The Clayton Boat Line
by: Tom King
The year was 1926, and the Clayton tourism business was booming. According to the local Chamber of Commerce annual business directory there were nine different businesses offering tour boat cruises through the Thousand Islands that year.
The largest operator at the time was the Brown Boat Line, with a fleet of five vessels cruising through the islands, showing off the sights to throngs of eager tourists. You can read more about the Brown Boat Line in an earlier TI Life article published in the February 2025 issue.
The Yacht Edith Line, owned by George Gillick, Owen Gillick, and William Lantier, conducted their excursions on the Edith and Edith II tour boats. Over the next few years, the Yacht Edith Line would become the major player in the Clayton tour boat business through expansion and acquisitions. More information on the history of this boat line can be found in another TI Life article in the April 2025 issue.
Frank Haas and Herbert Consaul started their business with the recently built Miss Clayton, the first boat to carry that name. A second vessel, Miss Clayton II, was added in 1927, and fittingly, the company was named The Miss Clayton Boat Line. For the princely sum of $1.00 the passengers were taken on a forty-five-mile tour of the Thousand Islands, which included a twenty-minute stopover in Canada for refreshments and a twenty-minute stopover at Heart Island to see Boldt Castle. The Miss Clayton was also equipped with a powerful spotlight on her roof, which was used to illuminate the various highlights on shore during the evening Search-Light Trips.
Fred Cuppernall, Fred Cerow, and Harry Marshall ran another small line, named the Spray Boat Line, which featured the Spray V, formerly the Islander II, and the newly built Spray VI. During the winter of 1926, the Spray Boat Line and The Brown Boat Line combined operations due the Brown Line encountering financial difficulties. This association continued until both lines were sold in 1929.
It seems that none of these stories about the old wooden craft would be complete without at least one mention of a fire. In July of 1924, it was reported that the Spray V, which was owned by Melzer Hutchinson at the time, caught fire at the dock as it was about to depart on a tour. As is the case in so many other boat fires, the engine backfired and ignited gasoline vapours in the bilge. All fifty passengers were safely evacuated and the swift response by the local fire department saved the boat from being totally destroyed. After a couple of weeks in the shop repairing the engine and the bow section of the hull, the old girl was ready to resume her duties on the River.
Captain “Dud” Gould was another well-known river captain who ran tours out of Clayton. His boat, Anywhere, was one of the few dark hulled boats on the River at the time and was very distinctive and easy to spot. Captain Gould was famous for his informative and humourous narrative that accompanied his excursions. The tourists were able to buy a copy of his stories in a booklet titled ‘Round the Islands.’ In 1927, Captain H.G. Gould’s tour boat, Anywhere, joined the fleet of the Yacht Edith Line. It was reported in the Watertown Daily Standard on June 29, 1927, that the Anywhere would be based in Cape Vincent and run her excursions with forty-four passengers from that port.
Another seasoned owner who toured the islands was Alexander Wilson. He built his boat, Miss St. Lawrence, during the winter of 1925. The Miss St. Lawrence was one of the smaller tour boats operating on the River at the time. A larger forty-three-foot vessel, the Miss St. Lawrence II, was built in 1929.
One of the oldest wooden tour boats that was in service at the time was Gadabout, which was owned and operated by Orlin D. Percy. Captain Percy, He had picked up the nickname “Prunes” somewhere along the way, was a very colourful individual and was well known among all the River captains.
When Captain Gordon Wilson retired and sold his original Spray Line, the assets were purchased by Melzer Hutchinson and Fred Marshall. Shortly thereafter, these two gentlemen dissolved their partnership, and Captain Marshall retained the boat Julia III, while Captain Hutchinson took ownership of Spray III and Baby Spray. Melzer Hutchinson and Emmett Calhoun then formed a joint venture named Helen C. & Spray Boat Line, which operated two boats, Helen C. and Spray III.
Fred Marshall’s boat, Julia III, was the last one named on the list from the Chamber of Commerce’s 1926 brochure. Like his competitors at the time, Captain Marshall offered three-hour excursions through the islands for a fare of one dollar.
An article in the August 4, 1926, edition of The Watertown Times described a nighttime collision that occurred on the River at the foot of Grindstone Island, between the Miss St. Lawrence and the much larger Julia III. The Miss St. Lawrence suffered extensive damage to her planking and was fortunate to make it back to port before she sank. According to the article, the only reason that the boat was able to limp home was that it was a very calm night on the River with no large waves that would have sunk her.
The following year another tour boat venture, Denny’s Boat Line, was established to help meet the growing demand for boat tours. The new business was incorporated under the name The Scenic Tours and was registered with the New York Secretary of State on June 21, 1927, with capitalization fixed at five thousand dollars. The directors and shareholders of the new company included Albert Denny, Eli Charlebois, and Arthur J. Bennett, all from Clayton. Captain “Prunes” Percy became the manager of the Denny Boat Line after he retired as captain of the Gadabout due to health reasons.
