A. C. Decatur

A.C. Decatur has during his long experience in the tugging business become thoroughly acquainted with all the different departments of that important branch of the marine industry, for he has been employed in tugs operating on the Great Lakes and their harbors since his seventeenth year. He was born February 3, 1833, in Uniondale Center, Penn., after leaving which place the family located in Rochester and thence removed to Oswego, from which port Mr. Decatur first sailed. He had previously served an apprenticeship to the machinist's trade, and after serving four weeks as fireman on a tug he became engineer. Entering the employ of Smith & Post, of Oswego, he remained with them nineteen years, during which period he was on the Robert Reid, Major Dana, C. P. Mory, E. P. Ross, Ellsworth, Molly Spencer, Blower, George S. Dodd, Fred D. Wheeler, Lady Franklin, Tornado, Charles Ferris, and Crusader. He then transferred to the Amity, a tug owned in Chatham, after a time returning to Oswego, where he continued until 1880, the year of his removal to Cleveland. Here for three years he was in the employ of Patrick Smith, subsequently going as engineer to Bell Hartright and to the United Salt Company, where he also remained three years. After another brief period in Mr. Smith's employ he worked in H. B. Hunt's establishment in Cleveland for two years, later engaging with the National Carbon Works, the Plain Dealer, and the Brown Hoisting & Conveying Works, in the last-named place until December, 1896.

On April 26, 1857, Mr. Decatur was married to Miss Marietta Pearl, of Richland, N. Y., and their children are William, who is in the insurance business and resides near Oswego; Adele, who is married to Clarence Lawton and resides in Cleveland; and Arthur, now residing near Oswego, who has been a marine engineer ten years.

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.