From the Toronto Maritime History Society 'Scanner' newsletter: The steam collier PATDORIS, (a) ARDGATH, (b) YORKMINSTER, which was operated onwards frm 1924 in the Lake Ontario coal trade by J. F. Sowards of Kingston. She later belonged to the Maple Leaf Steamship Company Ltd. of Montreal and we have one report to the effect that she was sold for scrap in 1946 although it is not confirmed. PatDoris is shown on the Kingston waterfront with the Richardson No. 1 grain elevator in the background, undated but pre-1941.
Bob Crothers sailed as a teenager during the mid 1930s on the PatDoris, bringing coal several times per week from Oswego, NY. Bob describes the work on coal boats in his own words:
She was a fast boat, she could run 22 miles per hour and it took her two hours to cross the lake from Oswego to Kingston. The crew, except for the Captain and one or two older sailors, were local teenage boys. Most of them lasted only a week. The loading at Oswego was fast. She was a bulk carrier and the coal was dumped from the coal trestles through chutes into the hold. That did not take more than a few hours, and then she sailed back to Kingston.
We had only a few hours rest between the loading and unloading work. At the coal dock beside the Kingston Water Works, a crane did the bulk of the unloading with a grab-shovel. Two big steel shells that could be opened and closed at the end of the cable. The crane dumped each load in the coal bins on the dock. Besides the bins, there were also mountains of coal all over the place.
The crane could only do so much until there were a few feet of coal left at the bottom of the hold. The crew had to shovel the coal manually to the middle of the hold so that the grab-shovel could pick up a load. After a while that no longer worked and we had to shovel the coal by hand into the grabber… That was by far the worst! The work was not only physically demanding, but it was dirty, lots of coal dust, and in the summer with high humidity in the hold, it was almost impossible to do. The pay was good, at least in the eyes of us young boys, but most of us did not stay long. For the Captain and older crew it was not too bad, as long as they had enough younger boys willing to do the dirtiest work.”
Hello Eric,
ReplyDeleteI read your post on the Hanley Spur today. I have a long-term interest in the industries in the area as we lived in Frontenac Village for almost 20 years and have more recently known Henk Weavers. More importantly, I married into the Davis family and found your article to be interesting and accurate as far as it goes. I do have a few supplementary comments however.
I met your grandfather a couple of times after he retired when he sometimes drove my wife's grandfather H.W. Davis' Lincoln. I drove the Lincoln myself once on a trip to Watertown. We had a fun time at US customs as I could not figure out which button to push in order to lower the driver's window. The US customs man and everyone in the big car had a good laugh as the various windows went down and up until I found the correct one!
I have a copy of "Smoke on the Waterfront" myself but was not aware that there is a sequel. I will get it.
I have published two articles in Historic Kingston that have something to do with the inner harbour area. One was on the Queen City Oil Building that you describe under its later name as being owned by Imperial Oil and the other was on the Davis Tannery. I do not know if you have used either of them. I was initially responsible for moving the tannery's papers, including the RMC pollution report, into the Queen's Archives. Before that, they were poorly stored and were getting into bad condition. Family members knew that they had some importance but not too much, and had not got around to doing anything about them. As a historian, I had a different slant on them. I am glad that someone has actually used them!
I have a few comments on your excellent article.
(1) North Street was the location of the northern stockade that enclosed early 19th Century Kingston. West Street marks the same wall.
(2) Family lore has it that Harold Polson Davis (aka "HP") was in the UK at some point during the war as well as service in Canada. I have not seen his service record to confirm this. He was released from duty during the war at the request of his elderly relatives to come home and take over the tannery.
(3) Your wording about the end of the tannery is a little ambiguous. The plant actually closed in 1973 but the firm was not wound up until 1974.
(4) The tannery installed a sewage treatment plant of its own, I think in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I do not know exactly why, but it was not a success with one government department or another. Family lore has it that the largely inert chromium that the tannery passed into the marsh and river was helpful in dealing with the discharge from the Kingston dump just to the north, so that government departments were divided about whether the treatment plant should operate or not.
The tannery did leave some pollution behind on land, mostly unused hides. The vast majority of the tannery's pollution was not in land but rather, was chromium in the water. As you suggest, the chemicals left on land in the area largely came from the succession of lead smelters on what later became the eastern edge of the tannery property.
The tannery later bought that smelter land and that property has been associated with the tannery ever since.
(4) I am unsure about the board table you mention. My wife and I inherited a table that was jokingly referred to as the "board table" but as far as I know, it was actually a table where foremen met with management. The real board table was apparently a more formal one while the table we inherited was a little rough. We sold it when we moved into a retirement home last year.
(5) I very much admire your model work. I once had a housemate, Jim Scott, who later opened a store in Calgary called "Trains n'Such". He got me interested in the kind of thing that you do.
Best wishes in your future research! John Duerkop