Charles A. Van Every

Charles A. Van Every, who was born at Buffalo N.Y., February 13, 1851, is a son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Watts) Van Every, the former native of Pennsylvania, and the latter of England. His father was also a sailor, being chief of the Badger State, just before his death, which occurred in 1863, and when our subject was but twelve years old.

At the death of his father he found it necessary to start out for himself; he began by decking and firing on the tug Lon Edes, remaining on her for two seasons, and the succeeding two did like work on the Bailey, after which he became her engineer for two seasons. He subsequently was on the Trowbridge two seasons, thence to the propeller Eclipse, as second engineer, one season; also the Prairie State a like time. After the above service he went on the Mains, of the Northern Transportation Company, as her second engineer, but after a year and three months was promoted to the position of chief, which he filled for two years. After this he was on several steamers, among them being the Luella Worthington three seasons, George Burnham three seasons and his last position on the Scranton, of which he has been chief seven consecutive seasons, including that of 1897. He is a member of the Marine Engineers Beneficiary Association No. 4, of Chicago; and has twenty-seven issues of license, twenty-one of which are as chief.

Mr. Van Every is a widower, and resides with his mother and brother George (who was chief of the Tuscarora for the season of 1896), at No. 52 Homan avenue, Chicago.

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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.