Captain William Fisher

Captain William Fisher, of Detroit, was born in Sault Ste. Marie, that state, in the year 1861, and was brought up in his native town. His father sailed on the lakes for a time, and was mate of the Meteor. Captain Fisher began his lake career as deckhand on the steam barge D. M. Wilson, and remained three years on that boat, as deck-hand and wheelsman, after which he began firing, working for eight years wheeling and firing on the St. Mary, the Messenger, the City of Marquette, and a few others. He then began wheeling again on the Continental, belonging to the Republic Iron Mines, and remaining on her one year, the next season wheeling on the Cleveland tug Constitution, in the Soo river. He then rose to command, and six years ago became master of the tug Tom Dowling, which he sailed three seasons, later commanding the tug Jim Pullar, for the R. J. Cramm Dredge Company, for one season and sailing the tug Arthur Jones, of Detroit, for a year. During the season of 1896 Captain Fisher had charge of the tug Blazer, owned by Breymann Bros. Besides his sixteen years' experience on Lake boats, and four years during the Rebellion, the Captain served four years as surfman at United States Life-Saving Station No. 12.

Captain Fisher has lived in Detroit, his present home, for the last three years. He was married in August, 1891, in Garden River, Ontario, to Miss Nancy Rickly, of Hilton, Ontario, and they have one son, Edward.

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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.