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 of 
"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 that they could get the silk to market a lot 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, nd 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. 

 

Well, I think Bert and Stanley Griffiths were the first crew 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. "

THE FOREST BARKENTINES

            FOREST FRIEND 

Built with two sister ships
at Gray's Harbor, WA.
1919. 

 

The barkentine rig –– that strange marriage of square and fore-and-aft sails, came to the bloom on the west coast.

Such a combination of differently cut canvas obviously prompts the question: Why the two rigs? Why not keep either to the square of the schooner rig? The answer lay in the use to which such vessels were put or, more correctly, the pattern of trade routes such vessels would traverse most inexpensively.

With lumber being king and the new countries "down under" clamoring for building materials, the Barkentine rig was ideally suited for the long runs in the Trades to "fetch" up the Antipodes. Vessels of this rig could run the large schooners out of sight in the Trades or on voyages such as to South Africa or the Islands.

Three later-day examples of this rig were the beautiful, large barkentines FOREST FRIEND, FOREST PRIDE, and FOREST DREAM, built in 1919 at Grays Harbor, WA. 

The vessels measured 249 feet by 44 feet by 19 feet and had 1,650,000 board feet capacity.

Their maiden voyages took them to Sydney, Australia with lumber, the usual pattern being then to load coal at Newcastle for Honolulu, Callao, Mauritius, Antwerp, the Caribbean, San Antonio, France, Cadiz, Queenstown, Noumea, Iquique, Pimental, and Stromstad were other ports of call.

These big barkentines were not clippers, but on occasion showed their heels and demonstrated that as late as the 1920s profits were to be made in sail. In April, 1925, after temporary layup in Lake Union, FOREST PRIDE loaded 1,560,000 feet of lumber at Williapa Harbor for Adelaide, Australia at $15 per thousand (1,000 board feet,) returning to Seattle in December in forty days from Callao.

In 1926, she went outward to Adelaide in ninety-eight days, returning in eighty-two days during which passage she logged 2,222 miles in nine days, or an average of almost 247 miles per day. That was good sailing in that day and age!

All three vessels operated under tow along the West Coast for a while, sometimes in tow of the steamship FOREST KING.

In the late 1920s, FOREST DREAM was sold at auction in Australia after a charterer had gone bankrupt. A group of officers from the Swedish training ship C.B. PEDERSEN purchased the vessel and operated her between Europe and the West Coast of South America, carrying guano and then logwood between the Caribbean and Central American ports and France. She finally was destroyed by fire at Stromstad, Sweden, in 1933.

The PRIDE, after arriving in Seattle in September of 1927, was laid up in Lake Union never to feel the press of wind-filled canvas again. Later, as a barge, she assisted in raising the ill-fated ISLANDER. There is a post of that adventure on this site..

FOREST PRIDE

FOREST PRIDE took lumber from Bellingham to Noumea, New Caledonia in the excellent time of forty-two days, then crossing to Newcastle to load coal for South America. On the run from Australia to the West Coast she logged seven hundred miles during a forty-eight hour stretch.

In the spring of 1929, the FRIEND was libeled by a shipyard at Vancouver, B.C., that had not been paid for repairs. She was laid up there until 1938 when the Island Tug and Bargo Co., purchased the ship for conversion to a hog fuel barge.

Thus came to an end the rather short-lived careers of three graceful but sturdy sail carriers, plodding onward in an age which had outrun their kind. It is a wonder they lasted as long as they did.

They were not only three ships, they were a culmination of hundreds of years of evolution and development, from the full-rigged ship and the topsail schooner, the end result being a combination of the advantages of the schooner and the square-rigger. By using a square-rigged fore mast, the barkentine had the advantage of spreading a larger sail area before the wind, as compared to the fore-and-aft schooner. The rig came into great popularity as a substitute for either large 3 or 4 masted schooners or ships about 1880.

Pacific Coast builders gave a good deal of attention to this rig. While more expensive to build than the schooner rig, the barkentine was far less costly than a ship or a bark and
required fewer hands.

The "forest" barkentines were fine examples of the rig. They were a credit to their builders and beautiful manifestations of the shipwrights' art during sail's last stand.

Words by Mr. Gordon "Chips" Jones for The Sea Chest membership journal 

published by the Puget Sound Maritime Society, Seattle, WA.

