By John Rhodes
Special to The Chatham Voice
A short time ago a friend sent me a photo of the remains of the Hatti Hutt which was a popular freight boat, home ported at Chatham from 1910 until the early 1920s. I have included that photo and let me update you on her history.
Originally known as the F. B. Stockbridge, she was built at Saugatuck, Michigan in 1873.
She was a large schooner, 126 feet in length with a beam of 26 feet, 290 gross tons. She could freight the equivalent of eight railway box cars.
Originally, she had two masts but these were later increased to three, and in 1882, her name was changed to the Hatti Hutt.
In 1910, the Hatti Hutt was purchased by Capt. Frank Granville of Chatham who placed her on a special run carrying softwood lumber to Chatham from Little Current on Manitoulin Island.
She was known to dock at north riverbank mooring posts behind Public General Hospital and at other north riverbank dock space to the immediate west and east of the Third Street Bridge.
Most of her services were contracted to the Sylvester Hadley Lumber Company who had a mill and yard on the north side of Wellington Street West, between William and Harvey streets. This area is now a municipal parking lot.
The Hatti Hutt was also hired, on occasion, to freight wood for the John Piggott Lumber Company who had a mill and yard where the former YMCA building stands at King Street West and Second Street. The Piggott firm also had a large retail yard where the Capitol Theatre is now located.
The Hatti Hutt was so large that turning her in the basin, between the bridges, could be tedious. Her jib boom had to cross over the Rankin dock as it was the safest place to turn her.
During the great storm of 1913, the Hatti Hutt was nearly destroyed at Little Current when eight one-inch rope lines snapped, nearly sending her to a nasty demise on nearby rocks. Only the resistance of two large anchors kept her from being destroyed.
There was another scare for the schooner when, while wintering at Chatham, her side was punctured by an ice sheet during spring break up.
Capt. Granville made his last voyage on the Hatti Hutt in 1923 after which he sold the Hatti Hutt and retired.
Francois Granville was born in Ontario on March 30, 1855 and died at Chatham on July 1, 1937. He reposes in St Anthony Cemetery.
After the Hatti Hutt left Chatham, she was stripped of her rigging and reduced to the indignity of being re purposed as a barge for hauling coal.
She ended her days at Kingston where she was stripped of her salvageable parts and then scuttled in a nearby lagoon where she reposes to this day.
Not long ago divers identified her remains and created the current photo I have included with this story.
