{"id":23909,"date":"2023-04-26T15:27:08","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T19:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=23909"},"modified":"2023-04-26T15:29:36","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T19:29:36","slug":"episode-807-death-of-the-stonehooker-pinta-and-her-crew-and-thought-of-shale-beneath-mississauga-shoreline-story-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=23909","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 807 DEATH OF THE STONEHOOKER PINTA AND HER CREW…AND THOUGHT OF SHALE BENEATH MISSISSAUGA SHORELINE, STORY 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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EPISODE 807    SAD FATE OF THE PINTA….A STONEHOOKER FOUNDERS OFF MERIGOLD POINT<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n

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\"Stone<\/picture><\/figure>\n

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Small stone slabs and large stone slabs artfully arranged.<\/div>\n

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<\/span>\"Stonemasons<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Stonemasons working on big slabs of stone.  THe slabs from Port Credit were much smaller \u2026they had to be lifted by hand<\/div>\n

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\"The\"The\"EPISODE<\/div>\n

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PART TWO OF “SPEECH THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN
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THE FATE OF THE PINTA, STONEHOOKER<\/div>\n

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Stonehooking was a dirty business and the income was marginal.   Stonehookers earned about $10 to $15 for a toise of stone slabs\u2026about<\/div>\n
the same size as a chord of wood but one hell of a lot heavier.  Just for the sake of readers that  are unfamiliar with stonehooking, let\u2019s pretend<\/div>\n
you are joining the crew of the \u201cPinty\u201d, a stonehooker whose wreck mayu still be found in deep water off Marigold Point where it foundered in 1882<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat is expected of me?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNever heard of stonehooking ?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo\u2026but I need money\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYou won\u2019t get rich stonehooking.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat am I to do?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201clift stone slabs \u2026 shale slabs\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhere are they found?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThree places\u2026Easiest slabs are in shallow water close to shore.<\/div>\n
Jump in the water and use an iron bar to loosen the slabs then dump them<\/div>\n
into the scow.   Then row out to the Pinta \u2026 pile them in  the hold or just pile them<\/div>\n
on the deck even though that makes the Pinta a little too top heavy unless we are careful.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYou said the slabs can be found in three places.\u201d\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThe other two places are more difficult.   Sometimes slabs can be<\/div>\n
found on  shore where the bedrock surfaces.   Easy to get the stone there but we often<\/div>\n
have to be sneaky about it.  Some farmers threaten with shotguns.The farmers hate us <\/div>\n
because the stone protects their farm land.<\/div>\n
When we get those slabs out the waves smash inland. Erode the land.   The graveyard west of Port Credit was<\/div>\n
undermined and coffins swept out to open water.  Or so I heard. Best to have someone climb the mast<\/div>\n
to ensure no farmer in sight then we rush in and grab the slabs in the scow.  \u201c<\/div>\n
\u201cSounds like fun. \u201c<\/div>\n
\u201cMay sound funny but not so.  The slabs are heavy and getting slabs from shore is now illegal but<\/div>\n
we do it anyway.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAnd the third way to get slabs? <\/div>\n
\u201cDeep water stonehooking.  Blind dragging with a stone rake.  Like fishing only a damnsite more<\/div>\n
difficult.  We drag a hook like thing that hooks slabs that we cannot see.  Then we have<\/div>\n
this \u2019stone rake\u2019 which gets under the invisible slab \u2026.loosens it\u2026then we lift it from <\/div>\n
the bedrock to the schooner or the small flat bottomed scow.  \u201c<\/div>\n
\u201cSounds tough.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cOne easy way to get slabs is by wading in shallow water.   Easy in summer but hell in<\/div>\n
the cold weather.  \u201c<\/div>\n
\u201cAre the slabs heavy?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cMost times they are.  Bigger the slab the better the \u2019noise\u201d\u2026.Buyers want lots of<\/div>\n
the big slabs \u201c<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cFor foundations .  Toronto is booming\u2026.need lots of slabs.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDirty work \u2026.to much lifting. \u201c<\/div>\n
\u201cHow many times?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cCount the times.  Imagine one slab.  First lift it from Lake Ontario into the scow\u2026.then from the <\/div>\n
scow to the schooner deck or hold\u2026.then from the schooner to the Totonto pier \u2026then, often<\/div>\n
from the pier to wagon haul by a tema of horses.   \u2026 get to hate that slab.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSail back to port Credit empty\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHard to sail a schooner the it\u2019s empty so we fill the hold for the return trip\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cFill it with?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHorse manure.  Toronto streets and berms are full pop horse manure\u2026.thousands of horses.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cI wondered why the \u201cPinty\u201d smelled odd?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cPort Credit farmers want horse manure.  Smells better than pig manure.  Actually I like<\/div>\n
the smell.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cManure is easier on the schooner than slabs of shale.   Thos slabs crack the wooden deck<\/div>\n
and do great damage in he hold.   That\u2019s why so many stonehookers look like they are on<\/div>\n
their last legs.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cEasy to see a stonehooker from a distance?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHow?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThe sails are paired so often that it\u2019s hard to find a piece of original canvas.  Mended<\/div>\n
often.   Not a pretty sight.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy wold a schooner owner do stonehooking then?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDespertation.   No other way to make a living.   Lots of schooners available cheap\u2026some<\/div>\n
beautiful schooners end up as bedraggled stonehookers.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThe schooners are obsolete.  The age of sail is over.   Internal combustion engines have taken over.  Moe=re reliable<\/div>\n
than sailing.<\/div>\n
\u201cEnough talk \u2026 now get to work lifting slabs.  Take off your shirt and shoes.  Here\u2019s a crowbar.<\/div>\n
You can take your pans of as well if you wish.  We need to get a shipload today.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWere you joking about the coffins?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNope.\u201d<\/div>\n

