Tom Wilson, of Bath, Ontario, has written with a request for information about the tug JOHN PRATT. This poses a most interesting problem as there actually were two tugs which carried this name.

The first JOHN PRATT (C.70290) was a wooden tug built in 1874 at Montreal by Auger. She measured 96.0 x 19.2 x 7.3, 70 Gross and 21 Net. Although she was fairly large, she seems to have been used as a harbour tug. In 1900, she was owned by the Montreal Harbour Commission. We have no idea what eventually became of her, although it is evident that she was out of service by at least 1911.

The second JOHN PRATT (C.130521) was a steel tug built at Sorel in 1911 by and for Sincennes-McNaughton Line Ltd., Montreal. She measured 80.5 x 22.1 x 11.4, 166 Gross, 78 Net. This tug spent her entire active lifetime in the service of the Sin-Mac interests and was witness to the many corporate changes and reorganizations which the management of the line underwent over the years, perhaps the most important being the acquisition of the entire Sin-Mac tug fleet by McAllister Towing Company Ltd. in 1959.

JOHN PRATT kept her original name until 1957, at which time she was renamed (b) YOUVILLE. She was primarily used for harbour towing in Montreal and for odd jobs on the St. Lawrence River, operating from Montreal. She occasionally ventured onto Lake Ontario but rarely made it past the Welland Canal. We last saw YOUVILLE in Toronto on October 24, 1961 when she arrived on the stern of the Interlake Steamship Company's ARCTURUS which was to be towed overseas for scrap but stopped in Toronto to load a part cargo of scrap.

YOUVILLE was out of service by 1967 and was subsequently scrapped. She was out of documentation by 1970. It is interesting to note that YOUVILLE, MATHILDA (subsequently taken to New York where she is preserved, although not presently open to the public), and YVON DUPRE JR. (scrapped at Humberstone in 1974) were the last three steam tugs in the Sin-Mac/McAllister fleet to see service and lasted long past the time when the day of the steam tug was considered to have passed.

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