EPISODE 327 JAN. 1, 1993: THE DAY CZECHOLSLOVKIA DISAPPEARED…CEASED TO EXIST

EPISODE 327    JANUARY 1, 1993: BREAK UP OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA INTO CZECH AND SLOVAK REPUBLICS


EPISODE 327    JAN. 1, 1993  THE YEAR CZECHOSLOVAKIA DISAPPEARED…CEASED TO EXIST


alan skeoch
May 1, 2021


A STARTLING AND UNFORGETTABLE MARCH HOLIDAY WEEK….1993

“Mom and dad, why don’t you fly over here on the March School break?”
“Is it safe?”
“Perfectly safe.”
“We read that Czechoslovakia is splitting…sounds like Civil War.”
“No danger…the split is not violent.”
“What will happen to you?”
“Nothing, I will still be teaching English in Bratislava for $125 a month”
“Are you still sleeping the jail?”
“No…sharing an apartment in an Ex-Soviet building…only difference beween Canada 
and Slovakia that I see around here is that nobody smiles much..except the students…they
smile a lot…
“Nice kids?”
“Super….How would you  like to be guest teacher for a day in a Slovak High School?
“Love to, Kevine…We are coming…sounds exciting.”
“Good.  I will rent a Skoda…no one will know you are tourists.”
(now that was a laugh…Marjorie wore her bright pink coat…No one else  did.)

ON JANUARY 1, 1993 CZECHOSLOVAKIA SPLIT INTO TWO STATES…THE CZECH AND SLOVAK
REPUBLICS.   

Czechs and Slovaks did not really want to split   There were tensions between the two
groups.  Many Slovaks resented the Czech dominance and general affluence.   But the
resentment was not the kind that would lead to civil war.  Then why did the countries split?
That was what they asked each other.  The answer in simplified form is that the two political
leaders … a Czech and a Slovak.arranged the split even though it seemed to be against the
national will.

HOW DID OUR SON KEVIN BECOME AN ENGLISH TEACHER IN A SLOVAK HIGH SCHOOL?

He needed a job.  Kevin had jus graduated as a Canadian high school teacher but there were
no jobs in Canada.  At least he could not find a job.  But I am not sure he looked very hard.
He was ready to venture into the world.  Wanted to do something different.  Then he heard that
 the American School (an international school) was hiring teachers for the Slovak school system.
The wages were $125 a month…between $4 and $5 a day.  Money was not the incentive for Kevin.
Adventure was what he wanted.  Young and full of piss and vinegar as they say.

Eastern Europe was in a bit of turmoil.  The Berlin Wall had been pulled down. The Soviet
Union had collapsed.  Many of the Soviet Republics were looking to the West…to the United
States…for leadership.  The English language was seen as the key to fitting into the new
world order.  

Kevin was an English teacher.  Certified.  What a wonderful chance to be part of
something bigger than himself.  He applied for a job…was accepted…and took off almost
immediately for the new Slovak Republic which promised him free accommodation but did not 
mention the room would be in a former jail.   He travelled blind along with a bunch of American
newly certified teachers.

Then in March 1993, Marjorie and I joined Kevin for a wonderful winter week in a
place we had never heard of…the brand new Slovak Republic.   Kevin picked us up
in Vienna and drove us to Bratislava.  We passed a large Slovak nuclear Reactor  that the
Austrians felt was in danger of melt down.  That put a little extra tension into the visit.

The Austrians feared this Slovak nuclear reactor was not safe.  No provision for the 
retention of radioactive water in a containment pool was one of the reasons…I think.
  It was years later
that another Soviet reactor became world famous at a glance called Chernobbyl.



WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE IN THE NEW SLOVAK REPUBLIC?

COMPLICATED.  Best answer I can put forward.  Life was  grim for many.  Some Slovaks were happy.  Some Slovaks were unhappy.  

“Best not to smile when riding
the Busses, Dad.  Most Slovaks are having a tough time right now.  Not much to smile about.  Many still believe
that Marxism could have provided a Worker’s paradise. Problems happened when Joseph Stalin and Russian communism not took
hold of Eastern Europe. “
“Seems the bullets of World War II have pock-marked some of the buildings.”
“That war …1939 to 1945 …is still part of the Slovak consciousness.”


Why was this sign on this bridge in English?   

We went to church on Sunday and could not help to see the huge ruin of a burned our synagogue next door to the Roman Catholic cathedral.
That was chilling.  I wondered why the ghostly hulk was left standing.  Perhaps a symbol of the Soviet victory of Nazi fascism.   But I am
not sure why?   Then there was a bridge with a memorial place engraved in English…also a reminder of World war II.



Behind this overgrown scrub forest was a burned out synagogue as seen below.
A reminder of the anti semitic terror that swept through eastern Europe in the 1940’s





TEACHING HISTORY IN A SLOVAK HIGH SCHOOL

“We have a guest  today,” announced the principal as we wedged ourselves into the packed classroom.
“Welcome,”  And all the students…senior students in Grade 12…all of them immediately stood
up and welcomed Marjorie and me with bug smiles. That courtesy does not happen in Canada.

I do not remember what I taught on that cold March morning in 1993.  What I do remember, however, were the
warm smiles … the joy the students seemed to feel … the hope they shared, hope that the West would change 
their world.  The need to speak English.

Take a look at their faces.  They were 17 and 18 in 1993.  Today they would  be 45 and  46 with teen age children of their
own.  A really nice bunch of very typical high school students whose skills in English were very good.  Hopefully they can still smile the way they did in 1993.








Elementary school students







AT the back of the room, left to right, Marjorie Skeoch, VP, Kevin Skeoch, School Principal

Principal of the Slovak High School in 1993




We had quite a few adventures in our week.  Perhaps the most humourous was when
Marjorie got mugged by a group of five or six older women.  Likely Roma.  They surrounded her outside a Slovak coffee shop
where she lined up to go to a washroom.   Public WC’s were hard to find.
wile Kevin and i were paying the bill.  Suddenly, Kev, yelled.  “Mom is getting robbed out there.”
And sure enough the women were all around her in the line up which they used as cover.  Pushing…while looking
away….distracting Marjorie while one woman slipped her hand into Marjorie’s purse and grabbed  her wallet.  Only it was not
her wallet.  It was her glass case.  The women took off as Kevin arrived hollering like a stuck pig.  So the mugging turned into
an adventure where no one got hurt…and five women were sharing an empty glass case.  Another group of gypsy women
encircled me at the same time so Kev used back to save me.  I was in no danger…wallet tied down.

NEXT EPISODE ON SLOVAKIA WILL BE AMUSING IN PLACES…STARTLING IN OTHERS.
Difficult challenge:  See if you can find marjorie  in this slovakian crowd.