                                                

THE LEXICON OF LINES

 

GRACIE S.
Skipper Ed Kennell, Seattle, WA.

For our lexicon of salt;

 On a run in from the Cape, as 
shellback Miles McCoy relates, 
"Reading both pages, that is when 
running before it and the main is out
to one side and the fore is out to the 
opposite side. I clearly remember this sail.
Bob Schoen was in his prime climbing all over
the wet decks snapping photos.
That was a grand sail for everyone."
Photo by the late Bob Schoen with memories 
by his good friend 94-year old Miles McCoy,
Orcas Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.

Lore from The Lazarette.... a look back,
Courtesy of the Honourable Doug Adkins and

The Cruising Club of America

The vocabulary of sailing is absorbed and then employed by those of us who engage in the adventurous use of the sea. We use it with ease and sometimes forget how unusual and arcane it must seem to those who do not speak our seasalted mother tongue. The great Cruising Club historian Jack Parkinson gave us the indispensable Nowhere is Too Far, The Annals of the Cruising Club of America which chronicled our history by each year from 1922 through 1959. He clearly loved language. His account of the year 1947 included a remarkable poem by Thorvald S. Ross of the Boston Station, he the third New Englander to serve as Commodore of the CCA. The Commodore ranged widely and sailed with fellow members from across the roster. He wrote a ballad as his answer to the old, old question of "How many ropes on a full-rigged ship?" and Parkinson, to our everlasting benefit, included it in his annual account. 

Enjoy Seven Ropes by Past Commodore Thorvald Ross.

SEVEN ROPES

In taproom, when the wind was wailing,

  Old bo's'ns yarned of serve and splice,

Of wagers won by mighty sailing,

  Of whip and warp, of trim and trice.

No more are clippers trade-wind driven; 

  We scarce remember, save in rhymes,

The names their riggin's all were given-

  Lost lingo of hard-bitten times.

A maze of flax and coir and cotton,

  Of ramie, sisal, hemp, and jute,

The very twists and lays forgotten,

  Since steam and diesel won repute.

We class their halyards, sheets, and braces,

  Their lifts and lanyards, vangs, and guys,

As ropes that ran to mystic places

  And sinewed spars in multi-plies.

But take a full-rigged ship, from master

  Down to the boy, they knew each one,

And how to haul and pay it faster

  Or reeve or snub or let it run.

Yet ropes as such they had but seven

  In all that lexicon of lines,

That cobweb spun from deck to heaven,

  Which Knight in Seamanship defines;

Man rope, on gangway to the landing; 

  Foot rope, the beckets under yard

To furl and reef-a risky standing!

  They held their swabs in light regard.

The top rope swayed topm'st for staying;

  The bolt rope edged the cloth for roach;

The bell rope was for watch and praying;

  The wheel rope whirled to save a broach.

There was one more, and it no piker,

  I'd like to've been it if I could,

The back rope of the dolphin striker-

  That tough and trusty stick of wood.

From sheer to bow past bobstay bending,

  It held the jib boom to its search

For new horizons, never-ending,

  And foiled the sea at plunge or lurch.

It's gone the way of all its brothers;

  It did its job, not best or worst,

But on the voyage with all the others

It led the rest and did it first.

BEAUTIFUL AND WONDERFUL with Sir Attenborough

 

Henry Cayou Channel
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Photograph from Blakely Island,
courtesy of  L.A. Douglas
Click image to enlarge.

3 February 2025

"People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure."

David Attenborough

MEN AND SHIPS OF THE NORTHWEST – a Review by Don Page

 

L-R; Seattle/Olympia salty writer
Gordon Newell
and Capt. Shaver
with precious cargo 
aboard steamer PORTLAND. 

Dated 27 Nov. 1966. Colman Dock, Seattle.  
Aboard they are transporting the first load
of 800 books, weighing 6,200 pounds.
Low-res of an original photograph from the 
archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest

Edited by Gordon Newell. Superior Publishing Co.

$100. (in 1966)

"The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest may be the most remarkable book ever published on the West Coast.

It's a big book almost any way you look at it. Its buckrum binding houses 736 pages. Those pages are divided into 61 chapters, crammed with 2,000 pictures and the 950,000 words it took writer Gordon Newell to sketch the story of ships and men of the waterfront and the sea from 1896 to 1965.

