Captain David Donaldson

Captain David Donaldson was a lake navigator who passed through the hardships incident to a sailing life forty years ago, and left four sons who followed in his footsteps. He was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1832, and came alone to the United States eight years later. He made his way to Cleveland, and finding employment in the shipyards of that city, in time learned the trade of ship carpenter, which he followed until 1859, when, having amassed a little pile of savings, he went to Fremont, Ohio, and there constructed a schooner which he named N. C. West. Taking the vessel to Cleveland he found an opportunity to sell her before she was fitted out, and so disposed of her and purchased the scow Mona, which he sailed three years, when she went ashore at the piers forming the entrance to Cleveland harbor, where her bones lie to this day. After this he purchased the scow Bailey, and sailed her until shortly before his death, which occurred in 1876.

Captain Donaldson married Miss Kate Faragher, of Cleveland, who was a sister of Capt. William Faragher and a sister-in-law to Captain Mallory, now of the Minnesota Steamship Company's fleet. They had six children: William, deceased; Walter, who developed remarkable propensities for travel and is now in South Africa; Belle, who is the wife of Mr. Randall, of the passenger steamer City of Buffalo; Edward, who is chief engineer of the steamer German; and David, who is second engineer of the passenger steamer State of New York.

After the death of Captain Donaldson, the eldest son, William, who was born in 1860, took his father's place and sailed the Bailey a number of years. Then he sold her and bought the scow Sassacus, which he sailed four years, and after disposing of her he became owner of the schooner Barney Avery, and sailed her until she went ashore and was lost on Point Pelee island in 1886. During this same year, and but a short time after the loss of the Avery, Captain Donaldson returned to his home in Cleveland, and before he had completed arrangement for securing another vessel he died, from the effects of an internal hemorrhage.

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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.