ALAN SKEOCH
MAY 1, 2021

POST SCRIPT:  FOR ANYONE WISHING TO KNOW WHY CZECHOSLOVAKIA BROKE INTO TWO PIECES IN 1993

BUSINESS & ECONOMY CZECH REPUBLIC POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL SLOVAKIA

Why did Czechoslovakia break up?

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC – Last Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Czechoslovakia… a country which ceased to exist a quarter of a century ago. Which begs the question: Why did Czechoslovakia actually break up?

On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia split into two independent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in what is now known as the “Velvet divorce” (in a reference to the Velvet revolution) due to its peaceful and negotiated nature. Both countries divided their common “goods” (embassies, military equipment, etc.) on a two-to-one ratio to reflect their populations. Although the dissolution didn’t lead to any unrest or bloodshed, the new frontiers did create a few odd situations, like splitting border-towns in half.

The split “was not entirely inevitable, but the political and economic costs of keeping the country together would have been extremely high”, pointed out Jiri Pehe, political analyst and former advisor to Vaclav Havel.

The division of Czechoslovakia: an undemocratic decision?

A widespread narrative argues that the divorce was a purely political move decided behind closed-doors by Czech and Slovak leaders Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar against the will of the population. There is some truth in that: all the opinion polls at that time showed that a vast majority of Czechs and Slovaks was in favour of the preservation of Czechoslovakia and against the country’s break-up.

In its January 1, 1993 edition, the New York Times wrote: “A multi-ethnic nation born at the end of World War I in the glow of pan-Slavic brotherhood, Czechoslovakia survived dismemberment by the Nazis and more than four decades of Communist rule only to fall apart after just three years of democracy”.

Although no referendum was ever held on the matter, democracy was indeed at the heart of the issue: all the problems associated with the federation of two states of unequal weight and size only appeared after the centralized, communist regime collapsed as Czechoslovakia reconnected with democracy. The decision-making paralysis and the federal government’s inability to push any significant reforms in the early 1990’s strongly contributed to the top-down decision of Klaus and Meciar.

Yet, the truth is slightly more complicated. Although most Czechs and Slovaks wanted to preserve Czechoslovakia, both sides yearned for a reformed, mutually incompatible version, founded on deeply-rooted historical grievances and frustrations. And while Slovak nationalism sentiment strived for more autonomy, Czech nationalism embraced Czechoslovakism, mainly due to their privileged position within the federation.

The “arrogant” Czechs

Slovaks didn’t completely adhere to the concept of Czechoslovakism, which they often saw as a patronizing and paternalist Czech policy ever since the foundation of the First Republic in 1918. “The majority of people in Slovakia really considered Czechoslovakia as their genuine home”, Juraj Marusiak from the Slovak Academy of Sciences pointed out.

But they wanted more autonomy, more control on their own decision-making and were weary of feeling that their fate was decided by bureaucrats in Prague (the federal capital) who looked down upon the less-developed Slovak “little brothers”. “Some Slovak demands – for example the modification in the name of the country – were ridiculed by the Czech media and understood as petty of Czech politicians, who did not appreciate the symbolism of such steps for the Slovaks”, Jiri Pehe highlighted.

Despite having largely benefited from economic assistance from the Czech side during their common life, “resentment of what some Slovaks saw as a distant, arrogant federal government in Prague, was skillfully fanned by Mr. Meciar, a former Communist who saw the reviving Slovak nationalism as his ticket to power”, wrote The New York Times.

The “ungrateful” Slovaks

Czechs, on the other hand, felt like they were paying out of their own pockets for the economic and regional development of the poorer (and seemingly ungrateful) neighbor. Although Slovak GDP per capita had already reached roughly three-quarters of the Czech figure in 1992, “the animus created on the Czech side by these payments (…) was exploitable by ambitious politicians”.

First and foremost, Vaclav Klaus, a liberal economist who wanted to bring the Czech Republic at the forefront of Europe’s liberal economic transformation and needed centralized power to launch sweeping and radical reforms. This explains why Klaus was not so keen on granting more autonomy to Slovakia and appeared, therefore, more than willing to get rid of the Slovak “burden”.

Moreover, many Czechs saw as a betrayal the fact that, in 1939, Slovakia formed its own autonomous state which, despite being a puppet regime of Nazi Germany, was separate from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, under direct Nazi occupation. On the other hand, this experience of statehood empowered part of the Slovak elite, which perceived the restoration of Czechoslovakia after the war as a “re-provincialization” of the country.

Similarly, many Czechs believed that their punishment and suffering were much greater than what the Slovak side experienced after the 1968 invasion – Gustav Husak, first secretary of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakia’s President and architect of the “normalization era”, came from Slovakia. czechoslovakia break up

The aftermath of the break-up of Czechoslovakia

After the split, both countries went their own way: “In the aftermath, M. Klaus pursued the rapid privatisations that made the Czech Republic an economic star of central Europe, but also created public resentment, as ex-communist insiders and foreign multinationals benefited disproportionately from the process”, wrote The Economist. “M. Meciar, meanwhile, tightened his grip and ruled as a semi-authoritarian strongman, slowing the progress of his country’s accession to the European Union and briefly making it a regional pariah, until he was democratically displaced in 1998”.

The demographics also significantly changed: while the Czech Republic became an ethnically homogeneous country, Slovakia was still home to a strong Hungarian minority (nearly 600.000) and Roma community (between 300.000 and 500.000).

The “Velvet divorce” has often been conjured to tackle contemporary separatist movements throughout Europe (Catalonia, Scotland, Brexit, etc.). “Policymakers wondering how a euro zone disintegration would play out could do worse than study one monetary union collapse that went well: the split of the Czech-Slovak currency union” in February 1993, even wrote Reutersczechoslovakia break up

Czech Republic and Slovakia go their separate ways: what’s the situation today?

Despite their break-up, the Czech Republic and Slovakia remain more closely linked than any other two countries in Europe. Although the dissolution was experienced as a defeat and a failure for many people, no one is seriously pleading for reunification. We should also point out that Czechs and Slovaks were separated throughout most of their history: their Czechoslovak “joint-venture” appears more as an exception than the rule. Even within the Habsburg Empire, Czechs were under the rule of Vienna, while Slovaks were governed from Hungary.

Their relationship to their common past remains highly asymmetrical and strained by long-running prejudices on both sides. While the aforementioned grievances have something to do with it, more current grievances (like the fact that the Czech Republic cunningly stole Czechoslovakia’s flag after the break-up) also play a role in the enduring stigmas on each side of the border.

Last week-end’s celebrations proved it well. While the Czech Republic celebrated the centenary of the foundation of Czechoslovakia in style and with great pomp, no event of such magnitude was held in Slovakia. October 28 is one of the major Czech public holidays to celebrate the independence and statehood… of a country that no longer exists.

