Captain Charles Hinslea

Captain Charles Hinslea, the popular master of the steamer Joliet, was born in Rochester, N. Y., in 1849, the son of James Hinslea, of Rochester, an expert carpenter and joiner. He attended school until he was fourteen years of age, when he turned his attention to navigation and spent part of a season on the sand scow on the St. Lawrence river. He next went to the steamer Michigan, of the Northern Transportation Company, plying between Ogdensburg and Chicago, spending the entire season of 1864 upon her. During the next five years he was on nearly all the vessels of that line; among them were the Maine, Lowell, Granite State, Buckeye, Nashua, Young America, Garden City, and St. Albans. In 1870 he was with the schooner Chandler J. Wells and the D. P. Dobbins in turn, and made one trip on a lumber barge. He was wheelsman on the steamer Cormorant one season, and then became her second mate, filling this position for three seasons, and at the expiration of this time became second mate of the steamer Egyptian, and was on her three years; then mate of the steamer Colonial six years, and mate of the Specular one year. During the season of 1887 he was master of the schooner Magnetic, and the next three years held the same position on the steamer Marquette. For two yers he commanded the Continental, and assumed charge of the Specular in 1893, retaining that position up to 1898, when he became master of the steamer Joliet.

In 1870 Captain Hinslea was married to Miss Anna Klein, of Cleveland. Their children are Henry, who is mate of the Specular; James, a machinist of Cleveland; and Benjamin, a bookkeeper and stenographer.

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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.