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(Alan Skeoch, imaginary conversation between an apprentice stonehooker and an old hand.<\/div>\n
Aboard the Pinty on that fateful day the ship went down.  All hands drowned or froze to death.}<\/div>\n

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Foundation of 19th century house built of field stone rather than blue shale.<\/p><\/div>\n


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THE SINKING OF THE PINTY IN 1882 \u2014 ALL CREW DROWNED EXCEPT ONE MAN WHO FROZE TO DEATH<\/div>\n
(article below was from Schooner Days)<\/div>\n

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The Pinta, commonly known as the \u201cPinty,\u201d 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, \u2026 Her end was tragic. Coming down from Oakville one cold morning, with a nor\u2019west wind hoofing her along, she tried to go about and stand in for the land off Marigold\u2019s Point, the wind following its usual practice at that point by hauling to the north.<\/font><\/div>\n

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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\u2019s Point saw her in trouble. She was blotted out by the snow flurry. When it disappeared she had disappeared too.<\/font><\/div>\n
\u201cShe was loaded too deep, \u201d said Captain Block. \u201cI guess her hatches just filled when she tried to go about.\u201d 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.<\/font><\/div>\n
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<\/font><\/div>\n
sailors still curse the well meant action of the men on Marigold\u2019s 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\u2019s notice hours nearer the disaster in those pre-telephone times.<\/font><\/div>\n
It was not until next day that word of the foundering of the \u201cPinty\u201d 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.<\/font><\/div>\n
Twenty years later, in 1902, the Wood Duck sailed over the sunken wreck of the Pinta off Marigold\u2019s Point. Her fatal centreboard box was still discernible down in the clear green water amid the remains <\/font><\/div>\n

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EPISODE 807    SAD FATE OF THE PINTA….A STONEHOOKER FOUNDERS OFF MERIGOLD POINT alan skeoch Small stone slabs and large stone slabs artfully arranged. Stonemasons working on big slabs of stone.  THe slabs from Port Credit were much smaller \u2026they had to be lifted by hand PART TWO OF “SPEECH THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN THE […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}