These 70 years bridged the eras of sail, of coal, of oil, and now, of nuclear power aboard our ships. They saw booms and busts, hot wars and cool peace, gold rushes, launching and sinking, arrivals, and final departures.

Newell has told his story well, revering maritime history and the people who made it. He has also provided the deft touch of a professional writer and a dash of sardonic humor now and again to give the text a welcome crackle.

The history opens in 1895 with Nippon Yusen Kaisha, in company with the Great Northern Railway and Captain James Griffiths, opening the first regular Japanese steamship service to Seattle. It closes with the death in 1965 of 

'Einar Endresen, 83, an old-time sparmaker whose father founded the Endresen Spar & Lumber Co at Aberdeen, which he later managed, furnishing masts and spars to sailing vessels on the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts.'

In between are many well-remembered sea stories of the Northwest–stories such as the construction of the battleship NEBRASKA, the arrival of the 'ton of gold' ship PORTLAND, the fading of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet, and the rise of the waterfront unions from blood and grime to positions of responsibility.

Many of the stories are less well-remembered. For instance, the story of the two submarines built in Seattle and bought by the Province of British Columbia at the start of WW I. British Columbia's premier borrowed money from a bank to buy the subs, and Newell comments, 'For a time British Columbia enjoyed the historic distinction of being the only province of Canada to own its own mortgaged Navy.'

Newell memorializes, too, the Puget Sound skipper who went on to become admiral of the Turkish Navy and the ill-starred Skagit sailor who departed this vail by wrapping the anchor rope around his neck and jumping.

The McCurdy Marine History is not just history of Seattle or Puget Sound, of course. Its stated geographic range is from the California border north into the Arctic Ocean.

Newell has done a responsible, commendable job. He was strengthened and guided in this effort by a distinguished sponsor and a conscientious board of review. The book would have been impossible without an 'angel.' That angel and guiding light of the history was wealthy, now retired, Seattle shipbuilder, Horace McCurdy.

Early in 1963, McCurdy established a grant with the Seattle Historical Society for the research and writing of the new History. He picked Newell to do the writing. The grant grew as the book grew. It started at around $50,000 by the time Superior Publishing began distributing the 1,500 volume press run of the McCurdy History. That grant, of course, won't be paid back. Whatever small profits come will go to the Historical Society and to publisher Albert Salisbury for his gamble in putting out the book (Publishers of Lewis and Dryden went broke on it.)

McCurdy is an admitted dewy-eyed lover of things of the seas. He also is a hardheaded businessman. He wanted the best, most authentic history he could buy with his $50,000. To ensure this be assembled a review board of 17 men, all authorities on one or more phases of subjects to be covered in the History. That review board read three progressive manuscripts of the book. Members made suggestions to author Newell and supplied source material. Some even contributed sections for his editing.

The result of McCurdy's and Newell's work and the contributions of the review board, coupled with the rich material of 70 years of Northwest maritime history is a handsome volume as impressive as it looks."

Don Page review published by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer 21 May 1967. This review was extracted from Don't Leave Any Holidays Volume II, H.W. McCurdy. Inscribed copy number 38. Published July 1981. Saltwater People Historical Society collection.

Below, Don Page writes further in the Seattle P-I, 20 Oct. 1974:

"The publishing time and size of Volume I roughly doubled and McCurdy found he'd underrated the cost of playing godfather to a book of Northwest marine history. He financed the book through grants to the Seattle Museum of History and Industry and Museum Director Mrs. Sutton Gustison recalled:

'Every time we ran out of money, we'd call Mr. McCurdy and say, 'We need another thousand,' and he'd always come through.'

Everyone was happy, though, with the finished product. The "McCurdy History" sent saltwater buffs of our part of the world into ecstasy. Superior Publishing was so pleased that it put out a new edition of "Lewis & Dryden's History," to form, with the McCurdy volume, a handsome two-volume set. Newell continued to mix more books in with his Olympia politicking. The museum profited. McCurdy beamed. And a second volume was published to cover the following ten years of marine history to yield a fine three-volume collectible set. 

"This book is going to be the last word. It's going to belong to the ages, just like Lincoln." H.W. McCurdy.  

