Boat’s 90th birthday bash a chance to reunite friends and family on Lime Island 8/25 - Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. – It’s pretty unusual for a boat to have a 90th birthday party, but then the Gerald D. Neville is a pretty unusual boat. The party – hosted by Dennis Dougherty and his wife Mary Ann of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan – was held dockside at Lime Island on August 1, and was attended by around 30 people, including representatives of all three major eras of the boat’s history. There was even a birthday cake. A homemade banner on the boat displayed the two other names the vessel has had over the years – Tobermory II and Champion. “As the 90th year of the ship approached, I thought it would be nice to get the people together, especially, the senior generation, who have had a connection with the ships history, explained Dougherty. “Lime Island seemed like the place where most had a direct or indirect connection.” Besides Dougherty and his family (the current era), the guest list included Audrey (Chown) LeLievre and her brother John (Jack) Chown, who grew up on Lime Island as the daughter and son of island settlers William and Margaret (McLeod) Chown in the 1920s. Also on board were descendants of 1930s Champion skipper Ed Putzke (his granddaughters Barb Scholz and Doris Keating and her 10-year-old grandson, David) and several members of the Osmar family, who visited the area in summers gone by. Finally, Fred Miller, great-great grandson of Commodore Frederick William Wakefield, the Ohio industrialist who had the boat built in 1924, was present, completing the link back to the vessel’s original owner. “I never thought I’d see the boat. I’ve only seen photos,” Miller said, as he stood on the dock with Dougherty and recalled the vessel’s early history. Wakefield spent his summers in Tobermory, Ontario, said Miller, and lived during the year in a lakefront mansion at Vermilion, Ohio, which until recently was the home of the Great Lakes Historical Society. Knowing that the two worst enemies of a boat were fire and rot, Miller said his great-great grandfather – an accomplished yachtsman and founder of the Wakefield Electric Company – set out to construct a vessel that would withstand both. On May 21, 1924, the 50 by 13-foot-long, galvanized steel yacht Tobermory II was launched at Erie, Pennsylvania, by a boatbuilder named Ed Crossley. That summer, the vessel sailed Lake Huron and Georgian Bay with Wakefield at the helm and his family on board. In September 1924, Wakefield steered his yacht south to Florida, where it was based for the next decade. In June 1935, after Wakefield’s death and as the country was reeling from the effects of the Great Depression, the Tobermory II – with Wakefield’s son George at the helm – returned to the Great Lakes and to its Vermilion, Ohio, home port. In 1935, the Wakefield’s yacht was sold to the Pittsburgh Coal Co, which operated a vessel refueling dock at Lime Island, Michigan. Renamed Champion, it served as a tug and ferry among the river islands of Lake Huron, including Lime Island, first with Ed Putzke and later with Jerry Neville, a seasoned pilot and survivor of the 1939 Badger State shipwreck, at the helm. It was the island residents’ only link to the mainland. In 1952 Neville invited his four-year-old grandson Denny Dougherty to ride with him on the three-mile-run from Raber, Michigan, to Lime Island. Dougherty would play an important part in the vessel’s future in the years to come. In September 1953, the Champion was sold to Soo Locks-area contractor Herb Peterman. In the late 1950s, the vessel was abandoned on Peterman’s property, on the mainland side of the St. Marys River just west of what is now Sault Ste. Marie’s Harvey Marina. Forgotten, she lay on her side, half submerged and rusting away, until 1978. “Over the years, it sank and slid into the drop off in about six or seven feet of water,” Dougherty said. “I saw it there, and I though it could be saved.” Dougherty, who had returned to Sault Ste. Marie after a stint in the U.S. Army and was teaching school, bought the Champion on July 24, 1978 from Terry Haviland and Steve Hillman for $800. They bought it from Peterman for $1,500 a few years earlier. He also bought the property and an old shack that was on the site. “When I inspected the partially submerged hull with my scuba gear inside and out I was amazed – all the ribs and majority of the galvanized lower plated hull were in good shape,” said Dougherty. “Two decades of ice action created pinholes near the water line – those plates were replaced. The iron window frames were rusting and the effect looked worse than it was – it kinda gave it that shipwreck look.” Dougherty refloated the boat, and spent the next three years hoisting it onto the riverbank, replating the hull with ¼-inch steel and otherwise refurbishing the vessel. The old diesel was removed and the engine from the fish tug W.R. Busch was installed. While he was working on the boat, Dougherty also took and passed the U.S. Coast Guard exam to pilot a vessel of the Champion’s size, married Mary Ann and built a home on the property. The vessel was rechristened Gerald D. Neville on Aug. 15, 1981, in honor of the grandfather who had given young Dougherty a ride so many years earlier. Sadly, Jerry Neville passed two years before the rechristening. At first, Dougherty recalled, his “Gramps” thought his grandson was crazy for taking on the project, but soon came around to the idea. “He never did see it go back in the water, but he knew I was saving it,” he said. Dougherty ran shipwreck diving and island cruise charters for about 12 years with the Neville before he decided to focus on using it as his family camping boat among the islands and bays of the St. Marys River and Whitefish Bay. More sturdy than stylish, painted a workmanlike black and white to define it’s no-nonsense lines, the Neville still holds its own next to the fancy new yachts near which she often moors. In September 1983, Commodore Wakefield’s son George paid a visit to the vessel his dad had built. “He took the helm and steered her. He’s the one at 18 years old who had to bring it up from Florida when his dad died. He’s the only one who could run the engine,” Dougherty recalled. In June 2014, the Neville – now boasting a fourth diesel – was hoisted ashore for inspection. Only minor hull work was required, a testament to Dougherty’s work 30 years earlier and the achievements of the original builders nearly a century ago. And what does Dougherty have planned for his boat’s centennial celebration 10 years hence? He has at least one idea. “Maybe, we can do a ride through the locks to celebrate,” he said. Soo Evening News.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 03:48:24 +0000
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