The Jean R. as she appeared following her trials at the yard of the Leathem D. Smith Dock Company at Sturgeon Bay, August 1930. In the background to the left can be seen the masts of the schooner Lucia A. Simpson 140097, built at Manitowoc in 1875. Pushed into the shoalwater and abandoned off the docks of the Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding & Drydock Company the year before, she was lost in the conflagration that hit that facility in 1935. William Lafferty Collection.
Introduction
In my youth, spending part of the summer on the beach north of Ludington, Michigan, one always knew when dinner time beckoned, since it was that point of the late afternoon when the fish tug John B. Cloutier 235276 would chug by offshore from her fishing grounds northwest of Big Point Sable, heading for the Ludington harbor entrance and her berth next to the fish sheds where the channel met Pere Marquette Lake, about a quarter mile east of the Coast Guard station. The vessel, painted orange and black, always intrigued me, this despite my allergic reaction to seafood and a general antipathy toward fish in general. Even at a young age, I’m sure my fascination with the Cloutier and other fish tugs I encountered sprang from some vague realization that these vessels represented a truly unique manifestation of homespun, indigenous naval architecture, vessels conceived and built by generations of men who fished the lake and for whom experience was the guiding light in the boats’ design (a design often as not solely within the minds’ eyes of their builders rather than initially actualized upon a drawing or blueprint). This fascination endures today, and I cannot help but think that these vessels represent a woefully overlooked aspect of Great Lakes maritime history, an absence I hope this issue of Lake Michigan Maritime Marginalia may help, in small measure, to address. This issue focuses upon the Jean R., a fish tug that was simultaneously the apex of fish tug design on Lake Michigan, advancing the overall fish boat design paradigm that had evolved over the past thirty years and using the fairly new process of electrical welding in her construction, and an anachronism, as well, being, as far as I can tell, the last such fish tug, at least on the American side, equipped with a steam engine, a mode of propulsion that had found steady disfavor with lake fishermen throughout the decade before the vessel’s building. The history of the Jean R. that follows is, I feel confident to say, the most comprehensive ever published of a Great Lakes fishing boat, following her career from her conception at the Leathem D. Smith Dock Company yard, to her near-demise in March 1934, her subsequent rebuilding, her career on four of the five Great Lakes, and her current status, a state shrouded in some mystery, as we shall see.
Prototype to Paragon: The Evolution of the Lake Michigan Gill Net Fish Tug
I think it appropriate to spend some time discussing the evolution of the fish tug. This discussion focuses upon Lake Michigan, but the experiences upon the other four lakes are, I am sure, quite similar. As is well known, commercial fishing began on Lake Michigan using derivations of the famous Mackinaw boat, generally a double-ended gaff-rigged sailboat with one or, more likely in its fishing configuration, two masts. Naturally, such craft were subject to the vagaries of sea and weather encountered by all wind-propelled vessels, making commercial fishing an arduous and risky undertaking, mightily dependent upon the whims of the weather, and as such limited to primarily the months of the typical lake navigation season (although some hardy crews ventured out until ice made their sailing impossible). Some of these craft endured well into the 1920s, but as the demand for freshwater fish to feed burgeoning populations along the lake’s shore escalated, it became clear that powered vessels could more efficaciously and efficiently harvest the lake. It may be apocryphal, but supposedly the first steam-powered vessel built on Lake Michigan expressly for fishing was the Kitty Gaylord, constructed at Washington Island in the 1880s by the O’Neill brothers, who would later become a prominent family in commercial fishing out of Beaver Island and Charlevoix. At about the same time, existing steam vessels on Lake Michigan were being shunted from their typical service for use as fishing boats. For example, in November 1882 the Cross brothers of Charlevoix rented for $35 a week the small steamer M. W. Wright , a former Detroit River ferry and at that time a passenger boat on Pine Lake and Little Traverse Bay, to service a hundred nets in winter fishing off Charlevoix; in the warmer months, the Cross brothers, whose descendants still run a fish house at Charlevoix, ran a sail outfit. For decades afterwards, steam fish tugs were built following the paradigm established by the Kitty Gaylord, that of a typical lake tug boat of the era, a vessel the design of which was ideally suited to the demands of fishing, with one deck relatively clear for the labor of spreading or lifting nets and to store boxes of caught fish, with a prominent pilothouse and small aftercabin that sat above the boat’s engine and boiler. Hence, one assumes, the moniker "fish tug." A classic example is shown in Figure 1, the Vera 161621, built at Ludington in 1886 by Louis Larsen. Her form follows that of the classic tug, but, clearly, the background of the photographs, with fish shacks and net drying frames, belies her true service, as a gill net steam tug, a trade she plied her entire life.
