Charles C. Tower

Charles C. Tower, who is now a member of the fire department of Cleveland, spent ten years of his early life sailing on the lakes, rising to the position of mate. He was born in Cleveland, January 17, 1870, and commenced sailing at the age of fourteen years on the tow barge Specular, which has since been converted into a steam propeller, spending four years on this vessel as boy, second mate and mate. Then he went to the steamer Colonial, on which he served as second mate for three years and as mate for two years. He was mate of the steamer Frontenac for two months in the spring of 1892, and then became second mate of the steamer Missoula. After laying her up in the fall of 1893, he went to Cleveland and took the examination for admission to the fire department, and being successful, he was appointed to the force in April, 1894.

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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.