In Slovakia, it’s only qualified as a “memorial day”. However, to mark the centenary, the country instead decided to implement a one-off public holiday on October 30 this year. January 1, meanwhile, despite being the official “independence” day for both states, fails to have any real significance today: partly because neither Slovakia nor the Czech Republic want to “celebrate” the 1993 dissolution, and partly because it’s overshadowed by New Year’s Day.






EPISODE 326 VERY LITTLE LIFE IN OUR 3 LARGE PONDS: WHAT IS HAPPENING?

EPISODE 326   VERY LITTLE LIFE IN OUR 3 LARGE PONDS: WHAT IS HAPPENING?


alan skeoch
april 2021



SOMETHING BAD IS HAPPENING TO OUR 3 FAR PONDS

SURE…WE ARE CONCERNED.  YOU SHOULD BE AS WELL.

It is hard for us to read about the importance of ponds..wetlands…in local ecology.  We know how
important wetlands are to all kinds of creatures.  And we have made sure our farm ponds are not
touched.  As a matter of fact these ponds are much larger than the days when my grandparents tried
to eke out a bare subsistence living on our 25 acre farm.  Today the ponds occupy about 7 to 8 acres
of the land.   No vile chemicals drain from local fields into the wetland.

But where has all the pond life gone?   We will never know that.   Perhaps a better questions is “Why has
pond life diminished catastrophically over the past three decades or longer.  There was a time when I was
a boy that the frog population was immense.  Hard to take a step on the pond margins without a hurricane of
frogs jumping helter skelter.   Today we have a few frogs…Leopards mostly…but we have to look for them
carefully.   With few frogs we have fewer snakes.   A decade ago garter snakes bred in the flower pots in the
green house. Today?  I have not seen one yet (April 29, 2021).

I wince every time a Great Blue Heron lands on our pond margins.  Seeking frogs.  We do  not have enough
to feed that interesting bird.  So the life of many creatures is now restricted leading to the die off that no one
notices.

Large creatures are still here but in reduced numbers.  We still have a home for a big snapping turtle.  Canada
geese return each year to raise a brood.  Sometimes their previous progeny join them and are hustled away by
the parents.  Five years ago we had a healthy population of painted turtles…20 or 30, all sizes…then suddenly
we found turtle carapaces in the farm field and today we only have a few living in the big pond.  Something happened to our turtle
breeding ground at the eastern end of the big pond which also happens to be the break point where drainage
flows to the Grand River (ultimately).  Our wetlands are the final height of land for the Grand River watershed.

Coyotes are here…and deer…and wild turkeys.  They seem fine.  Although all we see are their tracks and
the occasional fluffing noise as a turkey family shuffles out of view.

Small water life has  just about disappeared.  There are no leaches.  None?  There was a time when we
had so many that it was a concern.  Needed a supply of salt to get them off after a swim.
 Today none.  We still have dragon flies…that ancient survivor of life on earth…
but not as many.   Little bugs like water spiders and back swimmers are few in number if they even exist.
And honey bees seem OK but they are managed by humans.

My question?   Will pond life return.  Will the small creatures at the bottom of the food chain repopulate our
ponds naturally.  Or is climate change about to turn the world I knew upside down?

I think I will send this note to the Grand River Conservation people.   Maybe they have an answer.

alan skeoch

Post Script

Make a Pond for Wildlife

Ponds are places where cyanophytes still gleam with bubbles of pure oxygen, as they did two billion years ago. They are places where dragonflies still live as they did when they dominated the air 300 million years ago. Ponds are conservation in action.

Ponds are the whole world for many fascinating aquatic insects – whirligig beetles, backswimmers, water striders. They attract many of our favourite birds – swallows, flycatchers, wrens, ducks. But, they are a special boon to frogs. All Canadian frogs require clear water in which to breed – several require it year around.

Marshy ponds are the most valuable places of all to maintain biodiversity in most areas of Canada.


EPISODE 325 DEMOLITION OF THE TEXACO REFINERY IN 1985…NOW CALLED BRIGHTWATER …A NEW PORT CREDIT COMMUNITY 2021

EPISODE 325     DEMOLITION OF THE TEXACO REFINERY… IN 2021 CALLED BRIGHTWATER, A NEW PORT CREDIT COMMUNITY


alan skeoch
april 2021



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Picture of Port Credit Brick Yard in 1908

THE DEMOLITION DAY AT THE PORT CREDIT TEXACO REFINERY — YEAR 1985

1) Port Credit established 1834
2) Brick Yard on site for 40 years from 1889 tp 1929
(ceased making bricks in 1920,  land sat unused to 1929
3) Lloyd Refinery 1932 to 1937
4) Good Rich Refinery 1937 to 1946
5) Regent  Refinery to 1959
 6)   McColl Frontenac 1955
7) Texaco Refinery to 1959
8) Demolition  1985
(Soil polluted – expensive to reclaim…so  families of coyotes took residence)
10) Vacant Land 1985 to 2021
11) Brightwater Development 2021





6)


ALAN SKEOCH
DEMOLITION PHOTOS  1985

EPISODE 324 A DIRTY BUSINESS…OUT OF SIGHT: SEWERS IN TORONTO 1870 TO 1913



EPISODE 324     A DIRTY BUSINESS…OUT OF SIGHT:  SEWERS IN TORONTO   

  1. alan skeoch
    April 2021

    1910? - Davenport Road sewer, brick worktorontoguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/1910-Davenport-Road-sewer-brick-work-209×300.jpg 209w, torontoguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/1910-Davenport-Road-sewer-brick-work-265×381.jpg 265w” sizes=”(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px” apple-inline=”yes” id=”A3B6C0FB-EDF2-4218-A53B-FE59E9004392″ style=”caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;” src=”http://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/1910-Davenport-Road-sewer-brick-work.jpg”>

        
    Some readers will not like this Episode.   The information, however, is important
    We have come a long way since the back house was  a necessary fixture.  The story
    of Liverpool Andy and the Stonehooker fleet was written in Episode 323.  I thought
    there was a need for a little more proof as to the horrific sewage problem in Toronto harbour.

    Between 1870 and 1880  sewer construction was well underway in Toronto but 6,700 of the 11,000 homes visited by health 
    inspectors in  1885  still had outdoor privies….68%.  And of these 28% were full and 20% were rated foul.  

