❖ BUILT AT BALLARD: LOST TO BARROW ❖

Schooner TRANSIT
145607
547 G.t. 508.50 N.t.
165.2' x 37.1' x 13.1'
Launched 1891, Salmon Bay, opposite Ballard, WA.
Builder T. H. Petersen is front row, 2nd from the right,
Mrs. Petersen is at the left.
The schooner was built for E.P. Nissen, a merchant from
San Francisco, CA. where the TRANSIT
was documented in 1892.
Click image to enlarge.
A low-resolution scan of an original photo from
Saltwater People Historical Society©

The schooner TRANSIT, one of the last ships built by Thomas Heinrich Petersen was built at this location on Salmon Bay, in 1891.  
      Petersen was a native of Denmark who left in 1856 when he was 21. He had served a 4-yr apprenticeship in a shipyard and earned certification as a carpenter's mate. 
     Those papers opened doors for the young man; he continued a lifelong career designing and building boats in several yards on the west coast of the US after he left his ship in San Francisco in 1857. Thomas constructed vessels at Mendocino, Little River, Whitesboro, Navarro, Cuffey's Cove, Eureka, Gardiner, OR, Florence, Port Orchard, and Deadman's Island at Port Madison, before he arrived at Salmon Bay in 1890. 

Fishermen's Terminal,
Seattle, WA.
Click image to enlarge.

He was moored there until Commodore Way cut through his property, according to Seattle historian Lucile MacDonald researching some family papers that were donated to the Puget Sound Maritime Society, Seattle, in the 1950s. 
      

A great bronze tribute to a man who quietly
went about his work until he was 70 years old.
This is placed on the Fish Ladder Landing
at the Ballard Locks, Seattle, WA.
Photo by Donna Gordon in 2009 and
recently submitted to Saltwater People.
Thank you!
Click image to enlarge.

      According to Seattle maritime news journalist R.H. "Skipper" Calkins, the schooner TRANSIT was purchased by the John Backland family in 1908. She was commanded by the well-known Arctic trader, Captain John Backland Sr., delivering heavy shipments to government schools and isolated stations in the Bering and Arctic regions at the time of her loss. She was crushed by ice and lost near Cape Smythe, in 1913. The TRANSIT was departing Barrow bound Seattle with 11 officers and crew aboard along with 100 tons of general merchandise valued at $8,000.
      From the US Customs Wreck Report of 27 Sept. 1913 at Nome, in the words of Capt. John Backland:
      About five miles SSW of Cape Smyth struck lee, filled with water and was beached. Crushed by ice. Strong NW gale with heavy snow and frost. Sails close reefed and vessel got underway but ice crowding in rapidly leaving no room for navigation. 120 natives came on board and both the steam and handpumps were manned but to no avail. The vessel was in the ice from 6 Aug to 25 Aug 1913 and continually using every effort to get out. 
      The TRANSIT had a value of $10,000 with the damage to the vessel listed as $7,500. Her cargo posted a loss of $5,000. The vessel had no insurance but the cargo was fully insured. No loss of life. 
The Customs Wreck Report is courtesy of Alaska Shipwrecks.com
More on the vessels in the life of Thomas H. Petersen for another day. 
      The late Louis A. Hough, the author of A Fleet Forgotten, did an excellent, in-depth  10-page article on the barkentine THOS. P. EMIGH, published by the Puget Sound Maritime History Society for the membership journal, The Sea Chest, September 2014. The THOS. P. EMIGH, launched at Tacoma in 1901 was designed by T.H. Petersen.
Book sourced: Hal E. Jamison Along the Waterfront. 26 Sept. 1912, regarding details of the TRANSIT loss in the ice.
  Another Saltwater People post on the Captains Backland can be viewed here.    
      

❖ SCHOONER C. S. HOLMES ❖

"News photo scoops these days [1952] usually suggest wire-photos flashed over sea and land and swift airplanes rushing prints of sensational events from city to city, but the first filing of explorer Roald Amundsen's history-making flight over the North Pole in 1926 came to Seattle by sailing ship.
      The newspapers had been full of stories of the top-of-the-world voyage of the dirigible NORGE from King's Bay, Spitzbergen, to Teller, AK, carrying Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth, and their daring crew of North Pole explorers. I was intensely interested in the passage of the ship-of-the-air over the top-of-the-world but had no idea I would have a part in the stories of the flight told in pictures.
   

Schooner C.S. HOLMES
framed print donated by Miles McCoy.
Saltwater People Historical Archives.