SOLO CANOE PASSAGE WITH TRACES OF SNOW

  

Errett M. Graham (1877-1974)
Land surveyor and County Engineer
paddling his canvas Old Town Canoe.
Circumnavigating Shaw Island,
San Juan Archipelago
on his 94th birthday. 
Photograph in the calm of June
by Babs Cameron,
from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©


Passed on to the Friday Harbor Journal was this quote by Emmett Watson previously published by the Seattle-P-I, in 1970:

        "Sometime quite soon residents of San Juan County will say goodbye to Mr. Errett M. Graham, the county engineer. What makes this goodbye rather special is the fact that Mr. Graham, now 92, just retired in May. He always paddled his own canoe into Friday Harbor for the meetings of the Board of County Commissioners–ignoring the ferries. He celebrated his 90th birthday by paddling his canoe around Lopez Island. . ."

And from the handwritten daily diary of the canoe master, Mr. Errett Graham are these words.

20 February 1951:

"Tough Trip

If I had had even a premonition of the difficulties I was fated to encounter on my return trip today, I would either have stayed over or made a very early start. I landed at a homestead just short of Limestone Pt., walked over to the point, and saw I couldn't possibly buck the tide there. The man there said that the tide split at Limestone Pt. and that once around it, I should have a favoring tide. I found a road over which I could portage and got in the water again just south of the white limestone point. I made a few hundred feet along a nice gravel beach to a rocky and forbidding projecting point at its southeasterly end. Attempting to get around this I got in some very rough water shipped several quarts and made absolutely no advance, I'm fact, I lost ground and had to land on a coarse rock beach. I took a long walk down the beach to give the tide or wind time to change and had visions of having to spend the night there. When the whitecaps quieted a bit I refloated the canoe and made another attempt, succeeding this time and heading straight for Brown Island to make the channel crossing before the tide became adverse again. Water was quite rough–but nothing like it was at Limestone Point. Evidently, the tide did not split at that Point as I had been told; passed east of Yellow Island and touched shore in Squaw Bay tired and chilled. There were traces of snow on Lopez. A hot supper and a bath, the house warmed up. O.K., now."

1951 Diary of Errett M. Graham.
Archived in the Shaw Island Historical Museum

DOGFISH OIL

Pacific Dogfish
Courtesy of the Monterey Aquarium

The viscous, malodorous extract of the skin and liver of the dogfish was at the heart of the operation of the Port Townsend, Washington area's nineteenth-century lumber industry. This rancid oil was primarily used to grease the skid roads along which lumbermen transported the harvested logs. Hides tanned with dogfish oil were used as drive belts in sawmill machinery. It was the source of nighttime illumination in the mills, which often operated twenty-four hours a day. The crude but effective lighting fixtures were the kettles, similar to and sometimes adapted from a teakettle, with spouts on two sides. The kettles were filled with foul fuel and wicks let down the spouts were lighted. The fetid odor was intensified by combustion. 

The Klallam and Chimakum extracted the oil for use as a paint base and as a seasoning and cooking agent, though not surprisingly the slightly less rank seal or whale oils were favored for edibles. Before extraction caps were established by whites, they traded with the Natives for the oil. Extraction was left to the Native women, who collected the dogfish in discarded dugouts and crushed the carcasses by climbing into the canoes and trampling them. When the fish were sufficiently squashed, the women added saltwater, allowing the mixture to decompose for days or weeks. The oil rose to the top of the noisome brew and was skimmed off. Whites did not improve much on the extraction procedure. They introduced iron-bottomed wooden troughs instead of canoes so a few could be kindled beneath to hasten the process.

Several factors in the mid-1880s marked the beginning of the end for the dogfish industry. Petroleum products, which cost less and were more efficient, became readily available. Skid roads were being phased out in favor of "lokies" (locomotives,) steam donkeys, and logging carts on rails. Carbon arc lighting, a novelty ten years earlier, was common in sawmills by the decade's end. Finally, rubberized belts were introduced into the more modern sawmills, replacing animal hides. Like the stench it created, however, the industry was tenacious, and as late as 1890, fifty thousand 
gallons of oil were produced in Washington plants.
Above essay: "City of Dreams," editor Peter Simpson. Bay Press, Port Townsend, WA. 1986.