    Up until the sewer construction boom in the late 19th century the City of Toronto dumped all of its sewage into Lake Ontario from which
    the city drew most of its drinking water.  Officials in 1835 believed the huge size of Lake Ontario would dilute the sewage enough to minimize any
    pollution problem.   Not so.  The ‘dreadfjull smell’ along the Toronto lake shore got worse and  worse.  The Toronto island acted as a break wall and reduced
    current flow so that the Toronto harbour was quite still and the sewage built up.  In 1884 Mayor Boswell expressed his frustration with opposition to sewer 
    construction. “The sewage of this city is now assuming large proportions. Year after year new sewers are being erected. Where does all the filth from these sewers accumu- late? In the Bay of Toronto, of which you and I are so proud. Gentlemen, this cannot go on with safety, for our Bay will soon become a cess-pool…” Taxpayers did not
    want taxes increased os most resisted efforts to construct a sewer system.  Out of sight, out of mind.



    Beneath Woodfield Road

    Where the shape changes from balloon-shaped to round, beneath Gerrard St. E.

    Finally, on Tuesday, July 14, 1908, the qualified electorate of the City of Toronto approved a by-law for raising $2,400,000 towards the construction of intercepting sewers and a sewage disposal plant and $750,000 for the construction of a water filtration plant.55….For the first time in its 74-year existence, the City of Toronto would stop discharging raw sewage into Lake Ontario. Furthermore, water drawn from the lake for human consumption would be filtered. In 1891 Kivas Tully had estimated that 12 tons of un- treated solid matter were being deposited in the bay per day. In 1908, H. Rust, the City Engineer, reported that there was three to four feet of sludge on the bottom of the harbour.56 …However, even after the by-law was passed there were delays while a suitable site was located for the sewage treatment plant. …However, even after the by-law was passed there were delays while a suitable site was located for the sewage treatment plant. Work finally went ahead on the intercept- ing sewers, pumping stations and a treatment plant which were completed in 1913, sixty years after the idea was first mooted and over thirty-five years after the Council had begun to consider the plan seriously. By 1930, there were over 678 miles of sanitary sewer and 65 miles of storm and relief sewers and private drains were being installed as a matter of course from new buildings….Sewer gas is that rotten egg smell that is produced by the sewage system. It is the result of the decomposition of waste materials. The gasses are a mixture of methane, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other chemicals and they are more than “just unpleasant” to smell. Even at low levels, the gases can irritate your eyes, make you cough or produce dizziness. Higher levels are very serious and they can pose a serious health risk and in some cases they can cause fires or explosions.”

    This interesting and lengthy scandal is detailed in Catherine Brace, One Hundred and Twenty years of Sewerage – the Provision of Sewers in Toronto 1793-1913, (unpublished University of Toronto M.A. Thesis, 1993) 121-131.


EPISODE 324 THE HANCOCK FAMILY GIVE A FOREST OF RHODODDENDRONS TO THE CITY OF MISSISSAUGA…WORTH AVISIT

EPISODE 324    THE HANCOCK FAMILY GIVE A FOREST OF RODODENTRONS TO CITY OF MISSISSAUGA


Alan skeoch
April 2021

There is a forest in Mississauga that is just waiting to explode into full colour and not many
people even know it exists.   It was once a market garden specializing in rhododendrons …it
is now part of the Mississauga park system.

Marjorie took our dog Woody and I on a tour of the forest…before the main event.

When the blooms arrive we will go again…Before  and After.

WHERE?  CAMILLA ROAD…near Hurontario and  QEW….


EPISODE 323 SAD LIFE AND DEATH OF LIVERPOOL ANDY (AT THE THE JARVIS STREET SLIP WHERE STONEHOOKERS SOLD THEIR STONE IN 1900)

EPISODE 323    SAD LIFE AND DEATH OF LIVERPOOL ANDY (At The Jarvis Street slip where Stonehookers sold their stone)


alan skeoch
april 2021


POSTCARD - TORONTO - UNKNOWN LOCATION - CALLED BEACH AT POINT - WOMEN IN SURF - NOTES WAVES DRAWN -N  - c1910chuckmantorontonostalgia.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/postcard-toronto-unknown-location-called-beach-at-point-women-in-surf-notes-waves-drawn-n-c1910.jpg?w=150&h=97 150w, chuckmantorontonostalgia.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/postcard-toronto-unknown-location-called-beach-at-point-women-in-surf-notes-waves-drawn-n-c1910.jpg?w=300&h=193 300w, chuckmantorontonostalgia.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/postcard-toronto-unknown-location-called-beach-at-point-women-in-surf-notes-waves-drawn-n-c1910.jpg?w=768&h=495 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 966px) 100vw, 966px” style=”caret-color: rgb(17, 17, 17); color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-family: Georgia, “Times New Roman”, Times, serif; font-size: 1.6em; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;”>

TORONTO HARBOUR IN 1900 WAS REALLY AN OPEN SEWER … THE WATER WAS YELLOW BROWN…NOT
LIKE THIS PHOGRAPH.


201156-st-lawrence-1890s.jpg
Jarvis  Street, Toronto, 1890’s.   LOTS OF ANIMALS…IMMENSE MANURE PROBLEM


Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Nobody knows but Jesus


PICTURE: Taddle Creek…an open sewer.  The Jarvis Street sewer outlet was far worse…circa 1900

“TRUE”…ONE LITTLE WORD TRIGGERED THIS EPISODE…THE WORD ‘TRUE’

One little word.  “True”  Just that word standing alone at the end of Snider’s #47 Schooner Days series.  “True” given special status.   Why did Snider feel
he had to reinforce  his story #47 with the word “true” .   Almost seemed as if story 47 was true then all the others might be ‘untrue”.   Not so.  The reason
he gave the word  “true” special  status was because the story of Liverpool Andy is so hard to believe….and so tragic.

A question in my mind led  me to Liverpool Andy.  I wondered what it was like to try to sell a ’toise” of rock in Toronto harbour in 1900.
Were stonehookers g iven first class landing  rights…like loads  of strawberries
or peaches?  Or were the stonehookers treated miserably?  Then I remembered the return  loads of horse manure.  The return cargoes of horse manure were unlikely to be piled with the strawberries
at the  fancy market.  St. Lawrence Market was no place for stonehookers.  

The stonehookers were assigned the Jarvis Street slip which sat overtop the Jarvis street sewer outlet known better as the “West Market street dump”
Little wonder that stonehookers did not sing the praises of Toronto the Good.  The Jarvis Street slip was a vile smelling place to unload
stone.  If possible a stonehooker would head home as fast as possible.  In all the literature about stonehooking I have never seen one
word praising the Jarvis street slip.   The water was a yellowish brown just like the excrement that oozed out of
the sewer pipe beneath the stonehooker hull.  Even worse was the fact that Stonehookers whose bottom boards needed sealing because the oakum
had loosened were prone to fill the hold with the greasy shitty waste sewerage  as a  makeshift sealant.   The fact that stonehookers used this
says much about a stonehokers place in Canadian society  If the return load was to be horse manure then using such a
slurry would not be noticed.  Except by the human nose.