One summer afternoon in 1926 as I wended my way up the Seattle waterfront to meet the romantic old sailing schooner C. S. HOLMES, I anticipated a pleasant chat with her master, Capt. John Backland Sr., and the story of a trading cruise to the Arctic Coast of AK. As I climbed aboard the HOLMES, I was given a warm greeting by the bearded skipper of the trim four-master. He introduced me to a stocky young Norwegian who spoke very little English.
      Capt. Backland, to my astonishment, explained that the young fellow, who joined the C. S. HOLMES at Teller, AK, had been the photographer of the NORGE during the ship-of-the-air's voyage over the North Pole and had the film of numerous shots taken during the flight. He wished to buy some cigarettes and use a telephone. Would I help him?
      I realized that the young Norwegian had in an important-looking black case, a part of his luggage, a great world-wide news picture scoop and I was not long in warming up to him. I would be very glad to assist the visitor to our shores, the first to use the top-of-the-world route, I told Capt. Backland.
      When we reached the shoreside end of the dock house at Pier 5, where the HOLMES was moored, I saw a news hawk of the rival sheet heading for the vessel.
      Determined not to allow my guest with the first pictures of the NORGE flight to fall into his hands, I quickly explained as best I could that I was sorry, but there were no phones nor cigarettes on the central waterfront and to comply with his wishes, I must take him to a dock quite a distance north.
      We had some heavy luggage to carry but succeeded in reaching Pier 14, where we found a phone and I called a taxicab. I told my friend that the cigarettes and the telephone service were better uptown.
      It was late afternoon when we reached the newsroom of my paper and I explained that my guest had the first pictures of the Amundsen flight over the North Pole. We were not long making a deal with the young Norwegian. He accepted our offer of a guarantee of one hundred dollars if the films developed satisfactorily. We took the films to our staff photographers who accomplished wonders in producing a score of sensational pictures in the Saturday editions and had another spread Sunday morning. During the final conferences, the young Norwegian kept watching me with a puzzled expression on his face. Then he said, "'did you forget about the cigarettes and where can I use a telephone?"

C.S. HOLMES
A gift from W. E. Evans.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

      Because of that news-picture beat, I have always had a warm spot in my heart for the famous old sailing schooner C. S. HOLMES, that went to her doom on the BC coast while being towed from Zeballos to Port Alberni, BC. She was serving as a lowly barge when lost. The HOLMES was carried ashore and smashed against the rocks when the towline parted. She was pounded into four pieces by the fury of the gale.
      Of the Arctic traders that threaded their way through ice floes to little settlements near the top of the world, the HOLMES was one of the most widely known. For more than 30 years, she operated from Seattle to Point Barrow and native villages in the Far North.
     

Native Alaskans skinning seals
for trading with the sailing ships, as referenced
in this article. Sad but true.
Original photo from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©

 Each spring the HOLMES would tow to Cape Flattery and spread her sails to the winds of the North Pacific, laden with cargo that was traded for furs obtained by Alaskan natives in the North land's wilderness.
      Built in 1893 in Port Blakely, the vessel was named for the late C. S. HOLMES, one of the original owners of the Port Blakely Mill Co. Mr. Holmes later lived in San Francisco where he was a partner in the firm of Renton & Holmes.
      The trim four-master was constructed in the Hall Brothers' Shipyards, the predecessor of the Winslow Marine Railway & Shipbuilding Co. That was when Benjamin Harrison was president, and four years before the gold ship PORTLAND arrived from AK with her Klondyke-treasure cargo.
      The HOLMES was operated by the late Capt. John Backland Sr., and until WWII forced her into retirement, by his son, Capt. John Backland, Jr.
      The Arctic trade of the Backlands' was one of the oldest shipping enterprises in Seattle. It was established in 1906 when the late Capt. Backland Sr., purchased a half interest in the sailing schooner VOLANTE, and then acquired the sailing schooner TRANSIT in 1908.
      Captain Backland, Sr,  took the TRANSIT into the Arctic every season from that time until she was lost in the ice off Point Barrow in 1913. Then he purchased the C. S. HOLMES. (For a Saltwater People post with more on the TRANSIT and her builder click here.)
      Capt. John Backland Sr., as I remember him, was a tall, dignified, mustached master mariner, who was very religious. Born in Sweden, he became a naturalized British subject and sailed as master of English ships between London, Australia, and New Zealand.
      Capt. Backland was married in London and came to Seattle from the British port in 1906. Three years later, he became an American citizen. He was succeeded as head of the C . S. Holmes Shipping Co by his son, who made many voyages with his father and had a remarkable linguistic ability to trade with the Eskimos.
      Capt. John Backland Jr., with his intimate knowledge of the ice-choked Arctic seas, became a Navy pilot, and served in that capacity with Barex, the Navy's annual supply expedition from Seattle to Point Barrow, farthest north settlement under the American flag.
      The elder Backland died in 1928, after being in the Arctic trade 21 years.
      The HOLMES was requisitioned by the Army and converted into a barge in the plant of the Winslow Marine Railway & Shipbuilding Co. She was shorn of her towering masts and new deck houses for officers and crew. The vessel was used by the Army in transporting cargo on Puget Sound during the war and then sold to a shipbroker. Many on the waterfront thought the HOLMES should have been spared, that other vessels were more suitable for conversion into a barge because of the old windjammer's age, but war means waste and destruction and the HOLMES became a casualty of the struggle."
Calkins, R. H. "Skipper". High Tide; Seattle, Marine Digest Publishing, 1952.