And later still...

=======

"In 1906, Bruce Willis was in the port of
Friday Harbor, in his auxiliary sloop,
AILSA, en route to Griffin Bay to fish.
 He sold 30 gallons of dogfish oil here,  
though he says this is not as good a price,
as Anacortes. It brings ten cents more
per gallon there, the prices 
here only being .25 cents."
The San Juan Islander 2 Mar. 1906.

Photo scan from Jane Barfoot Hodde, 
a friend and neighbor of the Willis family
of Olga-Doe Bay, Orcas Island, WA.

A 1907 wanted ad in the 
San Juan Islander newspaper 
from the well-known Robert Moran, 
a new resident of Orcas Island.

=============

" The U and I, Capt. G.I. Peterson of Mitchell Bay was in port the first of the week on her way to Richardson, where Mr. Peterson will dispose of a barrel of dogfish oil to Hodgson & Graham. He is a veteran fisherman and enjoys the life. Each season he goes to Cape Flattery, and invariably makes good. Even last year, when so many barely paid for the gasoline they burned, the captain netted a fair sum. The U and I was specially built for him, after his own specifications and with her, he ventures further out than most boats and stays out in all kinds of weather. "

The San Juan Islander. Friday Harbor, WA. 14 March 1913.

CURIOSITIES ON RUGGED BLAKELY ISLAND in 1961

BLAKELY ISLAND,
SAN JUAN ARCHIPELAGO,
WASHINGTON
detail from USCGS #6300
Click image to enlarge;
not up to date for navigation.

Blakely Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Original postcard published by the 
Pacific Aerial Survey
Ca. 1930 to 1940.
Click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"Where homesteaders cleared fields amid the dense vegetation of Blakely Island in the San Juan Islands and loggers hewed timber for a sawmill on Thatcher Bay, strange things have come to pass.