WO WAS LIVERPOOL ANDY?
THIS IS NOT LIVERPOOL ANDY.  THIS IS GEOREGE EVERETT GREEN, A BARNARDO BOY.  THEIR LIFE EXPERIENCES WERE SIMILAR.  TERRIBLE.


Canadian society was composed of  various classes of people.  One class looked down on the class below it and looked up with envy or
anger at the class above it.  Stonehookers were looked down upon by the commercial fishermen in Port Credit.  Local  farmers considered
stonehookers thieves even when some of the hookers of stone paid farmers for their stone piles from their fields or the slabs of blue shale
from their beaches.  Who could be lower than a stonehooker?

The roustabouts that hung around the Jarvis Street slip were damn close to the bottom of the Toronto class pyramid.  And among them
were the “Pummies”  who  were even lower.  Liverpool Andy was a “Pummy”.  He was English.  In the years before and after 1900 there
were hundreds…perhaps thousands of  children gathered  from the street of  English industrial cities by rescuers such as Dr. Barnardo.
The boys Dr. Barnardo sent to Canada were treated well by the Barnardo missionaries.   Homes were found  for them on farms
across Canada, in particular across Ontario.  These Home Children were looked down upon by many Canadians and some were
treated  dreadfully.  

A couple  of decades ago I researched  and wrote a manuscript about the horrific  treatment of one Barnardo boy
who was  used as  slave labour on a  desperate farm north of Owen Sound.  Near the Lake of Despond which says
it all.  I flew to Liverpool to look at the Barnardo records  The boy died of abuse but his case was never given much weight because a whispering campaign said 
“he was syphilitic”   The story of George Green would have  made very depressing reading.  I gave up on he
project after doing a couple of CBC radio stories.  .  

Liverpool Andy was not a Barnardo boy.  He was  lower than a Barnardo boy…he was  a “Pummy”, a child with no fixed
address…a  street person whose street  ended at the Jarvist Street slip where in 1900 the sewage sludge from the better people
of Toronto poured or oozed into the harbour.   

The boy was called  a Pummy because he was British but had  no money…no means of support.  An immigrant who was
a drain on regular employed society.  Terms of derision applied to people like Liverpool Andy  … words like Lemonhead
and Limey….and many others.  Prejudices prevailed.  The use of pommy or pummy was rather odd because he word was  short 
for pomegranate.  Makes no sense. Rather odd 

Liverpool Andy “might have been any age from 8 to 80 from the look of his face….it was  seamed with sores that were always healing but never healed.
His uncombed hair was scanty and  colourless.  His eyes were a faded blue.  His hands  were gnarled like an old man’s and his mouth was
slack as a child’s.”  (Snider, Schooner Days)  The description of Andy in Schooner Days (#47) paints the picture of a boy who is barely surviving in a society where
there was no safety net.  People like Andy either starved to death or found some way to stay alive. “The dockside loafers called him a Barnardo boy.
That was only because he was English and an orphan….He was a foundling who escaped from some parish paria-pen when he was eleven….stowed
away in a fruit ship bound for New  York.”

This was a terror trip because Liverpool Andy lived “in the dark hold with no water…he lived on green bananas for ten days, according to his story, and 
broke out in sores which scarred his face forever afterwards.  He reached Toronto by the blind baggage route (hidden on train). He stopped  off at the old  West Market
street slip (foot of Jarvis Street) because the train crew discovered him” and dumped him off the train there after a close call with death under a shunting
engine.”

Andy adjusted to the smelly West Market street dump” and even found a disgusting way to earn a bare living at the Jarvis Street sewer mouth. Occasionally he 
was  hired to help unload stonehooking schooners.  Otherwise he was engaged in “dock walloping and blind-stabbing”

Whoa down!  Dock walloping?…blind-stabbing!  Never heard of those words!  

“Dock-walloping was an open shop form of stevedoring … remunerated at the rate of  15 cents an hour or so much a toise —according to the state of the
market, the stonehooker skipper’s temper, and the state of sobriety of the labourer.” In other words a Dock Walloper was paid a pittance to unload the rocks
and stone slabs.  There was no union rate…there were no union members on the Jarvis Street slip when a stonehooker with patched 
sails docked.  But there were dock wallopers like Liverpool Andy who no one cared about or would ever care about.

Blind-stabbing was even worse.  A blind-stabber had to borrow a skiff, a rake or scoop, some tobacco and a match.   Then, using the rake, feel around the wharf in
hopes of finding a hard head (granite boulder) or flat piece of blue shale that had slipped from someone’s hands and fallen into the water while unloading..
Why tobacco and a match?   This was the Jarvis Street sewer outlet.  The smell was worse than a latrine full of diarrhea.   Being a blind stabber
could pay well…perhaps $2 a day if lucky.  Getting the stone from the muck below was no easy task.  The water was so foul that
the only way to find a rock was by probing for a solid lump in the ooze.  Then manhandling it to the skiff and then the dock.  This was life in the 1890’s 
when everyone was poor.  

Both of these jobs were only good in the months when ships could reach the stinking Jarvis Street pier.  Winter was quite another matter.  Remember there was 
no safety net…no free medical attention….no minimum wage.  No unemployment insurance.  No relief from starvation except the odd free breakfast once a week
at a mission whose ability to help was stretched beyond real help.  People did  starve on the Jarvis Street slip in winter time.  Liverpool Andy might earn 10 cents 
shovelling snow or holding a horse while its owner quaffed a beer uptown.  But most of his short life Liverpool Andy lived on the Jarvis Street wharf.

WHAT WAS TORONTO HARBOUR LIKE IN 1900?

Let me quote Snider.  If I use my own words you might think I have exaggerated.  “Toronto Bay at this time was  a cesspool.  A dozen sewers spewed their undigested 
contents into it raw.   The one at Jarvis Street was the ripest, rankest, foulest of them all.  When oakum, tar and tin patches all failed, the sickest stonehookers used to be
hauled into the Jarvis Street slip to let the sewer coat their gaping seams with scum that would keep the rest of Lake Ontario out.  For this reason the slip was nick-named  by the
hooker men ‘The Hospital’.  

Bubbling up with the watery excrement were the occasional blobs of grease.   Another  income earner for Liverpool Andy. He gathered the blobs of  grease 
and  sold them to candle makers and soap makers.   Where did this grease come from? Even today in 2021 thoughtless people dump excess grease from cooking
down their sinks.  This grease…tons of it…fouls sewers.  Causes sewer back ups in even the best of houses.  And when this happens  the smell can be unbearable.
In the 1890’s and early 1900’s the greasy chemical waste from homes and businesses all tumbled into Toronto Harbour.  Open sewer outlets were common along
the Harbour front.  Easily located by the smell and the appearance.  And The Don River was really one giant sewer.

