Captain H. L. Savage

Captain H.L. Savage, of Cleveland, master of the schooner Manda, was born in Belfast, Ireland, May 12, 1858, the son of William Savage, a cattle dealer, who lost his life on the English Channel by the wrecking of a vessel on which he had a large consignment of stock. The Captain came to the United States in May, 1873, and soon afterward shipped as second cook on the steamer Egyptian. The following eight years he served before the mast on various vessels, and the first ship of which he was master was the J.I. Case, which he commanded one season. The next season he was mate on the steamer Aurora, later became master of the schooner Helvetia, and in 1896 was given command of the steel schooner Manda, which in the spring of that year broke all records in carrying the largest cargo of corn into Buffalo; she lost this record later in the season, however, when the larger vessels came out in the same business. In all his sailing experience, which has extended over a period of twenty-five years, Captain Savage has never seen a time when he believed he had cause to be frightened. The only serious accident with which he has met occurred during his service as second mate on the steamer Mary Jarecki, which went ashore on Sable Reef, Lake Superior, July 4, 1883, in a dense fog. The fog lifted after the vessel had been on the beach about ten minutes, and the men camped there several days before the wreck was abandoned. With this exception his sailing career has been of the most peaceful type.

Captain Savage was married, in February, 1888, to Miss Mary McCarty, who had been a school teacher in Cleveland for several years, and they have one child, Daniel, who was born in 1890.

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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.