        Floyd Johnson's aviation-and-yachting estates' development, consisting of 38 summer homes, some of startingly advanced design, rose on the north shore of the 4,700-acre island. Almost all of the remainder, by arrangement with a mill company on the mainland, has become a perpetual tree farm.
        Decaying log buildings left by the earlier residents are regarded as picturesque curiosities, to be visited by Jeep, the characteristic vehicle encountered on Blakely's rugged roads. Nearly every home has one.
        Johnson's airfield and improvements were commenced in 1956 and each winter he added more buildings. Some of the estate owners use their private planes.
        Except for the colony at the north end, Blakely has gone back to its natural state, with 2,500 deer roaming the woods, mink, muskrat, beaver, and land otters living near the two lakes; bald eagles, doves, goldfinches, woodpeckers, and swarms of other birds flitting among the trees.
        Johnson's enterprise controls all but a federal government lighthouse reservation and two other tracts. Seven permanent families live on Blakely, employed mostly in the development. Houses and boats are constructed in slack seasons. Children are taken across to Orcas Island by private boat to attend school. In rough weather, they are flown across.
        One of the earliest mentions of inhabitants on Blakely was in the 1870 census, which listed the sole occupant as Paul K. Hubbs Jr. and his then-wife, Sasha (he had several.) Hubbs, a leading figure in the San Juan 'Pig War,' had been granted 'the exclusive privilege to an island about five square miles' (the size was considerably under-rated) and grazed 400 sheep on it.
        Ten years later, when the next census was taken, Hubbs was temporarily without a wife; his occupation was given as fishing.
        By that time, there were other settlers. E.C. Gillette surveyed land for the Americans on San Juan before the 'Pig War', went to Blakely in 1874, and raised sheep on the southeast side. He was the first San Juan County surveyor and later became county school superintendent.
        H.W. Whitener moved to the northwest side of the island from Samish Island in the early 1870s. He was elected sheriff of San Juan County.
        William H. Viereck and a partner named Coffelt, of Orcas Island, started a sawmill on Thatcher Bay; in 1889, Theodore W. S. Spencer deputy customs collector at Roche Harbor, moved his family from Lopez to a homestead at Spencer Lake. He was attracted by the possibilities of water power, as the outlet was through a steep gulch. In 1892, he purchased the mill and box factory, which the family operated almost continuously until 1945.
        Ruins of the mill, wharf, boathouse, post office, commissary, and several dwellings of the mill community can be seen at the head of Thatcher Bay (1961.)
        Blakely has a log schoolhouse, constructed in the 1880s and used continuously until 1940. Johnson hopes to restore it.
         A teacher at the school, R.H. Straub, was the central figure in San Juan County's most celebrated criminal case, resulting in the only hanging in its history.
        Ray Spencer, now of Spencer Spit, Lopez Island, who spent the greater part of his life on Blakely, said Straub bought the Gillette place, which joined the homestead of Mrs. Pauline Burns, extending inland from the southwest side of the island. Mrs. Burns was the wife of a railroad man who was away most of the time.
        August 30, 1895, her brother, Leon Lanterman, and their half-brother, Ralph W. Blythe, went from Decauter to dig her potato crop. In the next field, Irving Parberry, a youth of 17 whose family was homesteading near Horseshoe Lake, was noisily at work singing and whistling, seeming determined to attract attention. As Straub had appeared, Lanterman, Blythe, and Mrs. Burns became suspicious.
        Straub was a Canadian, about 45, who had been in San Juan County on and off since 1872. About three years earlier, it was suspected that he was stripping the small freight steamship, J.C. BRITAIN after it was stranded at Bell Rock. Suspicious neighbors followed him to Blakely Island, where he pulled a rifle from his boat and threatened them.
         Hard feelings arose from this incident and both Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Burns were school board members who opposed retaining Straub as teacher.
         Mrs. Burns feared Straub's intentions as he appeared near the potato field. Lanterman walked over to the fence on the pretext of talking with Parberry about land clearing. The boy's replies were abusive and Blythe, hearing the shouting, went to investigate. Parberry had both an ax and a rifle and Blythe arrived in time to see the youth strike Lanterman with the former weapon.
         At that instant, Straub came out of hiding, leaped on a log, cursed Lanterman, and fired at him. He turned on Blythe, but the latter dropped and the bullet passed over him. Blythe raced to the Burns house for a weapon and Straub, still firing, went after Mrs. Burns. A bullet entered her shoulder and another whizzed past her ear.
        By the time Blythe found a weapon, the two assailants had disappeared, but not until Straub shot twice more at Lanterman, killing him.
        Mrs. Burns ran a mile through the timber to the Spencer home and gave the alarm. She was taken by the Spencers in a small boat to her parent's home and Blythe was picked up on the way.
        Straub fled to Whatcom County and Parberry to another part of the San Juans. Both were tracked down, Sheriff Newton Jones serving a warrant on Straub 2 October.
        Lanterman was buried on Lopez, 1 September.
        Parberry, when captured, insisted that Straub had forced him at the point of a revolver to participate in the attack.
        At a preliminary hearing in Friday Harbor, several residents of Decatur and Lopez Islands openly threatened to lynch Straub if they could get their hands on him.
        The case went to trial in October. Lacking a fitting room in the San Juan County courthouse, the authorities arranged for the use of the ground floor of Friday Harbor's Odd Fellows Hall. The judge was seated on the stage and the main floor was roped off to separate the jury from witnesses and spectators. There was no room to which the jurors could retire in intermissions.
        Straub had been locked in the jail in Whatcom until the day of the trial. He moved for a change of venue, contending he would not receive fair treatment in San Juan County because of strong prejudice had been created by Mr. Dillon's funeral sermon.
         Change of venue was denied,, and the trial proceeded. Parberry turned state's evidence and the charge against him was dismissed.
         Edward Ambler, one of the state's witnesses, created a diversion by eavesdropping under the stage beneath the witness chair. The attorney for the defense routed him out.
         The jury was hung for seven hours because two members opposed capital punishment and could not agree with the rest as to the degree of murder. At length, on 26 October, the prisoner was found guilty in the first degree and sentenced to execution on 13 November.
         Straub appealed, so back he went to the Whatcom jail. A long wait was in store for him, during which he 'got religion.'
        It was more than a year, 8 December 1896, before the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the District Court. The hanging was set for 26 March 1897. Straub gained another respite, until 22 April; his sister made a last-minute personal appeal to Governor Rogers to save Straub from the gallows, which Sheriff Jones had erected inside a 12 x 15-foot enclosure at one end of the jail. Islanders were ashamed of what was about to happen, and the judge offered a 15-foot-high fence built around the gallows.
        About 20 persons were admitted to the hanging. The sheriff delayed the fatal hour Straub asked if there was anything he wished to say, spoke in calm tones for ten minutes. He declared that if nothing but the truth had been told, he would not have been condemned. He thanked Salvation Army friends for converting him while he was in jail and said since then he had felt better than in all his life.
        Sheriff Newton Jones carried out his unpleasant task and, it is said, was so upset by the execution, that he shortly afterward had a nervous breakdown.
        No one lives today on either the Burns or the Lanterman property. The buildings and fences have disappeared on the former land. The Lanterman house on Decatur was burned a few years ago.

