Captain Henry Rose

Captain Henry Rose, of Detroit, who has lived retired for the past seven years, is a mariner of wide experience, and has seen every phase of a sailor's life. He was born in Memel, a Prussian seaport, in 1825, and ran away to sea at ten years of age, since which time he has never seen his native town. For thirteen years he sailed to all ports of the world, several years as a member of the British navy, during his service in which he was in the Asiatic squadron which participated in the Chinese and New Zealand wars. Captain Rose came to the Great Lakes from New Orleans in 1848, and sailed on them from that year until his retirement. His first command was the schooner Quickstep, which he sailed for several seasons, and later he was master of the H. H. Brown, the C. J. Breed and many other vessels, always commanding sailing craft; he maintains that before steam was in general use they had better times and better pay. For twelve years he was in the employ of Godfrey, of Detroit, a well- known vessel owner, and he also sailed Jesse Farwell, of Detroit, several seasons. The Captain has had several narrow escapes from drowning. In 1879 the schooner C. J. Breed, of which he was captain and half owner, was capsized in Lake Erie, off Ashtabula. Five men were lost, and Captain Rose and two others were in the water eighteen hours before being picked up. It was three days later before he could get word to his family in Detroit, who had been mourning him as dead.

Captain Rose has one son and three daughters, all of whom are married. His wife died about six years ago, and he now resides with one of his daughters, hale and hearty, though he is now past three score and ten.

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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.