The Wishbone Fleet

GEORGE HALL CORPORATION

George Hall moved from Utica, New York to Ogdensburg in 1871 where his brother Henry, in partnership with William Gardner Jr, was already well established in the coal disribution and forwarding business.

Upon the untimely death of Henry Hall in 1872, his portion of the partnership passed to George and the Hall-Gardner company continued into 1880. That company was subsequently dissolved and the George Hall Coal Company was established in 1883.

The expansion of the Hall operations late in the ninteenth century, in the pulp and coal trades made the purchase of speedier, self-propelled ships a practical goal. As steamers were added to the fleet the tug-barge combinations disappeared.

Along with the move into pulpwood came the involvement of Frank A. Augsbury Sr. He had established the Canada Shipping Company of Montreal in 1910 to ship pulpwood and paper mill products.

At the same time the George Hall Company continued to grow but with the onset of World War 1 the company found it hard to meet its contractual agreements with its customers after The United States Shipping Board requisitoned ships for troop and supplies transport. The Hall Company had four of their most modern ships "borrowed" "for the duration". They were the - LUCIUS W. ROBINSON, GEORGE L. EATON i, A.D. MacTIER and JOHN C. HOWARD ii.

LUCIUS W. ROBINSON

In 1917 Mr. Augsbury became a member of the Board of Directors, then President and pricipal owner when the Canada Shipping Company, and its fleet became part of the company wwith the setting up of a Canadian subsidiary, the "George Hall Coal Company of Canada".

A further reorganization occured in 1922 when six firms - George Hall Coal and Transport Company, Frontier Trading Company, St. Lawrence Marine Railway Company, all of Ogdensburg, and George Hall Coal Company Limited, Black River Shipping Company and Black River Pulpwood Company, of Montreal - were amalgamated as George Hall Corporation of Ogdensburg and George Hall Coal and Shipping Corporation of Montreal. The company was now well on its way to bcoming a force in shipping circles on the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes.

The number of ships built for the fleet, up to this point, were monimal. Those being the HECKLA and JOHN C. HOWARD i,

JOHN C. HOWARD i

both built by the Detroit Shipbuilding Company. Most of the ships in the Hall fleet at that time were small and second hand. These included tugs, barges plus wooden and later steel bulk carriers.

However, in January of 1922 four new class of "canallers" were ordered from Fraser. Brice and Company Limited of Three Rivers, Quebec. These new "canallers" were 258 feet in length with a 43 foot beam and draught of 20.5 feet. the new ships were named; FRANK A. AUGSBURY, WALTER B. REYNOLDS i, EDWARD L.STRONG AND JOHN C. HOWARD ii.

It is interesting to note that some ships are built for or purchased by shipping companies to serve for years while others are aquired and disposed of almost overnight. This latter happened in the spring of 1925 when the ships of the Great Lakes Transportation Company and Green Line were purchased by Hall, but only served a single season. Their sale to Canada Steamship Lines took place in October of that year.

This left the hall fleet with a few aging ships that required constant maintenance. In view of this fact, contracts were let with Smith's Dock Company Limited of Middlesborough, England in 1926 and 1927 for full St. Lawrence size tonnage. The first of these new ships entered service in 1927.

Ironically these new efficient ships allowed the Hall Corporation to mange through the troubled depression years of the Thirties. As busines conditions improved toward the end of this onerous period, the Line was in sound financial condition.

The outbreak of World War II brought no immdiate change to operations. As the war continued to expand some of the Hall ships were fitted out and assigned to less familiar coastal runs and transatlantic crossings.

After World War Two the fleet expanded with the addition of five new steam canallers followed by seven diesel canallers. In 1956 they branched into self-unloader trades by acquiring Coalfax. More self-unloaders followed.

Then, in 1957, two Hall ships, Leecliffe Hall and Northcliffe Hall, were converted to the liquid cargo trade. They were successful and the tanker division expanded dramatically on July 1, 1959, when the eight vessel Gayport Shipping fleet was purchased. Later the bulk canallers of the LaVerendrye Line were added but only one, Keyshey, ever sailed on Hall's account.

With their canallers becoming obsolete, Hall lengthened some and sold others. They built a second Leecliffe Hall, their first Seaway sized laker, in 1961 and added a similar ship at almost a one per year pace in the sixties.

Business was good and Hall expanded with the purchase of Shelburne Marine, an east coast shipyard and they were part of a consortium that purchased Industries and Marine Ltd.

On the lakes they acq Prescott Machine and Welding Ltd. as a repair facilitj supply their ships Hall invested in Chabot, Canada's largest ship chandlery.

But a series of misfortunes which included tragic fires aboard Cartiercliffe Hall and Hudson Transport plus economic decline and high interest rates of the early eighties put Hall in financial difficulties. The company reorganized but the financial picture did not change and soon the Royal Bank and other creditors stepped in.

The tanker trades, petroleum and chemical, remained buoyant but the bulk carriers were unable to gerierate enough two way cargoes through the Seaway to overcome their debts.

A new company, Enerchem Transports, acquired the remaining six tankers in 1987. Then, in 1988, the bulk carriers were divided among three existing Great Lakes fleets. Three were purchased by Canada Steamship Lines and N.M. Paterson and Sons Ltd., while the other two were sold to Misener Shipping Ltd.

Although Halco and their familiar "Wishbone" symbol are gone from the lakes, some of their ships survive. In addition to the fourteen disposed of in 1987-88 others operate as tankers in the Philippines, tanker barges, a bulk carrier and a self-unloader in the Gulf of Mexico region, a dredge on the Fraser River in British Columbia and a gas drilling barge on Lake Erie.

The efforts of George Hall and his successors built a fine competitive fleet that spanned more than a century on the Great Lakes.

NORTHCLIFFE HALL