More information on the history of the Denny Boat Line can be found in another TI Life article in the March 2025 issue.
By the late twenties, with so many different boat lines operating out of Clayton, some were doing better than others. The Brown Boat Line had been taken over by the bank due to insolvency, and the financial institution was seeking a buyer to acquire the business. It was stated in the July 18, 1929, edition of the Sandy Creek News that Stewart Ormsby, a local businessman with interests in dairy farming and a crushed stone operation, was approached about buying the struggling boat line. After reviewing the situation, Mr. Ormsby decided not to buy the one line, but he would amalgamate the Clayton boat line industry by purchasing several of them. According to the story, Mr. Ormsby had individual sales agreements drawn up and then had his representatives meet with each of the boat line owners, at the same time, to get the deal done. Within two hours, all the paperwork had been completed, and the businesses had been transferred to Mr. Ormsby. He then approached Mr. W.D. Lantier, the owner of the Yacht Edith Line, with a proposal to combine the newly obtained businesses with the successful Edith line and have Lantier manage the whole operation. An agreement was reached between Ormsby and Lantier and the new venture would continue to be operated under the name Yacht Edith Line. The new company, with a capitalization of $250,000, was structured with Lantier as president, Ormsby as Treasurer, Mrs. Ormsby as Secretary, and a Canadian Vice President, H.F. Ward, holding the Canadian rights, making it an international corporation.
Besides the Yacht Edith Line’s four large tourist craft, the Miss Clayton Line, owned by Haas & Consul, consisting of two boats, and the Spray Line with two more, owned by Cuppernall & Marshall, were part of the merger. Also included were two vessels of the Brown Boat Line, which had recently been seized by a Clayton bank under a mortgage foreclosure. The mail and express that used to be carried by the Brown line would be handled by the new combine. The company’s plans were to maintain a regular schedule of runs between Clayton, Kingston, and Gananoque, as well as providing a fast service across the River with a fleet of speedboats. The new company would also run the Clayton shipyards, which had been acquired earlier by Mr. Lantier, to construct additional boats, remodel existing ones, and offer the new tourist service, beginning the following year.
A newspaper clipping, dated July 10, 1930, said that three local tour boat operators, Alexander Wilson, Fred Marshall, and Orlin Percy, filed paperwork with the County Clerk announcing that they were setting up a Thousand Islands tour boat business under the name of Clayton Independent Boat Lines. The new venture was to be headquartered in Clayton. The three boats involved in the new company were Miss St. Lawrence II, Julia III, and Gadabout.
In 1933, Fred Cuppernall bought the Spray VI from the Yacht Edith Line and joined the Independent Line. The following year Emmett Calhoun, with his boat Helen C., also became part of the independent fleet.
I wrote an article titled, “A Day in the Life of Boldt Castle, circa 1934” back in December of 2019, and it included a log sheet of all the tour boats that visited the castle that day. Three of the boats listed in the log for August 27, 1934, Spray VI, Miss St. Lawrence II and Julia III, were part of the Independent Line at the time.
In the fall of 1934, a group of ten Clayton men launched legal action against the Yacht Edith Line to recover monies owed to them by the company. As a result, the line’s tour boats were impounded and were ordered to be sold to recover the funds owing if the defendant couldn’t come up with the money. Since William Lantier, the owner of the Edith line, was in very poor financial shape at the time, and was already involved in other bankruptcy proceedings, the boats were scheduled to be auctioned off the following spring.
The Clayton Independent Boat Line purchased ten of the Yacht Edith’s vessels at the auction and their fleet now stood at thirteen, as Captain Percy’s Gadabout had recently retired.
It was at this time that the Independent Line was reorganized, with Fred Cuppernall installed as president, and the business renamed Clayton Boat Line, Inc. Emmett Calhoun subsequently joined the group with his two boats, Spray III and Baby Spray, and the fleet now consisted of fifteen vessels – thirteen tour boats and two speed boats.
Fred Cuppernall announced in a Kingston Whig Standard article, dated September 1937, that the Clayton Boat Line had plans to build a new, 150 passenger tour boat over the following winter and have it launched in time for the 1938 season. The company even included a boat named C.B.L. in that year’s brochure, but as far as I can tell it was never built. Over the next few years, the speedboat Smiling Thru and the tour boat Just Brown IV, were sold off, bringing the total back down to thirteen.
The Clayton Boat Line did very well in the late thirties and forties and carried thousands of passengers through the islands every year. The company’s main office was on Riverside Drive in Clayton, but they also had a base of operations in Kingston, ON. In addition to the regular island cruises, the company also ran special excursions to the Clayton Casino, while it was still operating, and Moonlight Cruises on Sunday nights.
