Captain John C. Carey
Captain John C. Carey, an old-time lake captain, was born August 21, 1841, at Oswego, N. Y., and is the son of John and Elizabeth (Brooks) Carey, natives of Ireland. John Carey, Sr., was born and reared in Dublin, but spent the greater part of his life in America, working at the machinist's trade. Mr. & Mrs. Carey both died in Kingston, Ontario.
The Captain spent the first seven years of his life at his native place, and then went to Kingston, Ontario, where he attended school for some time. At the age of ten years, however, he sailed out of Kingston on the steamer Sylph, running to Montreal. Upon this boat he spent five seasons as boy, and during this time, his parents having died, he came to Detroit with Captain Ives, under whose command he had been working.
His first employment in that city was upon the dry dock known as the Ives dry dock, the first one built in Detroit. He then went on several river tugs, later on joining the John Owen as mate, after which he was put in command of the Red Erie, going from this to the following boats: The Oswego, Bruce, J. Ruby, and Bay City, then returned to harbor tugs at Detroit, where he remained several years. In 1876 he came on the ferry boats, and since that time has been employed on the Detroit river on tugs, and on the ferry lines. He has been in the command of the Fortune and Sappho, and when the latter was laid up, he alternated with Captain Foster on the Victoria.
In December, 1863, he was married to Miss Bridget Hennesy. Their children were: Annie, now Mrs. William Corbert, of Chicago; Maggie, Lizzie, and John, who are deceased; George, who resides at home, having traveled extensively all over the world: Charles, who is at present traveling on foreign seas, following the life of a sailor; and William, a student in college.
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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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