Captain C. H. Jenking

Captain C.H. Jenking, of Walkerville, Ontario, is a shipmaster well-known in Detroit and vicinity, and a greater part of his marine life thus far has been spent on the car ferries, where by the efficient service he has rendered, he has won a high place in the esteem and confidence of his employers. Captain Jenking is the son of Joseph and Susanna (Irving) Jenking, natives of Canada who are still living at Walkerville, Ontario, aged seventy-seven and seventy-three years respectively. The family is closely connected with the marine history of the vicinity, for Joseph Jenking has spent the greater part of his active life as a shipbuilder; Mrs. Jenking is a sister of Capt. George Irving, who is well-known as a pioneer in marine work on the lakes.

Captain Jenking was born June 28, 1848, at Detroit, and attended the public schools of his native place until the age of sixteen years, when he obtained work upon the river tugs at that city, thus commencing the occupation to which he has since devoted his time. He went first on the tug Stranger, and soon after on the Vulcan, I.U. Masters and Sweepstakes, from these tugs transferring to the Dean Richmond, at Winslow, running between Buffalo and Chicago, and later to the Boscobel, on which he served as wheelsman for part of a season until she was burned in the St. Clair river in September, 1869. His next berth was as mate on the Satellite, on which he remained for one year. In 1870 Captain Jenking received serious injuries in Walker's Distillery, at Walkerville, and was obliged to remain on shore one season, but the following year resumed tug work and continued in this employment until 1875. At that time he went on the passenger ferry Victoria, as wheelsman and served as such three years, when he went on the yacht Scotia, owned by Mr. W.K. Muir, general manager of the Canada Southern railroad. In 1879-80 he was master of the Isaac May, a lumber barge running between Georgian Bay and Buffalo, and in 1881 of the tug George H. Parker. The following season taking command of the ferry Ariel, running from Detroit to Walkerville. In 1884 the Captain entered the employ of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, with which he remained in command of car-ferries until 1891, since which time he has been engaged by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company on the Ontario. Captain Jenking is a member of Lodge No. 33, A.O.U.W., at Walkerville.

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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.