Words by historian Lucile McDonald for The Seattle Times published,
13 August 1961.

JOHN GRAHAM JR and HIS YEARS with YACHT MARUFFA

 

S. V. MARUFFA,

Skipper John Graham Jr 
and crew, homeport of 
Seattle, WA.
Possibly in 1947, the year of the  
International Swiftsure Race.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photograph by 
Ray Krantz, Seattle, WA. 
Thank you Heather Graham.

"MARUFFA, from her debut in 1947, stamped her personality on Swiftsure. During the middle fifties, however, she really came into her own. MARUFFA stole the show, one way or another, no matter who, or what the challenge. And her list of laurels grew. 

Humphrey Golby comments:

'Certainly one of the outstanding yachts that helped Swiftsure become a recognized international sailing event was John Graham's MARUFFA. She first came to Swiftsure in 1947, and even in this, her maiden race, she was first boat home. For the next 16 years, she was the public's choice; the photographer's joy; and the true queen of the fleet. Her unparalleled Swiftsure record speaks for itself.

She was the first boat home in at least six if not seven of her starts. However, since the City of Victoria Trophy was presented to PIYA in 1956, MARUFFA has won it four times. It took John Graham 10 years, from 1947 to 1957, to win the Swiftsure Trophy so many times, MARUFFA boiled through the race with every rag of sail she could carry, driving for the finish line in all-out last-ditch effort to save her time on the fleet. Sometimes, she only lost by a minute or two, and once, only by seconds.

Many times a winner in AA Class, only once in her career did she fail to finish, and that was the race of the great calm in 1958 when 23 yachts finally gave up and powered home.

MARUFFA was built in 1936 in the Pendleton Yard in Wiscasset, Maine. She was designed by Phil Phodes and meticulously built to the special order of Henry Babson. Commissioned and sailed on the Great Lakes for three years, she made quite a name for herself in Mackinac and other major events. During the war years, 1943-1946, MARUFFA was put into storage, and at the war's end, was sold to John Graham. John recalls that the former owner had two paid hands, and kept them steadily at work on the boat for three years. When Graham saw her, she was gleaming like a concert grand. One look closed the sale. MARUFFA went to Annapolis for a short time before her proud new owner rounded up a crew to sail her to Seattle. 

In his design, Phil Rhodes, had produced a handsome wholesome boat, beautifully balanced, capable of holding her own on every point of sail. MARUFFA was at her best in light to medium winds, but even when it blew hard, she could snug down and keep pace. Her real strength was the ability to run, even in the lightest airs. So many times, I have observed MARUFFA quietly sail away from the fleet on the downwind leg. This great offwind speed once planted her third across the line into Hawaii, a performance that enabled her to beat all but two of the A Class boats, boat for boat, even though she was racing in B Class. In any consideration of MARUFFA's marvelous Swiftsure years, we have to remember that throughout all those years, she was sailed by John Graham and a crack crew.

John Graham was a sailing competitor, even as a young boy, coming to Victoria in 1919 to sail on the Seattle team against Royal Victoria dinghies. The Seattle-ites used Winslow Kittens, which were much faster than the local boats. John had the best sailing teachers that anyone could ask for. He was a member of Ted Geary's SIR TOM crew, the famous R boat that dominated the Pacific Coast for so many years. Ted Geary was an acknowledged master of the art of sailing. He picked John to skipper the boat when he could not be on board. From R boats to Star boats, John sailed and won. He was a fierce competitor, an intuitive tactician, and he never quit. When Ray Cooke built CIRCE and raced her in the 1934 Swiftsure, John Graham was aboard as sailing master. He sailed on CIRCE in all her early Swiftsures. Here again, he had, in Ray Cooke, the best teacher in the business. After WW II, John bought MARUFFA, starting her Swiftsure saga in 1947. 

