On another occasion, on a fine bright morning, we were approaching Death's 
Door, the  passage  between  Lake 
Michigan and Green Bay, when we saw 
a vessel coming toward us, with a 
fair wind, with her sails winged-that 
is, one sail was swung out on one side
and another sail on the other side-- 
so that the wheel man could not see 
what was ahead of  him,  but  he  was 
coming down merrily with a fair wind 
while we were tacking. The mate, George Soyer, and I were watching the vessel coming  and  thought, of  course  she 
would swing off  because we  had  the right-of-way, but finally we concluded 
she was going to hit us, so the mate 
ran down and got the Captain out of
his cabin in a hurry, but there was nothing we could do and she struck us 
on the starboard quarter and broke all
of our  stays  on  that  side  of  the 
vessel and broke off the jibboom from 
the other vessel, the latter falling on our deck and smashing the Captain's 
little sail boat, much to his disgust. Again we had to rig temporary stays 
and  got  into  Oconto  and  back  to 
Milwaukee safely  with  the  temporary rigging. 

There was one other time when the Mott 
had a collision when I was not aboard. 
It was in the fall of the year and she
was south bound off Two Rivers during 
the  night  when  a  steamboat  and 
two tow barges,  going  from  Milwaukee  to Escanaba  to  load  iron  ore, 
ran into  her, the second  barge 
striking  her  on  one  side  and  the
next barge striking her on the other side, smashing in the entire bow. Being loaded with lumber she floated, but was filled with water. Captain Soyer got her safely into Milwaukee and it took quite a while to make the repairs as the entire bow had to be replaced. By doing a little detective work we found out what the name, of the tow was, although in the darkness Captain Soyer did not get the name. 

Sixteen 

The Richard Mott was one of the fastest of the lumber schooners and would make better time against a head wind than any of them, and Captain Soyer knew just how much wind she could stand and he always carried all of the sail that was safe, but never lost any sails by having them blown to pieces with the wind, and he never lost a mast. 

In the early days the boats all had to go around the north end of Door County Peninsula, through Death's Door, but after the Sturgeon Bay Canal was constructed the vessels usually went through the Canal as it was much shorter, although they had to pay toll and had to have a tug tow them through the Canal. Sometimes our own side-wheel tug, Balcom, would take one or more loaded vessels from Oconto through the Sturgeon Bay Canal into Lake Michigan, and on one occasion she towed five vessels, which was a big tow for a small tug. 

We used to charter other vessels at the going rate per thousand feet to carry lumber for us and sometimes had several of them on the way at the same time. The Schooner Naiad made many trips for us. Her Captain was an old Scotchman by the name of Williams, who was a very good man. I made one trip from Chicago to Oconto with him. Another smaller vessel which usually ran steady in our service was the L. A. Burton. And we used to pick up any vessel which was available when we were in need of one. 

Captain Soyer always liked to have a pet dog aboard. One morning we were headed for Chicago with a load of lumber and were off Evanston with a very strong northeast wind blowing. The vessel was heeling over and as the lumber on the deck was piled up about four feet above the rail there was no protection around the side of the vessel, and the Captain's dog slid off. We were going so fast that the Captain said there was no use in our hauling to and trying to rescue the dog, and the last we saw of the poor animal he was paddling after us as fast as he could go. The Captain felt so bad that he cried over losing the dog. 

We used to have a couple of long fish lines with spoon hooks which we dragged behind the schooner when the weather was suitable, and often caught some big trout. It was a real pleasure to watch these lines and see when there was a fish on one of them, and it was quite a trick to haul the fish aboard without losing it as they probably weighed ten or fifteen pounds apiece. One evening we caught one off Evanston which was pale and sickly looking and the Captain said it must have been in the Chicago River, so we threw it overboard. 

Seventeen