False was the belief that tons of human excrement and grease and chemical waste would be broken up an dispersed in the open waters of Lake Ontario.  The foul
stuff never got that far.  When the Don River was re-chanelled into the Keating Channel the situation got even worse.  The Keating Channel forces the Don River
to make a hard right turn to reach Toronto Harbour.  That slows the River and allows  the river to dump the load  of crap it might be carrying.  The mouth of the
Don River clogs with waste of all kinds.  Even human bodies are found where the River makes that hard  right turn.  Seems insane.

Over time Toronto Harbour became clogged with sewer refuse and a dredge had to be used to clear the muck which was several feet thick.  This was not a
nice place in 1900.   It is better today but certainly not perfect.  Take a  look at the place where the DonRiver meets the Keating Channel and you will get what
I mean.

Toronto Sewer System - 1890? - Avenue Road sewer copytorontoguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/1890-Avenue-Road-sewer-copy-238×300.jpg 238w, torontoguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/1890-Avenue-Road-sewer-copy-302×381.jpg 302w” sizes=”(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px” apple-inline=”yes” id=”13AE0CB9-6BDE-4BAE-8A57-B856965210ED” src=”http://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/1890-Avenue-Road-sewer-copy.jpg”>
AVENUE ROAD SEWER 1890

MARITIME HISTORY OF THE GREAT LAKES
(TORONTO TLEGRAM, 1932,  Schooner Days story 48, By Snider)
SPRING was ever the season for rejoicing in Liverpool Andy’s breast. Grease collection fell off with the warming of the Bay water, but it was replaced as a means of livelihood by the occasional voyage as pummy in the newly outfitted hookers.
Up or down the lake shore, in the primeval fastnesses of Petticoat Creek, Goose Point, or the Rouge Mouth, he might be able to pot enough game for his favorite feed, blackbird pie; or corn beef and cabbage, his second choice, would put flesh on his winter starved ribs.
Or if he chose not to tempt the unsalted deep but stuck to the sunny side of the waterfront, there was the happy-go-lucky chance of a meal and money for “throwing them out” when the stone-hookers arrived, swimming scupper-deep with square edged blue-grey builders, or granite hardheads with the bottom-grass still dripping from them like drowned women’s hair.

One May like this, Liverpool went up the lake as pummy in the old Hyanwyde, which few lakesmen will remember. The grub was not bad and the raking was good, and Liverpool Andy’s only regret was that he had left behind his boon companion, Billy the Carpenter.
Guillaume Le Charpentier was this worthy’s real name, as recorded in Quebec, where he was born, but, like Liverpool, he had gone waterfront early in his career, and forgotten more than his Norman accent. He was no hand with tools, but all along the front he was called The Carpenter, even by those who did not know his first name was Billy.
The Carpenter missed Andy, too. They had shivered winter nights through together in slab cars and hay wagons, and had shared the proceeds of sewer grease and blind-stabbing. But when Billy had discovered a single “site” in the Hyanwyde, he had remembered that Andy had not had a square meal since the fall before, and declared loudly he was through with making fortunes for other people and would never lift a set-pole or hardhead-rake again.



DEATH  OF BILLY THE CARPENTER

Billy the Carpenter tacked down Jarvis street in the general direction of the Defiance by the light of the May moon. The hooker nuzzled the splayed piling which raggedly outlined the slip below the gurgling sewer mouth. The Carpenter reached for her rigging to swing himself, aboard. The rigging was not where he thought it was. He fell. His head struck something. The slip water closed over him. He did not come up. He made hardly more splash than the hideous gas-bubbles which belched up as the circles of filthy water widened in the moonlight.

LIVERPOOL ANDY: A FIVE CENT GERANIUM TOMBSTONE FOR BILLY THE CARPENTER

Liverpool shambled up dusty West Market street. The swing doors of the City Arms wafted an enticing aroma of beer and tobacco, but Liverpool, with his slack mouth watering, passed it by. He quaffed without enthusiasm at Morrison’s Bar, by which name Blake Mathews immortalized the market drinking fountain presented to the citizens of Toronto by Angus Morrison, Esq., M. P., in 1877, on the Queen’s Birthday, celebrating the second of his three terms as Mayor of Toronto. It stood on Front street then, near the public weigh scales; since moved a mile away, to the ferry wharves. Then he passed on to the flower stalls in St. Lawrence Market, which lay between the two streets. He emerged on Jarvis with a tiny terra-cotta pot in his gnarled young hands; in the pot, a geranium, flaming like a crimson torch amid its stout green brown-circled leaves.
He bore his prize back to the slip. One spile or mooring post, more upright than the rest, marked the vicinity of The Carpenter’s moon-lit disappearance. Like everything else around The Hospital, it was soft with reek and rot. There was a cavity in the top of it. Here Liverpool Andy planted his geranium pot; and on the spile he chalked: 
SACERD TO 
MEMRY OF 
BILle thE 
CARpnTR
He sailed back up the shore again next day in the Hyanwdye. To make two trips in succession in one hooker was a rare exhibition of industry on his part. With the skipper’s muzzle-loading shotgun he made great havoc among the blackbirds at the creek mouth, and much feasting on blackbird pie resulted.
It was night when they got back a week later, and again it was moonlight. Liverpool made some excuse about walking up the dock before turning in. He promised to be “right back.” But he did not turn in. Neither, did he turn up.
The Hyanwyde skipper waited for his pummy, but not long. He went to bed grumbling about young night hawks. Next morning he found Liverpool Andy’s body floating in the slip; below a rotting spile, from whose top a gay geranium greeted
the rising sun.
True”

The story of Liverpool Andy was so sad and disgusting as to be unbelievable to Snider.  So he added that one little word…”true”

alan skeoch
april 2021

END EPISODE  323

LATER I will write an episode that will show that the Toronto Harbour was disgusting in 1900 just as described here.

EPISODE 321 PORT CREDIT POST CARDS…FULL SIZE…HARBOUR, STONEHOOKER, ETC. FROM DAN BOWYER


EPISODE 323    THREE POST CARDS … OLD PORT CREDIT  HARBOUR…STONEHOOKING DAYS  1900 to 1920


alan skeoch

    april 2021


WHAT a wonderful surprise.  These three post cards leapt out at me when I opened Dan Boyer’s email.  I could
almost step into the pictures of old Port Credit in the days of the Stonehookers.   I must go down to the Credit River mouth
with my camera and  stand where this photographer must have stood.   Maybe Rob Leonard will beat me to it.

When would be a better time to live?  1900?  2021?  Our tendency to romanticize the past will come into question when
I get around to telling the story about Liverpool Andy…a waif whose short life as a teenager on Toronto docks illustrates
the horrors of  being poor and forgotten in the days  when there was no social safety net .  That story is coming…look for
“The short life of Liverpool Andy on the Toronto waterfront”.  Meanwhile enjoy these images of the past in Port Credit, Ontario
…and thank Dan
for taking the time to find them for us all.

