Captain L. G. Vosburgh

Captain L.G. Vosburgh was born in Flint, Mich., March 5, 1848. He attended the public schools a short time, and like so many of the lakefaring captains, he ran away from home when yet a lad to go on the water. He shipped as cook on the schooner Eleanor, and on the arrival of that boat at Chicago enlisted for the navy. In 1862 he was sent to Cairo, Ill., where he went aboard the receiving ship stationed at that point, and thence he was assigned to the gunboat Mound City, Commander Patterson, as ordinary seaman. The Mound City was in all the engagements on the Mississippi river and was the second to pass the dread batteries at Vicksburg. Island No. 10, a point of great historical interest, was also passed, and at New Orleans Captain Vosburgh was transferred to the gunboat Winnebago, and participated in the capture of the forts guarding the entrance to the harbor at that city. After the fall of New Orleans his boat joined the blockading squadron at Mobile bay, and while cruising for position in the attack on Mobile she ran into a torpedo and was blown up, about three miles off the coast, all hands, three hundred and fifty, suffering more or less. Captain Vosburgh, with about one hundred others, was picked up by the small boats from a vessel lying near, and he remained on that vessel until the close of the war, being mustered out of the service in October, 1865, at New Orleans. He came north to St. Louis, thence to Chicago.

In the spring of 1866 the Captain went to Bay City, Mich., and during that season shipped on tugs out of that port. The following spring, having some money from his army service, he invested in the sidewheel steamer North Star and sailed her. Later he bought the tugs Buffalo and C.C. McDonald, and the schooner Gracie Belle, but taking advantage of a good market, he sold all his vessel property, and entered the employ of the T. & S.T. Co., operating a line of barges out of Bay City. For one year he was given command of the tug T.M. Moore, of the schooner David Morris two years, and of the schooner William Case one year. Captain Vosburgh was then appointed agent for the Blanchard Transportation Company, in the lumber trade, which position he filled to their satisfaction for two years. His next investment in vessel property was the purchase of the tugs Challenge and Hope, which he took to Detroit in 1886, and he associated himself with the Mills Towing Company for two years. In 1890 he sold out and came to Cleveland, where he was appointed master of the steamer Handy Boy, plying between that city and Kelley's Island, for the fall. The following spring he entered the employ of Captain Smith and brought out the steamer Joseph P. Farnam, which he sailed two or three seasons, afterward taking the schooners H.P. Baldwin and the noted Colonel I. Cook one season each. He next entered the employ of John T. Hutchinson, and sailed the steamer Rube Richards (one year) and the schooners May Richards and E.C. Hutchinson, in the spring of 1896 again taking command of the Rube Richards, which he laid up at the close of navigation in Cleveland harbor. The Captain belongs the American Association of Masters & Pilots, at Cleveland (of which he is a charter member), the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and to the Odd Fellows fraternity.

In 1868 Captain Vosburgh was united in marriage to Miss Belle Flood, of Painesville, Ohio, and the have two children, Benjamin F., who occupies a position in the Bay City postoffice, and Grace M., now Mrs. Charles Kline.

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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.