Daniel H. Robertson

Daniel H. Robertson, for some few years chief engineer of the Jay Gould, of the Lake Michigan Transportation Company, belonging to Leopold & Austrian, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1867, a son of Daniel and Caroline (Dwyer) Robertson. The father was a native of Scotland, and on crossing the Atlantic first located in Canada, but in 1846 removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where he made his home for some years. When a lad of twelve years he began sailing from Glasgow, Scotland, and continued to sail on salt water until his removal to Cleveland, when he became interested in lake marine, and was master of the Snow Drop and other vessels. He was for many years one of the most prominent and well-known shipmasters on the Great Lakes. He died in Chicago in 1885, and his wife departed this life in Cleveland, in 1881. In their family were three sons, of whom William is now captain of a tug at Cleveland; Charles A. engaged in sailing until 1885, and was second mate of the Hiawatha, but is now interested in the patent-right business, he having patented a back-pressure trap.

Daniel Robertson continued to make his home in Cleveland until he was seventeen years old, when he came to Chicago. Four years previous to this he began sailing - in fact was reared on board a vessel. He was first employed on a sailing vessel out of the port of Cleveland, and later engaged in firing on tugs at that place, obtaining his first license as engineer in Chicago in 1886. For some time he shipped out of New Orleans as first assistant engineer on boats engaged in the fruit trade on the South American coast; was then engineer on the tug B. D. Wood; and was also engineer on boats in trade with Jamaica. He sailed from New Orleans on different packets some eight months, and during the season of 1895 served as engineer on the yacht Pindar, and the same year accepted the position of engineer for a contracting firm on a government dredge at Cairo - the largest section dredge in the world; later on he left this firm to become chief engineer on the Jay Gould. In 1888 he joined the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, of which he has since been an active member, and is now serving as recording secretary, and in 1898 was a delegate to the National Convention of that organization. He also belongs to the Knights and Ladies of Honor, in Chicago.

In 1897, in that city, Mr. Robertson was married to Miss Lena Daab, a native of Chicago, and they now make their home at No. 36 North Canal street.

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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.