Alan,

I was so touched by your latest article (ie. Episode 220: Stonehooking was  a brutal profession)..that I put down everything and dug out these postcards for you! Enjoy!

Dan😎🥍
~~~~~~~


courtesy of Dan Bowyer

alan skeoch

april 2021



EPISODE 322 GOOD NEWS: OUR FARM HOUSE IS JUST FINE (sent lest episode 321 is too depressing)

EPISODE 322     GOOD NEWS:  OUR FARM HOUSE IS JUST FINE (sent lest episode 321 is too depressing)


alan skeoch
april 2021

Sorry about episode 321…too bloody depressing.  So I am sending these pictures.  They cheer me up
whenever I am down.  I can almost see granddad Freeman out in the front tending his cedar hedge and then
checking the rhubarb patch behind the house in anticipation of another crop of rhubarb wine.  April is a nice
month in our lives.

Good times trump bad times.

alan

EPISODE 322 NO HORSES HERE ANYMORE: DEVELOPMENT LAND SOUTH EAST OF MILTON 2021


EPISODE 322    NO HORSES HERE ANYMORE: DEVELOPMENT LAND, SIXTH  LINE, SOUTH EAST OF MILTON, ONTARIO, APRIL 2021

alan skeoch
april 2021


A BIT depressing.  I know that.  Change is the only sure thing in life.  Maybe the pones and horses
have moved on to a better home where the barn is not in danger of collapse.  Yes, that must be
what happened.



When these Ontario barns were built I wonder if the builders expected them to 
be on site forever?

EPISODE 320 STONEHOOKING WAS A BRUTAL PROFESSION

EPISODE  320    STONEHOOKING WAS A BRUTAL PROFESSION


alan skeoch
april 2021

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Stonehooking was a brutal profession.   Today, now that the stonehookers are gone
and their ships are rotting hulks at the bottom of Lake Ontario or ground into sawdust or
charcoal by the passage of time and neglect, there is a tendency to romanticize what
was near the  bottom of occupations Canadians  chose in the 19th and early 20th century.
Just imagine spending your work day wading in water lifting slabs of stone with crowbar
and a hooked rake…piling the stone on a small flat bottomed scow…transferring tons
of stone to a schooner…sailing to Toronto three times a week with 9 to 18 tons of stone
…piling the stone on a rotting pier with raw sewage bubbling up…then getting $10 to $15
…and  sailing back to Port Credit with a return load of horse manure.  Toronto was a city
with thousands of horses on the streets in 1900.  

PORT CREDIT HARBOUR AROUND 1899-1905
(SOURCE Schooner Days 112, Nov. 4, 1933, Port Credit’ Stonehookers)

WHAT DID MOST STONEHOOKERS LOOK LIKE?

The scow model was used all over the Great Lakes, sometimes in vessels of considerable size, but Port Credit scows were a peculiar variant, and the best of them were so designed that they could carry their whole load on deck. This effected a great saving in handling of cargo.
One of the best examples of such a model was the scow Coronet, designed and built by Capt. John Miller, for many years lighthouse keeper at Port Credit. She was 53 feet long and 17 feet beam and four feet deep in the hold; drew 18 inches of water light, with her centerboard up; carried thirty tons of stone on deck, with nothing in the hold but stone-chips for ballast. She sailed and sailed well in this trim, although the load brought her deck within eight inches of the water amidships. She was about three feet higher at each end. Her rig was large, the mainboom projecting outboard for 17 feet, half its length. Her topmasts were long, over thirty feet, and her lower masts comparatively short, so that when she clewed up her topsails it was equivalent to reefing ordinary lower sails. She sank off Port Credit in 1899, when owned by a Bronte 

At the other extreme was the smaller schooner, Ann Brown, built in Toronto about 1836 and owned in Port Credit for a half century by Abram Block, senior, and, in turn, Abram Block, junior, Justice of the Peace, who died this summer in his 83rd year. The Ann Brown was not a scow nor a centreboarder. She was a surviving example of the old “standing keel.” She was 36 feet long and 11 feet beam and 6 feet deep in the hold. She drew 6 feet of water when loaded, and carried slightly over twenty tons of stone, most of it in the hold. Tiny as she was she had made voyages as far east as Kingston as as far west as Manitoulin Island, for she was built for the fur-trade with the Indians of the Georgian Bay. She was sailed for many years by Thomas Block, a brother of Abram Block, J.P., and survived until 1904. In her early days she had a square topsail and topgallantsail, although the yards for these sails were so short they could be used for pike-poles. 

HOW DID A STONEHOOKER GET ITS LOAD OF STONE?

The stonehooker usually anchored on the lake shore and collected a cargo by sending in a small flat scow, into which loads of stones were gathered from the beach itself or from the bottom, long rakes, with prong-like forks being used for the purpose. Some have thought that these hook-like rakes gave the name to the trade.

Stonehooking was very wet work, the men sometimes wading the shore waist-deep in water, quarrying the stone loose with crowbars, and lifting it on to the small scow, which was usually decked over and water-tight as a wooden bottle.

SMALL FLAT BOTTOMED  SCOWS — AND PARENT LARGER SCHOONERS AND SCOWS TO CARRY 9  TONS OF STONE

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When the scow was loaded it was poled or sculled out to the parent stonehooker, and its cargo transferred to her deck and hold. These small scows could carry about a third of a toise, or three tons deadweight. It took from ten to forty scowloads to give the stonehooker her full cargo. Gravel was loaded in the same way, except that it was shoveled from the beach to the deck of the scow, and not gathered with rakes.

The first vessels engaged in the trade were the small coasters, some scows and some schooner-built, which had been in the grain, lumber and cordwood trade while this was profitable for small vessels. It was soon found that the scows were particularly well fitted for carrying stone, and the specialized scow model resulted. 

WHY  WAS  SO MUCH STONE NEEDED?

Stonehooking flourished through the decades while great harbors were being constructed on Lake Ontario, and stone was needed to fill the timber cribs; and while cities were growing and needed building stone for walls, flat stones for sidewalks, cobble stones for pavements, and crushed stone for macadamized roadways

WHY WERE STONEHOOKERS SO  SECRETIVE ABOUT THEIR TRADE?




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It cannot be said that all stonehookers hailed from Port Credit, but all used that harbor, and many of them were owned there. Surprisingly few showed “of Port Credit” on their sterns; partly for the reason that the stonehookers were engaged in warfare with the lakeshore farmers, until the third or fourth generation. The farmers objected to the stone being carried from their beaches, over which they claimed riparian rights.

At one time what was called the “three-rod law” prevailed for the protection of beaches in Halton, Peel and York counties; stonehookers were not allowed to remove stone, sand or gravel from within three perches or 49 1/2 feet, of the water’s edge.