Swiftsure records are filled with the exploits of this great yacht. Let me relate two incidents showing how hard the skipper and crew worked for their laurels. At first light, the escort tug picked up MARUFFA close in under the land off Neah Bay. She had rounded the Lightship about midnight and had led the pack on the homeward run. The entrance to the Straits was glassy calm. Boats out in the stream were rolling listlessly without steerageway. John had worked MARUFFA right inshore where the first morning thermals created the slightest breeze. As the tug followed her, we saw a classic example of how a fantastic skipper can keep even a big boat moving under almost impossible conditions. The wind was shifting back and forth, from the merest offshore zephyr to a few faint puffs from the southwest as the westerly sought to become established. In each of these shifts, from slightly ahead of abeam to dead astern, John had the crew alternate with a light drifter for the offshore puffs, returning to the spinnaker when the westerly caught up. What was happening was simple. When the westerly drove MARUFFA ahead, she promptly sailed out of the following wind. As quickly as she nosed out of the westerly, she slid forward into the offshore breeze, faint as it might be. For each of these alternating conditions, John had his crew down spinnaker as soon as the westerly quit, and hoist a gossamer drifter to take advantage of the offshore puffs. As we watched, MARUFFA sent through this drill 12 or 15 times. The marvel of it was that John Graham kept MARUFFA moving while others sat and waited for the morning westerly. When the wind did finally make up, MARUFFA had gained at least an additional mile on her listless rivals.

The second incident unfolded right at the finishing line. The late afternoon westerly was unusually fresh in 1955 as MARUFFA charged through Race Passage with a substantial lead. Skipper Graham had his biggest spinnaker up, and MARUFFA made a glorious picture as she surged forward at breakneck speed. Just off Work Point, and less than 1,000 yards from the finish, a sudden gust off the land hit MARUFFA, sending her reeling, but she did not broach. In seconds, she seemed to recover, when suddenly her mast snapped at the upper spreader. The great spinnaker sagged in confusion on the foredeck, while the main hung like a broken wing. Thousands of spectators had gathered to watch her finish. An audible gasp went up as tragedy struck. The committee had timed her nearest rivals through the Race when there was a chance that MARUFFA would save her time and win it all. Now these precious minutes ticked away as MARUFFA's hopes for the Swiftsure Trophy slipped from her grasp, once more. Even then, MARUFFA didn't quite. John swung her round with the mizzen, and sailed her BACKWARDS across the line! The City of Victoria Trophy for first boat to finish was hers again. And what a finish it was.'

MARUFFA left the Pacific Northwest to engage in research projects sailing out of Woods Hole Marine Biological Station. For her day and time, MARUFFA  was an outstanding yacht, ahead of her time in design, faultlessly built, and meticulously maintained. She is a living legend. This chapter cannot end without listing MARUFFA's principal dimensions. She was 67.5' x exclusive of the bowsprit. Waterline L 49.7' x 15' B x  8' 6" D. 

The MARUFFA story has a sad postscript. On Sunday 4 March 1979, she went aground and became a total loss while on a research mission in South New Zealand waters. The tragedy occurred while en route from Dunedin to Stewart Island with a young American crew guiding her. Skipper Steven Sewell decided to turn back when he met rough seas off the southland coast. During the turning manoeuvre, the main backstay parted. After making temporary repairs he set his course for Tuatuku Bay Lighthouse. However, MAURFFA's great speed carried her in too close before the order to alter course could be carried out. In the confusion, those vital seconds proved fatal. MARUFFA drove hard aground. Within minutes she began to break up in the heavy seas, a sad end to a heritage yacht that still had meant useful years of service.

In the process of abandoning ship, one of the young crewmen caught his leg between the topside and the rocks, severing it below the knee in one of the powerful serges. A female crew member lost her thumb, but thankfully no lives were lost."

Source: SWIFTSURE, the First Fifty Years.

Humphrey Golby and Shirley Hewitt. Edited by Ed Gould. Published by Lightship Press Limited, Victoria, B.C., Canada. 1980.