The Prototypical Steam Fish Tug: The Vera
Figure 1. The Vera, shown at Kenosha, Wisconsin, around 1900. Obviously, virtually nothing exists in her appearance to distinguish her from the typical steam towing tug of the day, except the photograph's background filled with net-drying racks and fish sheds, belying her service as a fish tug throughout her existence. She operated out of Ludington and Kenosha, until her machinery was removed and her remnants burned for residual scrap metal at Manitowoc in 1900. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Robert Grunst.
However, the open decks of vessels like the Vera subjected their crews to the harsh wind, numbing temperatures, and boisterous seas of the lake, especially so towards the turn-of-the-century when the fishing season began to be extended into the winter and would begin again early in the spring, making the men’s chores both uncomfortable and dangerous. Figure 2 shows an initial response to that situation: If one looks closely, one sees that the perimeter of the hull rail of the Petoskey fish tug Clara Belle is ringed with slender steel stanchions. These stanchions supported canvas that could be strung around the deck, providing a wind- and sea-break for the men setting and taking in nets on deck, an innovation that began around 1890.
An Initial Response to the Elements: The Clara Belle
Figure 2. The working area of the Clara Belle is ringed with stanchions of about six feet in height to support canvas to shield her crew from the wind and seas while they work nets. The Clara Belle began life as a sweet little passenger steamer for Hannah, Lay & Company, intended to bring potential customers from around Traverse Bay to the firm's large store at Traverse City and transport its goods about the bay. After running on Pine Lake, today's Lake Charlevoix, she was leased to Petoskey's Connable Fish Company, and fished in her passenger configuration until 1892, when Connable bought her outright and reduced her to the form shown above. She ended her days fishing out of Alpena for famed lakes entrepreneur Frank Gilchrist until abandoned there in 1910. William Lafferty Collection.
A more profound innovation, pursued for the same reason as had been the stanchions, is manifest in Figure 3. Clearly, the Comet 127361 prefigures the modern fish tug: Her stem and stern have been completely enclosed by wooden superstructure intended to protect her net-handling crew from the elements, her forward part the ubiquitous "turtle shell" shape hat would come to distinguish Great Lakes fish tugs. The gangway forward could be opened while nets were being retrieved, while a stern gangway accommodated the nets’ setting. Additionally, the sheltered deck provided an area where freshly caught fish could be dressed and boxed. Meanwhile, though, her original configuration, as a towing tug built at Buffalo in 1899, is still plainly evident by the silhouette of her pilothouse and after cabin.
A More Substantial Variation: The "Turtleback" Look of the Comet
Figure 4. The hull form of the Venus, with its pleasant and pronounced sheer and counter stern, is unmistakably that of the classic lake towing tug, but her seamlessly integrated superstructure graphically illustrates the trend toward complete enclosure of the vessel's deck, allowing a protected working environment for the crew. Indeed, her substantial construction allowed her to make the run to Beaver Island from Charlevoix with mail during the winter months when that service's James E. Sanford 222290 [a USEC Hancock] was laid up for the season. William Lafferty Collection.It did not take long for these structural ameliorations to existing vessels to be integrated into the construction of new fish tugs. An excellent example is shown in Figure 4. The large steam gill net fish tug Venus appeared in 1923, built at St. James on Beaver Island by James McCann for his own use. By now, protection from the elements had become an integral aspect of the vessel’s original conception: Clearly, her superstructure and hull are, for lack of a better term, "organic," no longer the appendage or afterthought we see with the Comet. Meanwhile, steam powered lifting nets had long become standard, as had steam or hydraulic assisted steering, while steel fish tugs, starting with the C. J. Bos 127309 [b I. J. Lyons], built in 1898 by the famous Johnston Brothers yard at Ferrysburg, would become increasingly more prevalent (although wooden fish tugs would continue to be built on the lake well into the 1950s).
