Captain James G. Hill

Captain James G. Hill, known to some of his most intimate friends as James Garrity, as he was brought up by a relative of that name, was born in 1855 at Port Hope, Canada. He is a son of Frank and Susan Hill, the former of whom, who was a carpenter by trade, died in 1857, when the subject of this sketch was only two years old. There was only one daughter in the family, Mary Jane, now the wife of Charles White, a railroad man.

Our subject received a rather meager school education after he became a resident of Buffalo. He began active work as fireman on the tug Daniel Boone, in the spring of 1870, and has been associated for twenty-seven years, all told, either as fireman, engineer or master, with M. R. Swan in the tug business of Buffalo harbor. His first experience as engineer was at the Harbor of Erie, Penn., on the tug Mary A. Green, on which he remained one season. He was master, first of the tug Post Boy in 1876, and has been in the harbors of Dunkirk, Erie, Ashtabula, Fairport, Cleveland, Vermilion and New York, not excepting Buffalo. During the season of 1895 he was master of the tug Hudson, of which he was part owner also.

Captain Hill has always been very industrious in his chosen line. He has several times been employed on shore during the winter, but the fascination of the water always draws him back into a tug in the spring, where he can enjoy the freedom of the air and bright sunshine. He has had the good fortune of never having been mixed up in any wreck. He was a charter member of the Local Harbor No. 41, of the American Association of Masters and Pilots, and he is also a member of the Buffalo Harbor Tug Pilots Association, and of the Royal Arcanum.

In 1877 Captain Hill was married at Buffalo to Miss Elizabeth Scott, by whom he has had eight children, the names and ages of those living (at this writing) are Elizabeth, eighteen; Mary, twelve; Susan, six; James G., twelve, and Frank, eleven. The family resides at No. 135 Goodell street, Buffalo, New York.

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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.