Today my hometown Perrysburg, and its sister town of Maumee across the Maumee River, is a medium sized, middle class suburb of Toledo in Northwest Ohio. It is located about ten miles up the river from the lake, and is visited mostly by smaller motor or sailboats, which are prevented by the lower rapids from proceeding any further upstream. Few people who live there today would think of Perrysburg as being a major shipbuilding center, let alone a port. Yet in the early decades of the 19th century, the town was expected to become a major industrial center because of its location at the "head of navigation", the point on the river where boats could go no farther inland and where wagons and land traffic must pass to make the corner around Lake Erie. What stopped it from developing so was nature: a limestone shelf under the river a few miles downstream that prevented deeper-drafted vessels from making it upriver. During the days of schooners and the early steam sidewheelers, Perrysburg was not just a port town but the wide bottomlands below the town and thousands of acres of Black Swamp forests made it an ideal place for shipbuilding. As I've written in other posts, the pioneering Great Lakes sailors and sea captains were often local men who formed partnerships and built schooners to haul in passengers and goods from Buffalo, shipping out raw materials and farm products or furs. Perrysburg's main export in these early years was called "Ohio fur": bundles of white oak staves and heads for barrels piled high on the deck.
David Wilkeson came to Perrysburg from the Buffalo area shortly after the War of 1812. His uncle, a Captain James or Jacob Wilkeson, hired him on as a hand aboard the 25-ton schooner Black Snake in 1815, when he was about 15 years old. The tiny schooner brought the first band of refugees from Buffalo to resettle the Maumee Valley, and in turn took on Alman Gibbs and 40 soldiers who were the last garrison of Fort Meigs in May that year. (Gibbs soon returned, having married the daughter of settler Amos Spafford, and built a Greek revival house in what is now downtown Maumee). In 1817 while still a teenager he had assumed command of the schooner, and in 1818 was captain of the Pilot running between the Maumee River and Buffalo. Among his various sailing vessels were the 90-ton schooner Eagle, but in 1835 he launched the steamer Commodore Perry and sailed it as Captain and part owner for ten years. In 1845 he took command of the steamer Superior, and continued sailing until 1852 when he retired to his farm in Perrysburg. Even then, he took an active hand in seafaring life on the Maumee River, tending the lighthouse near Manhattan, Ohio on Maumee Bay (near modern Point Place).
While he made his career on Lake Erie, from an early age he had made Perryburg his home, and died there in 1873. Most of what we know about him comes from the personal recollections of a friend and fellow sailor named William Hodge, who published his memoir in 1883. Hodge, too, was a lifelong Erie sailor who lived at Buffalo, New York. As the terminus of the Erie Canal, and especially before ship canals were dug to bypass Niagara Falls, Buffalo was the gateway to the Great Lakes.
There are a lot of good stories in William Hodge's book, which you can read in its entirety here. I've transcribed a few below:
Late in the month of November, 1833, westerly winds had prevailed at this end of the lake for about a week. Buffalo Creek had become quite filled with sail vessels, so much so, in fact, that there was but a narrow passageway left, only wide enough to allow one vessel to pass up and down the channel. Captain Wilkeson's schooner, the Eagle, was one of the thirty or more thus in waiting. The docks along the creek at this time were not very extensive, nearly or quite all lying below the foot of Main street... I was to take passage on the Eagle for Perrysburg, and early that morning Captain Wilkeson kindly sent a sailor out to my father's house (about three miles), to notify me that the vessel was ready to start, and was only waiting for me. I immediately rode down to the dock in a sleigh and went aboard. The Eagle was then quickly gotten under way. Most of the vessels that had been in the harbor were already off in the lake, and some were out of sight. We were soon beyond the pier... When fairly in the lake, with all sails set, for the wind was favorable though light, Captain Wilkeson directed the men to try the pumps, and to his great surprise found water in the hold. He therefore concluded to lay his course for Dunkirk, and kept the pumps going. He soon found that the vessel took in water when on one tack, but not when on the other. He then ordered the mate, Frank Bushaw, to lower the small boat and examine the vessel's sides. While he was doing so, I leaned over the port railing, and discovered a hole near the water's edge which had evidently been made by the fluke of an anchor while we were in the jam of vessels in the harbor. The Captain then gave orders to "about ship" and return... A carpenter was sent for, who repaired the broken plank. We then again set forth and once more were in the lake... Night set in, the light breeze continuing all night and the next day, and until almost one o'clock in the morning, when it shifted to the west, and blew a gale. The mate who had charge of the deck called to the Captain who was below, and wanted to know what he should do, as he could make no headway. The Captain turned out in a moment, and stopping half way up the companion way, asked what was the vessel's position. Being told how far we were above Cleveland, he then asked, "Can you make the lee of the islands by laying your course across the lake?" The mate replied, "I don't know." The Captain told him to "try it." He did so; and in the morning, we got under the lee of Cunningham's Island, now called Kelley's Island. I had been lying still in my berth, wide awake, all this time, as the vessel had tossed very much; but about daylight beginning to feel sea-sick, I concluded to go on deck and take the air. I did so, but the effort was too much, I was compelled to go to the rail. I hung on with both hands, and after a few heaves and surges, both the vessel and myself felt easier, as we soon got into still water. We continued our course without stopping, until we arrived at Swan Creek, now Toledo. After discharging part of our cargo at the warehouse there, we sailed up the Maumee River to Perrysburg. In consequence of this terrible gale, the Eagle, though the last of all that fleet of vessels to leave port, and notwithstanding the delay on account of the leak, was the first to reach her intended destination, while many of those vessels were driven on shore, the Guerriere, which was also owned by Captain Wilkeson, being of this number; and several were totally wrecked.
