Captain Mathew Anderson

Captain Mathew Anderson, of Cleveland, who was mate of the steamer T. S. Christy during 1896, claims Norway as his native land. There he was born in 1864, his father, Capt. Andros Olson, giving him his own Christian name for a surname, as is customary in that country. The father was a sailor nearly all his life and commanded vessels on every sea.

Mathew Anderson spent a year on a Norwegian bark when he was fifteen years of age, this experience in sailing being his first. After this he joined the brig Hope, on which he spent two years sailing between Baltic ports and Nova Scotia, and he was then on the bark Oscar II for some time, between Pensacola and North Carolina points, later serving on the bark Flint, between Nova Scotia and England. He attended a school of navigation in Christiania one winter, going aboard a brig at the opening of navigation the next season, and he subsequently went to England on the four-masted steel vessel Arethusa, in which he made a voyage to San Francisco, spending three months in that port. On the return voyage the Arethusa made Liverpool six months and two days after leaving the American port. Captain Anderson next spent three months on the passenger steamer Lord Clive, between Liverpool and Philadelphia, and he then abandoned the ocean for the Great Lakes, proceeding to Chicago, where he joined the schooner North Cape. He remained on her one season and afterward served on the steamer Horace A. Tuttle one season, working during the winter following on the fitting out of the steamer Henry J. Johnson, on which he sailed that year. During the succeeding years he has been engaged on board the steamer David W. Rust, was wheelsman of the steamer Wallula, watchman of the steamer Bulgaria, second mate of the steamer Waverly and second mate and then mate of the steamer Alcona. He sailed the schooner Alta for two seasons and during 1896 was mate of the steamer Christy.

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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.