Antelope (XII)

Transferred from the Port of St. Catharines, Ontario. Registry closed May 16, 1918. David Emmerson, Toronto ON stated "I own a very nice watercolour and gouache of the schooner Antelope (075631) painted by Edgar DeWitt Drake (1884-1978)., possibly around 1912.

She is pictured moored at the Church Street wharf in Toronto Harbour.

From 1909 she was employed carrying loads of stone and gravel from Point Ann near Belleville to Toronto.

She was reported by her owners (Point Ann Quarries Ltd) as broken up on May 16, 1918. Curiously Antelope still appears in Beeson's Maritime Directory of the Great Lakes as late as 1921, this might be lazy compilation at the time. It must be said that it was common practice at the time to rebuild badly broken ships, even burnt out hulks as long as the basic hull timbers were still sound.

She was originally built by the Muir Brothers of Port Dalhousie in 1873. A large stone monument recently erected in Rennie Park, Port Dalhousie, commemorates the builders and features an engraved image of the Antelope. Images attached below. The artist painted many depictions of Toronto Harbour and ships and scenes along the Lake Ontario and Erie shores.

He had a marked fondness for the lake schooners which were rapidly disappearing from the Great Lakes in the teens and twenties of the last century."