Conditions being such, stonehooker mariners had no great desire to display, for the convenience for prosecutors, the name of the port where they could be found. Many Port Credit stonehookers were registered in Toronto, and had “of Toronto” following their names on the sternboards. Others were “of Hamilton” or “of Oakville.” In some cases stonehookers actually built in Port Credit to appear on the marine registry as having been built in Toronto, where the registration was made.

HOW BIG WAS  A STONEHOOKERS CREW?

Stonehookers, even up to a hundred tons burden, were usually sailed by a crew of two; sometimes single-handed. Occasionally three or four went in vessel, especially in the early days, when wages were low. Profits were small then, for stone sold for $5 a toise, and three trips a week for a two-toise hooker, with her crew of two men, was considered very good work. On this account few steam vessels ever appeared in stonehooking; there were only three, the steam barge Chub of Bronte, the Gordon Jerry, a covered scow-brigantine from Port Dover, and the steam scow Maybird of Toronto

HOW WAS THE STONE CARGO PRICED?

As mentioned the stone  was sold at 5$ per ‘noise’ each of which weighed 9 tons.  Small stonehookers could carry two toise. Three trips a week for
a two person crew.   $30 a week or $15 per man.  Casual labourers might be taken to Toronto as well or hired where the ships were unloaded … 75 cents a day.

WHAT WAS COST OF LIVING IN 1900 AND THEN 1913 –

  • In 1900, shoppers could buy a 5-pound bag of flour for 12 cents. Round steak was 13 cents a pound, and bacon was a penny more. Eggs were 21 cents per dozen, milk sold for 14 cents per half gallon and butter cost 26 cents per pound.

    Between 1913 and 2021: Food experienced an average inflation rate of 3.11% per year. This rate of change indicates significant inflation. In other words, food costing $20 in the year 1913 would cost $546.95 in 2021 for an equivalent purchase.


THE CASH INCENTIVE: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN TERMS  OF LABOUR?

To earn $15 each man had to hoist 9 tons of stone from the Lake Ontario shore or shallow water.  Then transfer 9 tons of stone from the small skiffs to
the parent stonehooker.   Easier to load s scow which was deck loaded  than a schooner which was hold loaded.  Then unload the ship on the Toronto
dock ad piked in 9 ton units of stone…i.e. the Toise.  There were many larger stonehookers capable of carrying several noise of stone.

WAS PORT CREDIT HARBOUR AND SHIP BUILDING EXCLUSIEVELY FOR STONEHOOKERS?

While much  of the harbour was  used by stonehooers there were also commercial fishing boats and a ship building industry.
Besides the stonehookers mention, several larger sailing vessels were built and owned in Port Credit, such as the schooners Maggie Hunter, Minnie Blakely, Margaret, Caledonia, and the brigantine Credit Chief and British Queen

DANGEROUS TIMES: THE PINTA DISASTER


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The Pinta, commonly known as the “Pinty,” was a scow, built for S. H. Cotton at Port Nelson in 1869, She was 58 feet on deck, 14 feet 4 inches beam, and 4 feet 8 inches deep, … Her end was tragic. Coming down from Oakville one cold morning, with a nor’west wind hoofing her along, she tried to go about and stand in for the land off Marigold’s Point, the wind following its usual practice at that point by hauling to the north.

The Pinta had a big barndoor centreboard. The box was open slotted and came above the deck. The board was new and buoyant. It should have been ballasted until it was sufficiently waterlogged to sink of its own weight. When the snow squall struck the Pinta she luffed and got in irons, and as she lost way her board rose so high in the box that it caught the foreboom and would not let the foresail come over. That doomed her. A second puff caught her canvas aback and rolled her over. Men who were shingling a barn on Marigold’s Point saw her in trouble. She was blotted out by the snow flurry. When it disappeared she had disappeared too.
“She was loaded too deep, ” said Captain Block. “I guess her hatches just filled when she tried to go about.” All hands were lost, although one man managed to get into the scow towing astern. The offshore wind carried him across the lake and the scow was picked up on the beach at Winona, his frozen body jammed under the thwarts.
From Port Credit harbor, a tug was seen going up the lake in a futile attempt to render assistance. It was the Mixer, a Toronto boat owned by Frank Jackman. And Port Credit
sailors still curse the well meant action of the men on Marigold’s Point, who saw the disaster and hastened word to Toronto, when the schooner Morning Star, sound and almost new, with Abe Block and half a dozen others right there to handle her, lay at the dock in Port Credit ready to put out at a minute’s notice hours nearer the disaster in those pre-telephone times.
It was not until next day that word of the foundering of the “Pinty” reached Port Credit. The victims of the tragedy were William and Joseph Quinn of Oakville, brothers of the owner, Capt. James Quinn, and Bus Howell. Capt. Jas. Quinn and Capt. Mark Blow had left the Pinta some time before her fatal voyage. Oakville sailors had begged the younger mariners not to make a start, for the north wind threatened snow before they left.
Twenty years later, in 1902, the Wood Duck sailed over the sunken wreck of the Pinta off Marigold’s Point. Her fatal centreboard box was still discernible down in the clear green water amid the remains 

THE REINDEER WAS THE ‘SWEETHEART OF THE STONEHOOKERS”
(IMAGINE:  44 foot planks cut from local white pine trees)




But the Reindeer was the sweetheart of the stonehookers. She was not so when she was bought from Billy Bond, of Oakville, and brought to Port Credit, under the name Ida May, but she was rebuilt by Captain Mark Blower and Captain Block. She was “getting tender,” so they went over her from stem to stern.
When she entered the water again her sides had been widened, and she had a beautiful spoon bow and springy sheer that were not there before. The remarkable thing, however, was her new planking. Forty-four feet in length was the boat, and the planks ran all the way in one piece. Beautiful 44-foot lengths of clear pine they were. Captain Abe wanted to rechristen her “Buttress” on that account, but Captain Mark preferred Reindeer, and Reindeer it was.
The job of getting pine planks 44 feet in length can be imagined, but Captain Abe dismisses it casually. The operation, as explained by him, consisted of picking the tree you wanted, felling and trimming it, and hauling it to the slip. Then you hauled it upright with the aid of a three-legged derrick, marked it off into planks, and let brawny arms and a whipsaw do the rest, cutting clean from top to bottom. Clear planks 50 and 60 feet in length were not out of the way, says Captain Abe.
With the Olympia and the Coral, the Reindeer ended her days laid up in the Credits and after the Great War was finally broken up by order of the village council.





Alan Skeoch

Credit:  Snider,  Schooner Days, 48 and 112,  1933