Captain James H. Normand

Captain James H. Normand, who has been a tug captain in Cleveland for nearly thirty years, was born in that city in 1850. His father was the late Capt. Joseph Normand, and his advent into the world took place in a house which stood in the very center of what is now Hickory street.

His sailing career began when he was eighteen years of age on the schooner Eagle. Shortly after he served as fireman on the tugs Monitor, and Abe Nelson, and then received his master's papers, since which time he has commanded the tugs Standard, Fish, Shoo Fly, Belle King, Old Jack, Sickeson, R. K. Hawley, Maggie Sanborn, Charles henry, Enterprise, Florence N., E. R. Edson, Morning Star, Levi Johnson, and Starkweather. Captain Normand's first service was in the employ of the Standard Oil Company, and he remained with that concern fifteen years. He was on the Monitor, when she took the first barge loaded with oil from the company's works to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, that being the inception of an enterprise that resulted in an enormous saving to the company. Captain Normand has also taken a tug up the Cuyahoga river to a point five miles above the Standard Oil Company's works, this being the highest point ever reached by a tug.

In 1875, Captain Normand married Mrs. Adeline Thannette, widow of the late Henry Crangle, of Cleveland. Having no children of their own they have taken to their hearts and home an adopted child, whom they call Adeline Normand.

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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.