Captain Moses Redmond

Captain Moses Redmond has had a long marine experience, and is thoroughly acquainted with the work pertaining to that industry on the Great Lakes. His father, Capt. Nicholas Redmond, was a sailor and a ship builder, and under him the subject of this sketch obtained his father's knowledge of a sailor's life.

He was born August 9, 1856, at Detroit, where he has always lived. At the age of thirteen he shipped on the Eagle Wing as cook, and remained as such until June, 1869, when he returned home and went with his father on the yacht Fleet Wing, running to New Baltimore for cargoes of potatoes. During the next season he was on the same boat with his father, and in 1872 he shipped as cabin boy on the Sarah Van Epps, owned by Capt. S.B. Grummond, and which was in the employ of the government, surveying for the Sand Beach Harbor of Refuge. When this boat was laid up he went on the tug Resolute, then engaged in towing barges between Detroit and Dresden, and there kept ship during the winter. In 1873 he remained on the same boat until September, when he went on the tug Douglass, where he remained until July 4, 1874. As cook and sailor he spent the remaining part of the season on the racing yacht Cora, owned by Commodore K.C. Barker. In 1875 he acted as mate on the Mechanic. Until the fall of 1876 he was mate on the Morning Lark, and then went on the scow Harmon, where he remained until she was frozen in the Thames river. In 1877 he went to Chicago from Detroit, having shipped on the Catamaran, J.C. Buchtel, where he remained until September 1, then returned to Detroit to go on the Maid of the Mist. He left this boat in October, however, and finished the season on the Maggie. In 1878 the yacht Cora was sold to a Chicago firm, and he was given the position of cook and mate on her, which he held throughout the year. In 1879 he was in command of the yacht Mamie, remaining in charge of her until October 23, when he went as mate on the old steamyacht Truant, and from September 8, 1886, until September 1, 1892, he was in command of her. He then went to Bristol, R.I., and shipped on the new yacht Truant, which was brought to Port Colborne, Ont., and there turned over to him September 26, 1892, and ever since that time he has been in command of her.

On October 18, 1886, Captain Redmond was married to Miss Josephine Wilkins, of Detroit. They have had three children, Wilkins, who is in school at the present time; Moses, who was killed in June, 1895, and Frank, a younger child, who is still at home. The Captain has several times done good service in rescuing lives, and for an act of prompt action, done June 19, 1893, he received a gold medal. He is a member of the Knights of the Maccabees of Detroit.

Return to Home Port

Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.