Captain Peter A. McKinnon
Captain Peter A. McKinnon was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1847, and removed with his parents to the United States in 1857, locating in Buffalo.
Our subject acquired his education in the public schools. In the winter of 1861 he was shipkeeper on the steamer Susquehanna, which was laid up in Cleveland, and was in that city when Abraham Lincoln, then newly elected President, passed through on his way to Washington to be inaugurated. Captain McKinnon remained on the Susquehanna the following season, and in the spring of 1863 shipped on the steamer Pittsburgh as wheelsman. This was followed by three years as lookout on the Canisteo, and in 1866 he was appointed second mate of the steamer Rocket, on which boat he remained three seasons, the last one as mate. He was then appointed master of the F. C. Carney, the following season holding the same position on the barge G. H. Orton, and then becoming mate and sailing master of the propeller Plymouth. His next berth was on the propeller Toledo, of the New York Central line, as lookout with Capt. Thomas Watts. He then went as wheelsman on the new steamer Equinox, the following season going in the same capacity on the Evergreen City with Captain Parsons, and in the spring of 1884 he shipped as lookout on the steamer Winona, with Captain Conkey. In 1885 he was appointed mate of the propeller Toledo, remaining on her three years, the last two as master; in 1888-89 he sailed as mate of the steamer Samuel F. Hodge; in the spring of 1892 he was appointed master of the Northerner, which went ashore near L'Anse, Lake Superior, in a driving snowstorm; she was laden with oil and was destroyed by fire. In the spring of 1893 Captain McKinnon entered the employ of the Lackawanna Steamship Company, being appointed mate of the Scranton, and remaining on her two seasons; in 1895 he became mate of the steamer Lackawanna, which he laid up in Buffalo creek at the close of navigation; in 1896-97 was on the Lackawanna, and in 1898 was on the Brazil.
Captain McKinnon was united in marriage to Miss Lucy A. Brant, of Buffalo, in 1888. The family residence is at No. 715 Plymouth avenue, Buffalo. Socially he is a Master Mason, a member of Erie Lodge, in Buffalo.
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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.
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