Denny’s Boat Line was also running tours out of Kingston in the late thirties, in direct competition with the Clayton Boat Line. Denny’s had their dock at the foot of Princess Street while The Clayton Line had theirs at the foot of Brock Street. In 1941, the two companies set up a cooperative agreement in Kingston to streamline their operations and to improve efficiency for both companies. J.A. Ferguson, the CBL Kingston Manager, continued his role for the joint operation after it was formed.
Due to poor health at the age of 71, Fred Cuppernall relinquished the position of president of the Clayton Boat Line in 1939. He was succeeded as president by Emmett Calhoun, another co-owner of the boat line. Mr. Cuppernall kept his position as a director of the company and was also named as one of the vice-presidents. Mr. Calhoun also become a very popular mail carrier on the River, with his wife, Maggie, holding down the crewing duties on the mail boat.
In 1946, Fred Marshall sold the Julia III to Lawrence “Larry” Balcom, a veteran of WWII. Mr. Balcom renamed the boat Island Princess and started offering his own tours of the islands, which he advertised as “Educational Entertainment.” It was reported that Rushton Wescott would be associated with Mr. Balcom in the operation of the tour boat business. Larry’s wife, Liz, acted as crew on the Island Princess. Mr. Balcom also ran the local island mail service for several years and offered scenic hour-and-a-half tours to passengers in combination with his mail pickups and deliveries.
Over time, as the original owners of the Clayton Boat Line retired from the business, the ownership was taken over by two gentlemen, Osborne Steele and Roland Kellogg. According to author George Boldt’s book, “Once a Man – Twice a Boy,” Mr. Steele held a 79% interest in the business while Mr. Kellogg controlled the remaining 21%. Osborne was the nephew of the original owner, Fred Cuppernall. Osborne’s parents were James and Alice Steele, and Fred Cuppernall’s wife, Bessie, was the sister of James. Osborne’s father passed away when he was a young child, and in the following years he and his mother lived with Fred and Bessie Cuppernall. Roland Kellogg was the great grandson of Emmett Calhoun, another of the original founders of the Clayton Boat Line. Roland’s mother, Catherine Kellogg, was the child of Emmett and Margaret Calhoun’s only daughter, Helen Blake.
Once again, borrowing from the timeline in George Boldt’s book, three local men, Eugene Springman, Harry Mercier, and Gilbart Mercier, bought the Clayton Boat Line from Osborne and Roland in 1951. It was written that the purchase price was $100,000 and that Eugene’s father, Joseph Springman, provided financing for the deal. Mr. Springman Sr. was referred to as “the St. Louis Banker” in the story. The sale of the Clayton Boat Line ended that company’s existence as the newly purchased assets were taken over by The American Boat Line, which had also recently been bought by Eugene Springman, Harry Mercier, and Gilbart Mercier. More on the American Boat Line in the next article.
I would like to thank the following people who aided with the preparation of this article:
[1]Karen Wand, for sharing her old newspaper clippings from the era with me and for offering her proofreading and editing prowess.
[2]Jordan Coughlin, the Town and Village of Clayton Historian, for providing valuable information on the Clayton tour boat lines and the people associated with them.
By Tom King
Tom King and his wife Marion have lived in Milton, Ontario, for the past 37 years, where they both worked and raised their family of three children: Kris, Mike, and Becca. Tom has captured the history of the tour boat industry as well as giving us the best spider story in the past 17 years!
Editor's Note: Read more articles by Tom King here in our new format for TI Life, and more articles on our old site. As I have said before "Thank you, Tom, for your ability to capture the boat line stories of our River has brought history alive!" Much appreciated.
Tom King
Tom King
Tom King
Tom King
Tom King
Comments
I always enjoy your tour boat articles, and the one you published about the Clayton Boat Line in the recent edition of TI Life was fantastic. You may recall the one I wrote many years back about the American Boat Line** of the 60s and 70s, well seeing your article about a much earlier period was restful for me, as I love the Clayton area so much. I hope to get back there again someday. Keep writing, I'm thankful for the knowledge you share. Mike Fesko, https://1000islandssteelking.com/where-are-the-old-1000-islands-tour-boats/
Note: Gilbart Mercier is the correct spelling.
Thank you for keeping history alive Tom, and ensuring these grand old boats and the people who owned and operated them aren't forgotten. Are you thinking of taking on the Canadian Tour Boats? Karen Wand
Jim Hartman grew up summers on 7 Isles on Wellesley Island and we truly enjoy reading Thousand Islands Life, and this month in particular the very interesting article about the Clayton Boat Line. Jim's dad, Bill Hartman had an advertising agency in Syracuse, and was good friends of Eugene Springman and George Mercer. He did a lot of artwork for the brochures back in the day of the American Boat line, which ran American "Venus", "Neptune", and "Adonis". He did this painting and if you look closely in the waves on the bottom left, you will see his Dan's signature. Jim and Anne Marie Hartman
