Captain Seymour Shriver

Captain Seymour Shriver is one of the oldest tug men in Buffalo harbor. He was born in St. Remi, Quebec, Canada, December 14, 1833, and at the age of two years went with his parents to Ransomville, N. Y., where he resided for about nine years. On the first day of January, 1844, he located in Buffalo. The first practical work Captain Shriver engaged in was running an engine in Rumsey's tannery for three months. From that time until 1858 he was employed in various capacities on the Erie canal, and during the last named season he commenced tug work in Buffalo harbor as engineer of the tug Itaska, on which he remained three successive seasons. On election day, in November, 1861, he was quite seriously injured while on duty. In 1862 be became master of the tug Daniel Boone, and was subsequently master of the tug May Queen and several others until 1866, during which season he took the tug Ontario, owned by Captain Kingman, and towed the Fenians across the Niagara river, from Black Rock to Lanigane dock, near Fort Erie, and then took her to Galveston, Texas, at which place he commanded her until November. Captain Shriver has been steadily on tugs from the time he began in 1859 until the close of the season of 1896, during which he was master of the Oneida. At one time he took the tug H. G. Knowlton to Albany for Mr. Ed. Maytham, and during his career has handled tugs for the Cotter's line, White Star line, Shriver & Killelia's line (his brother being a partner of this firm) and Owen's line. No person connected with the interests of Buffalo harbor is better posted about tug matters than Captain Shriver.

On September 8, 1861, our subject was married to Miss Emma Brown, who was born in St. Emma, near Three Rivers. They have had thirteen children, the following named being the only ones now living: Emma, wife of Henry M. Hummel, of Gowanda, N. Y., now of Buffalo; Charles, engineer of the tug Conneaut for the season of 1896; Selina; Elizabeth, wife of Arthur Dolbear (born in England), now a resident of Buffalo; Julia; Josephine: Fanny, and Arthur, who is employed at the Catholic Publishing Company.

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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.