A Prescient Example of the Modern Fish Tug: The Venus
Finally, I offer in Figure 5 a glimpse at what must be the absolute zenith of fish tug construction and design on Lake Michigan in my opinion, the Milwaukee-based Jolene 248708, built by Burger Boat Company at Manitowoc (the lake’s pre-eminent builder of fish tugs, although Sturgeon Bay’s now-defunct Peterson Boat Works would probably have disputed that claim). Though it has gone through several minor rebuilds since the days I saw her churning down the North Branch of the Chicago River when I was a kid, her graceful but purposeful hull, all welded, and fully integrated superstructure, enhanced by the sleek radar mast amidships (a design element borrowed from contemporary motor yacht design), epitomizes for me, even considering her fifty-four years plying Lake Michigan, the contemporary fish tug, Diesel-propelled and containing electronic navigational and fishfinding aids that could not be imagined while the Jean R. was abuilding.
A "Paragon" of a Modern Gill Net Fish Tug: The Jolene
Figure 5. The lovely Jolene, hauled out at Milwaukee in 1992, and still operating today for the Paragon Fish Corporation, a wholly appropriate name in my estimation since she represents for me the virtual paragon of the modern fish tug. Her lovely lines are enhanced by a spiffy paint job, shown in this rare view of a fish tug dry. ©William Lafferty photograph.
An Aside: The Appearance of the Gas Boat
After about the turn-of-the-century, Lake Michigan fishermen began experimenting with naphtha power plants as a cheaper and more efficacious alternative to standard steam propulsion. Naphtha launches in the 1890s had rather quickly replaced steam launches as the self-propelled pleasure boat of choice among the nation's weekend commodores, since they were relatively easy to operate and, perhaps most important, they avoided the cumbersome and messy chore of feeding coal to a boiler. Also, after 1878, the amateur who operated a naphtha launch need not be a licensed engineer, as he would have to be according to a Treasury Department order promulgated that year specifying that all steam launches must be operated by such professional folk. A common misconception, though, is that the naphtha launch was an internal combustion engine: It was not. In essence, it was a steam engine, except it used boiled gasoline ("naphtha") to create a vapor to influence the engine's piston, rather than steam. Although thermodynamically a more efficient engine, boiling naphtha to generate motive power was, as one might well imagine, dangerous: The turn-of-the-century was marked by particularly gruesome disasters involving naphtha launch conflagrations, involving both pleasure and work boats.
An Early "Gas" Boat: The Roughrider
Figure 6. The proud owners of the newly-built gas fish tug Roughrider 203482 pose atop its deck and house in 1907 within the harbor at Two Rivers, Wisconsin, home of, perhaps, Lake Michigan's most flourishing fishing harbor at the time and of the Kahlenberg Brothers who would revolutionize internal combustion power plants within the lakes fisheries and the workboat world in general. Most gas boats were of this type, diminutive but with hulls that followed the form of their larger steam-driven counterparts, with a rudimentary deck house that provided shelter from the elements and served as pilothouse, as well. William Lafferty Collection.
With the radical improvement of internal combustion engines after 1900 spurred by the public's burgeoning interest in the automobile, these engines, adapted for marine use, rapidly supplanted naphtha engines in both pleasure and workboat applications. Lake fishermen quickly adopted these new power plants, especially after 1910 or so: With no need for a boiler or coal bunkers, these engines' small size and ease of operation, compared to the typical steam installation, enabled fishermen to construct more modest powered fish tugs in the thirty feet length range, leading to a proliferation of this type over the next decades. The Lake Michigan fishing industry spawned a major presence in the manufacture of marine engines when the Kahlenberg Brothers firm of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, a leading fishing port, united Rudolf Diesel's theories with the best contemporary practice in internal combustion design to produce relatively inexpensive, small, but durable marine engines for the fishing and workboat trades nationwide, engines that in many cases far outlived the boats in which they were initially installed. It's definitely ironic that by the time the steam-powered Jean R. first hit the water in the summer of 1930, the gas fish tug had already achieved supremacy.
A Bevy of Gas Boats: Leland in the 1940s
Figure 7. Typical gas boats at Leland, Michigan, in the 1940s: From left to right the Etta 229099, Ace 227970, Helen S. 227046, and Nu Deal 234841, all built at Leland, the first three before the Jean R. William Lafferty Collection.
Requiescat in pace
An August morning at Milwaukee in 1993, already hot and sultry: The Linda E. rests at her dock, with the D &S and Dawn shown at the right. On 11 December 1998, she sailed from this spot into unseasonably perfect weather on a chub run, bound for Port Washington. She and her three man crew were never seen again. ©William Lafferty Photograph.
©1999, William Lafferty
