Thanks to William Lafferty

Many thanks to William Lafferty, who has things to teach me about research.  He sent along this Agfa black&white photo version of

this photo below that I put up a few days ago . . .  Here’s what he writes:  ” the mystery vessel at Milwaukee is the Leona B., built by and for the Advance Boiler and Tank Company (founded in 1919 and still with us, although located in West Allis now).  I believe Advance still owns the property on Jones Island where you saw it.  It was used for welding repairs at Milwaukee and nearby harbors.  The image shows it while still afloat and operating, a mere forty years ago.  I believe it was purchased to be converted to a tug to shuttle coal barges in Milwaukee harbor, but proved unsuitable for whatever reason for the conversion.  The firm bought the Hannah tug Mary Page Hannah (third of that name) and renamed it Leona B. for the coal shuttle.

When I research Jones Island, I learned of a new (to me) ethnic group who settled here as a fishing village:  Kashubians.  Here’s something of Kashubians from an extraordinary obituary for a son of the island . . .

In my fishing tug post the other day, here was a photo of Islander.  William writes:  “Attached is a photograph (Agfachrome!) I took of the Islander in 1992 at Sheboygan while it was still working.  It appears to have been ridden hard and put away wet quite a few times.  The Islander, launched 16 November 1936 and took off for Washington Island two days later where it fished for Albert Goodmander,  was a product of the Sturgeon Bay Boat Works, earlier called the Palmer Johnson yard.  It had a 45-bhp Kahlenberg (and maybe still does).”

Looking at Islander 1992 and 2017, it’s hard to imagine the type of sport luxury yachts they produce today (in the Netherlands!)

One could spend lots of hours looking at and for the siblings (like Bascobel, which saw its end of the graveyard featured in Graves of Arthur Kill in Rossville) of John Purves, product of the shipyard in Elizabeth NJ across from Howland Hook.  William writes:  “The regal John Purves thirty-eight years ago at the Bultema dock (now Andrie) at Muskegon.  It was named for Captain John Roen‘s right hand man, and every owner afterwards kept the name out of respect for Mr. Purves, a Sturgeon Bay boy.”  Here’s more on Roen.

Finally, once more . . . I’m looking for more images of the McAllister boat below.  ” M. L. Edwards  was built at Chicago in 1923 as a 60-foot steel steam-powered coastal freighter for upper Lake Michigan service, and served for McAllister for about forever. ”

Credit for photos as attributed.

Thanks a lot, William.