Captain Frank Jackman

Captain Frank Jackman is now the only representative in Toronto, sailing the inland waters, of a family of mariners which has been prominent in Toronto marine circles for over a helf century. He is the owner of the tug Jubilee, and has a controlling interest in the schooner E. A. Fulton, and he is a sailor worthy his famous sire, who was one of the pioneer navigators of the north shore of Lake Ontario.

Capt. Frank Jackman is a native of Toronto, born in 1857, and he received a thorough education in the public schools of that city, proving a very apt pupil, so that when he shipped as an apprentice in his father's schooner, the Paragon, in 1872, he was justly considered a well-informed lad. The following year, 1873, his father exchanged vessels, and Frank became his chief officer in the schooner Eureka, towing between lower lake ports. In 1874, having received his certificate, he brought out the tug Young Lion, and commanded her successfully all through the season. Preparatory to putting the tug into winter quarters at Toronto, Captain Jackman took her over to Port Dalhousie to the dry docks, and on November 18, while running across Lake Ontario, the Young Lion caught fire and was burned in mid-lake. There was a backhead door in the boiler, and it is surmised that the flames worked out there and set fire to the bulkhead. The Captain and his crew of four were compelled to take to the small boat, which accidently, but fortunately, they had on board, and they rowed to Toronto in half a gale of wind, and almost perished with the cold. At that late season of the year the tug could carry no insurance, so that Captain Jackman's loss was total, but undaunted he went to work immediately to accumulate the money for a new outfit, and with that end in view shipped as mate in the steamer Watertown, plying between Toronto and the river Humber. Later he sailed in the steamer Golden City, and then bought the tug Clark, with which he towed in and around Toronto harbor until 1882, when he built the tug Frank Jackman. He ran this tug until he sold her, in the beginning of the season of 1897, to a party in Cornwall, and acquired the tug Jubilee; he also owns a controlling interest in the schooner E. A. Fulton, engaged in the timber trade between Georgian Bay and Collins Inlet, under command of Capt. John Phillips.

In 1878 Captain Jackman married Miss Fulton,daughter of Civic Contractor Fulton, of Toronto, and they have a family of five children.

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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.