David Wallace

David Wallace was born at Loughreascouse, in North of Ireland, in 1833, and received his education at the public schools of the city of Newtownards. He came to the United States in 1852 and located at Black River, now Lorain, Ohio. Up to the time of his leaving home Mr. Wallace ad never earned a dollar; the legend does not say why, but upon his arrival in this country he immediately gave evidence of his indomitable energy and spirit of ambition. He went to work at once in a shipyard, and after a time associating himself with Messrs. W. S. Lyon and Thomas Gawn, they established a shipyard at Black River and commenced to build vessels. Mr. Wallace being a superintendent of quick comprehension, and an ambitious worker, the company launched a large number of vessels in a short time from the Black River shipyard, among them the schooner W. Scott, brig Queen of the Lakes, clipper Wing of the Morning, Leader, William Jones, Alice (which went to California), W. F. Allen, Rawson, Kate Lyons, Our Son, Grace Murray, Sumatra, and numerous others. Mr. Wallace occupied himself superintending government contact work at Buffalo, Detroit and Vermillion. He built the Daniel Clint, at Fremont, and the steamers J. H. Outhwaite and Robert Wallace, and schooner David Wallace, at Mr. Radcliffe's shipyard, in Cleveland. At Sandusky he built the schooner Pierson, which made a voyage to Europe and was sold. He also built some vessels at Huron and Milan, Ohio.

Although long past sixty years of age Mr. Wallace does not look a year over fifty, owing in a great measure to his iron constitution. He is a man of great firmness and decision of character, and is shrewd, thrifty and prosperous. His discernment regarding the good qualities of a vessel appears to be intuitive, and mistakes are seldom recorded against him. He was instrumental more than any other man in prevailing upon the Cleveland Ship Building Company to remove their plant to Lorain, where space has been allotted for that purpose, together with ground sufficient to build a dry dock 500 x 100 feet, proving himself in this way to be public-spirited in the interests of the community which he represents. Mr. Wallace is manager of the Lorain Steamship Company, the Vega Steamship Company, and owner and manager of the Robert and David Wallace.

In 1859 Mr. Wallace was united in marriage to Miss Martha A. Gilmore, of Lorain. Their children are Capt. William H. Wallace, and Anna, now Mrs. James Hoye. The family residence is on a farm in Black River Township, one and one-half miles west of Lorain.

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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.