Wooden Boats and Wooden Boxes: Recollections of the Great Lakes – Fall 1991
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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.
By Ernest L. Ellenberger
In 1883 a man named F. Smeed started a company to manufacture wooden boxes in a factory in Cleveland, Ohio at the corner of Fall and German Streets in the Flats.
In 1901 my grandfather, F. H. Ellenberger and his brother, A. W. Ellenberger bought the company and incorporated it under the name, The Smeed Box Company. Because of the reputation already established and the shortness of the name, Smeed was retained as the name.
Smeed Box Company Factory located at 1854-1878 Scranton Road. Image courtesy of Clehistory Instagram page.
A. W. Ellenberger owned The Worden Tool Company also located in the Flats. The brothers decided to put their enterprises under one roof. In 1906 they built the buildings, still located at 1854-1878 Scranton Road, almost next door to the Great Lakes Historical Society’s warehouse building.
The Smeed Box Company had as its trade mark “White Pine Boxes a Specialty”. Much of the lumber came from the pine forests in Michigan, but as the supply from this state began to dwindle, Canada would soon be the best source for pine lumber. The easiest way to get the lumber to Cleveland would be by lake transport.
With the entrance of the United States into WWI in 1917 the demand for wooden boxes boomed. Most all export shipments in those days required a wooden box or crate. One of Smeed’s customers, The Cleveland Provision Company, required a carload of boxes a day to package meat products for overseas shipment to the armed forces. Smeed was running twenty-four hours a day with one hundred people on payroll.
This meant that thousands of board feet of lumber were going through the saws daily, most of it coming from Canada by boat. To insure delivery of this quantity it was prudent to have some delivery control by having your own boat.
Other large users of lumber were of the same mind. The Cuyahoga Lumber Company formed the Lake Steamship Company and owned the steamer C.H. Starke, Potter-Teare Lumber Company formed the Potter Teare Transit Company and owned the steamer Mary A. McGregor. Saginaw Bay Transportation Company owned the schooner R. Bottsford. In April of 1917 The Smeed Box Company bought the schooner Thomas Gawn for $7,000. She had been cut down to a barge. The Gawn was 171′ x 31′ x 13-1/2′, gross tonnage 549. Her captain was Julius Lawrence and her cook, Annie, both of Marine City, Michigan. When making day-time transits of the St. Clair River both waved to their families on shore.
The Gawn was towed by various steamers throughout her barge life. On an upbound trip in August of 1920 she was being towed by the Mary McGregor which was loaded with salt. In Lake Huron the steamer stranded on a reef and burned. Captain Lawrence on the barge chopped the tow hawser, hoisted the canvas on the foremast and sailed into port. During the Twenties lumber continued to flow from Canada to the States by boat, much of it by barge. H. C. Inches ‘book, The Great Lakes Wooden Shipbuilding Era, has a picture of the Charles H. Bradley towing three barges at once. The same publication how the J. Watson Stephenson with a tremendous deck load. A steamer and a barge combined could carry a million board feet per trip. Sometimes upbound trips carried coal.
The crew never liked this because of the dust and dirt.
It is my understanding that the Gawn ended her life as a coal barge on the Detroit River.
Lumber schooner HALSTED. Image courtesy of Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library.
In 1923 The Smeed Box Company bought the schooner Halsted for $10 000. She was 171′ x 33′ x 12-1/2′, 496 gross tons. She was cut down to a barge and had five previous owner.
The Halsted luckily survived the big storm of 1913. She was seeking shelter in Washington Harbor. Winds were near hurricane force and a tremendous wave picked her up and deposited her on the beach. She stayed there all winter. In the spring a dredge cut a channel to free her and she sailed for twenty more years.
During the years Smeed Box owned the Halsted her captain was G.E. Forrest. His wife, Mary L. Forrest was active in the Cleveland political scene. In 1943 she was a member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
When brother Carl went up on the Halsted instead of assistant cook he signed on as able seaman. While sailing his watch was from 2 to 8 a.m. His duty when at the wheel was to keep the lantern on the foremast of the barge in line with the light on the stern mast of the teamer. Down bound with a deck load of lumber he said he had a three inch slot to look through to keep the boat on course.
In the Twenties, Cleveland barge owners were having difficulty getting teamer to tow their barge. The already formed Saginaw Transportation Company acquired additional investors including the Buckeye Box Company, Lake Shore Sawmill and Timber Company and Smeed Box Company. This move enabled Saginaw Transportation Company to purchase the steamer I. Watson Stephenson 172′ x 35′ x 11′ 9″, 639 gross tons. She sailed until 1935 and ended her 40 year service as a part of a break wall near the foot of East 40th Street, Cleveland.
By the 1930’s lumber hauling by boat was fast disappearing. In 1918 the Longshoreman’s Contract called for an unloading rate of 52¢ per 1,000 board feet of white pine lumber (5¢ less for the deck load). This would mean a 500,000 board feet load of lumber could be unloaded for $260.00 even though it was handled one board at a time.
Many changes were taking place in lumber handling method. It was steel-banded into bunk and a lift truck could unload a flat bed railway car in short order. An import duty was imposed on Canadian lumber as Ponderosa pine from Western states became readily available. The era of lumber hauling on the Great Lakes ended.
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