corbet, Swift Baker, Colin Radford, and later Jack Graham took over the helm when Geary was sailing on Don Lee's Invader in the Trans Pacific Race.

The syndicate stuck together and paid Sir Tom's bills pretty much for years. Captain Griffiths was recognized as the manager of the syndicate, and as various members of the original group died be would either find the money from somebody else or dig into his own pockets,  because he really felt that the Sir Tom and Ted Geary were head and shoulder about the gang at the Royal Vancouver and the Royal Victoria yacht clubs. He was always the perfect host aboard the Sueja II and the Sueja III

The Sir Tom eventually became, I guess by survival mainly, the property of Captain Griffiths. During WW II all international competition ceased, so she was stored at his shipyard at Eagle Harbor. Captain Griffiths died before the Armistice, on 29 June 1943, and for a while his son, Stanley, ran the companies, but he soon passed on. His son, James, became head of the Washington Tug and Barge Co and his brother Churchill was right in there as vice-president of operations. 

When my brother, Wheaton, got out of the navy about the end of WW II, he was at Officers Candidate School at the U of WA campus, and in 1946 he persuaded my dad to go 50-50 with him and buy the Sir Tom. That summer Wheaton actively campaigned the boat at the SYC races, but the R Class was dead by that time. After he got married, he couldn't afford to pay his half of the boat bills, so the Sir Tom came to sit on our dock at the boat company for quite a few years.

In 1956, a young fellow came into the boat company and told me he wanted to buy the Sir Tom. I asked him, "Do you think you can repair her and put her back in condition?" Well, yes, he thought he could. I questioned him, "What kind of experience have you had?" Well, he replied he hadn't really had any experience, so I said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll write to Ted Geary and get the exact weight of the lead keel, and the day that you're ready to write a check, I'll sell the boat to you for just what the lead is worth on that day. We can check the newspaper for the quotation on the price of lead. I'll give you five more years of free storage on the mast. If you haven't been to get it after five years, why, if it's still up there and you want it, we'll have to negotiate a new deal on the mast."

He eventually went through with the deal, and as he was leaving I said to him, "Now don't sell that lead for a honeymoon!"

About five years later, I know it was at least five years, because he never came back for the mast and I sold it. I was lying in the large lock in my "33" sloop, Aura, and a Senior Knockabout came alongside and rafted up. The owner or skipper was at the tiller and another fellow with him, and the other fellow said to me, "You don't remember me, Mr. Blanchard? Well, I'm the guy who took the lead keel off the Sir Tom and sold it for a honeymoon __ and that was a bad mistake, too." It seems his marriage had failed. After he bought Sir Tom he had her hauled out someplace and trucked to his parents' backyard, and after he sold the lead, I suppose the boat was simply broken up for kindling.

So that's the story of Captain James  Griffiths and the Sir Tom syndicate. Wells Ostrander, the son of one of the early members, gave his father's certificate or membership paper in the Sir Tom syndicate to the Seattle Yacht Club a few years back, and we still have that at the clubhouse. It's sad the way we lost the Sir Tom, but as I've said about other former grand boats, sometimes when they fall into such neglected condition it's maybe best to just let them slip away. "