When the steam ships came on the scene the sailing schooners
could not compete with them so Captain "Wally" left the sailing schooners
and moved up to the steam ships. He acquired his Coast Guard Engineer License and
Coast Guard Pilot's License. He operated many ships on Lake Champlain.
He was pilot aboard the side-wheel steamers the Chateaugay and the Ticonderoga of
the champlain Transportation Company's line and was the man chosen to pilot the
Steamer Vermont from the lake through the Champlain Canal and the Hudson River
to New York City for repairs. He was pilot of the Roosevelt which plied between
Cumberland Head and South Hero Island and captained the tugboat Triton, which
plied between Whitehall and St. Johns,P.Q. He was also skipper of the Marquita and
the Passtime of the Transportation Company. He also piloted the Steamer Eloise, a small
pleasure craft that traveled between Port Douglas ,New York and Burlington,
Vermont via Willsboro Point, New York.
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The Sidewheel steamer Ticonderoga was 220 feet long, 57 1/2 feet
wide and had a depth of 11 1/2 feet. She weighed 892 tons with a steel hull. The
vertical-beam engine developed 1150 hp.This resulted in a speed of 20 mph.
Built for the Champlain Transportation Company, formed in 1826,
she was employed as a ferry and excursion boat on Lake Champlain, in its heyday a
major artery on the route between New York and Montreal, which were linked by a
system of rivers and canals. The largest and last of the steamboats launched at
Shelburne, the Ticonderoga was a three-decked day boat that catered especially to the
denizens of the summer colonies sprinkled throughout the islands of Lake Champlain.
She also carried livestock, apples, and other freight for local farmers. In 1909,
her pilothouse was host to President William Howard Taft and the ambassadors of
France and Great Britain during the tercentenary celebrations of Samuel de
Champlain's first expedition to the lake named for him.
Business declined rapidly before World War II, and by 1938 Ti was the only boat
running on the lake. By war's end, she operated chiefly as a showboat, and in
1950 plans were made to scrap her. At this point, Vermont historian Ralph Nading
Hill began a campaign to put Ti back to work as an excursion boat. The lack of
qualified engineers and inadequate revenues led to the boat's sale to Electra
Havemeyer Webb (granddaughter of pioneer steamboat man Commodore Cornelius
Vanderbilt), who operated the boat for two more years. The ship's historical
importance especially in the form of her W. A. Fletcher built engines could not
be overlooked, and Webb added Ticonderoga to the Shelburne Museum, which she
and her husband had founded. In 1954-55, Ticonderoga was hauled two miles
inland via a temporary double-track railroad to a field, where she remains
today. In 1964, she was designated a National Historic Landmark.
From SAILS AND STEAM IN THE MOUNTAINS by Russell P.
Bellico pp281-289
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