After many years of captaining sailing vessels, Wilkeson contracted with F. N. Jones, a shipbuilder from Buffalo, to build a steamboat, the Commodore Perry, at Perrysburg for him. One of his shareholders, or part-owners of the ship was the Eagle's cook, an African-American man named Joseph Langford. According to Hodge, Langford's wife was one of "the most lady-like and stylish women in Perrysburg." He continued to serve as cook aboard the Commodore Perry. One day, after most of the passengers had eaten dinner and Langford was sitting down to eat his own, he was interrupted by a passenger who had been late for dinner. Seeing Langford eating, the passenger declared he would not eat with a person of color. Langford indignantly replied "I should like to know who has a better right to eat his dinner aboard that boat than one of the owners." In later years, according to a 2008 article I found, Joseph Langford lived in a house on Mulberry Street in Perrysburg and guided travelers on the Underground Railroad, using a fast pony by night to help them reach the Canadian border. Langford and his wife definitely deserve some more research.
Captain Wilkeson, who Hodge described as so punctual that he once cast off at the scheduled time of departure, even though he saw his own wife hurrying down the bank of the Maumee to catch the boat, even pioneered breaking the Lake Erie ice:
In those early days of lake commerce, in the spring, or late in the winter, just before the opening of navigation, every one seemed busy along the docks in fitting out both steam and sail vessels. Sometimes, however, these would be delayed in commencing their trips until quite late in the season on account of the "ice blockade." I presume there are many now living who remember the delay caused at Buffalo by the ice, in the spring of 1837. All the vessels in the harbor had been for several weeks ready to leave, but found it impossible to get out. Boats would go out to the line of the ice and make an attempt to break through, but their efforts were in vain. They would have to work themselves back out of the jam and return to their berths in the harbor. Vessels and steamboats from the west would be seen to come down to the edge of the floating ice, and after reconnoitering would return. In this state of affairs, when Captain Wilkeson with his steamboat Commodore Perry came down, it being his second trip from Perrysburg that spring, he determined not to be balked at a second time, and resolved to work his way through if possible, even though it broke all the buckets on the paddle-wheels, and cut through the planking of the boat. To resolve with him was to act. He plunged into the ice, and all hands exerted themselves with a will to force the boat through. After many hours of hard labor, and a general destruction of the buckets and some of the arms of the wheels, the Perry emerged from the ice-pack into clear water, and in a crippled state steamed slowly up the harbor... Captain Wilkeson was the hero of the day. Through the energy and confidence he had displayed in this emergency, as in others, he had succeeded, by breaking the blockade, in setting the many captives free, for the channel made through the ice by the Perry remained open, ,and within an hour several sail vessels had taken advantage of it, and before the sun went down were out beyond the ice. Others continued to follow, and there was no further obstruction. The Commodore Perry was thus the first boat which came in the spring, arriving the 16th day of May.
Throughout this time, his farm at Perrysburg didn't necessarily receive as much attention as his ships:
Some of his friends at home "ran him" pretty hard, at one time, about his paying so much attention and giving so much care to his steamboat, and neglecting his homestead. They said that he kept his boat in good repair, all painted up nice and fine, but neglected his premises at home; that his house looked dusty and brown, wanted painting and brushing up. So they offered to contribute and furnish the materials if he would have this renewing done. He answered them by saying he did not believe in this half-way charity giving, and when he did a person a favor he did not stop half way, but carried it out fully. "Now," said he, "if you furnish the paints and materials and two good workmen to put it on, I will consent that you may have the job."
All told, Captain Wilkeson sailed the schooners Black Snake, Pilot, Nancy Jane, President, Superior, Guerriere, and Eagle; and the sidewheel steamers Commodore Perry and Superior. Most of these were built at Perrysburg.
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