William S. Lennox

William S. Lennox, engineer of the tug H. J. Warren, of Buffalo Dredging Company, is a son of Charles E. and Hannah Lennox, the former of whom has navigated the lakes for fifty years, and is still a vessel master, residing at Charlevoix, Mich. The mother is now deceased. There were but two children in the family, William S., and Frances, who is the wife of Herman Powell, a Baptist minister, residing at Ionia, Michigan.

The subject of this sketch is a thoroughly practical tug engineer. He was born at Mt. Clemens, Mich., December 23, 1863, and at the age of four years moved with his parents to East Saginaw, where he received his common-school education. At the age of fourteen he became apprenticed in the shops of Mitts & Merrell at East Saginaw, serving five years, and later he worked a year each in the shops of Wicks Bros., at Saginaw and Smalley Bros., at Bay City. He began practical work in his chosen occupation as engineer of the fire ferry tug Handy Boy, owned by William Armstrong, of East Saginaw, whose fleet of five tugs also included the Lee, C. M. Farrar, James Hay, and Davis Sutton. The duties of these five tugs were to patrol the lumber yards, a distance of eight miles, making one trip each two hours a day until ten P. M. After a year in that employ Mr. Lennox became second engineer of the tug Matt Stickney, owned by Carkin, Stickney & Cram, a dredging firm, remaining with them also a year. His next service was as engineer of the canal tug Dickey, at Buffalo harbor. From here he became engineer of the tug M. Moore, of Maytham's line, then of the ferry tug Cornell at Grand Island, Niagara River, the passenger steamer Mascott, the ferry boat Niagara, and then of the harbor tug Gee. In the spring of 1896 he became engineer of the harbor tug O. W. Cheney, and continued in that berth during the season of 1897. During season of 1898 he was on the H. J. Warren.

Mr. Lennox was married at Grand Island, Niagara River, November 29, 1888, to Miss Ada L. McCarrick, by whom he has two children; Gordon C. and Francis H. The family residence is at No. 940 West Avenue, Buffalo, New York.

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.