Cleveland Activity

[shirlohio]

WOW! Nice group of photos, Beecher, thanks for sharing so we can all have a look.
Enjoy the holiday but stay safe.
;-)

[STish]

Good stuff! It was nice to meet you over there at Jefferson. Who knows if or when the Herbert C. Jackson will be back since the last time it was in 1998! I abandoned the West 3rd attempt and moved a little farther down the river by the NS2 (the Nickel Plate Bridge lift bridge) then chased it out of the river to drawbridge NS1.

-Scott

[beecher]

Thanks "Mopar Tim" & "Big Wave Dave", It ain't no big thing! BTW - My Dad used to call me "Beecher Creature". (Beecher being my middle name)
I ran into the Manistee as I was cutting through the Valley the other day.

The Rebecca Lynn is sailing up river here. The Nickle Plate RR trestle runs through the construction site for the second inner-belt bridge going up in the background.

I ran into the Herbert C Jackson being towed down river at the same Jefferson Avenue cul-de-sac I was at the other day. I was once again not alone. I ran into another Nerd already after the boat. (Forget his name) Nice guy, he was well in tune with the Jackson. I asked him if he knew when the last time this boat was here and without hesitation he stated it was 11 years ago.
The Kingsbury Run can be seen between the boats.

We snapped off pictures and went on our way. He seemed to be following it down the river by setting up near the W3rd St Lift bridge. I went off home to catch a few shots from above.
The HC Jackson came into view as it sailed under the Nickel Plate Road High Level Bridge.

It was too dark for pictures by the time it got to me. Oh well!
Zeus just passed.

I am off on the Raleigh to catch the Thunderbirds at the Cleveland National Air Show. I'll take a couple of cameras.
https://www.clevelandairshow.com/in-the-air/schedule/
Cheers!

[Big Wave Dave]

WoW!! That is Awesome Beecher! and Your Awesome!
Thanks so much for sharing.

[beecher]

I went back and pulled out the log book for the Schooner Lillie Fox. Charlie Putnam had also drawn a few pictures of the Schooner.

He did a pretty good job for a 12y/o in 1866!
http://research.udmercy.edu/find/specia ... onCode=gls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Putnam
Cheers!

[mopar tim]

Suspense and intrigue in Cleveland. Nice vantage point for the photos,good stuff Beecher.

[beecher]

The buffalo ran a few more shuttles than I expected.

The Calumet is being assisted down the river past the window right now.

I stopped on Jefferson Avenue where it dead ends at the Cuyahoga. St Mary's Cement is there.

The 180 view from that location shows the 490 bridge, an abandoned jacknife RR bridge, the turning basin just past the 490 bridge and the mills beyond.

The mouth of the famous Kingsbury Run is across the river from this location. Elliot Ness had enough of the Torso Murders in 1938 and took to burning the shanty towns down along the Run displacing 300 people. I did not notice at the time, but see him now, there was someone along the bank watching me take pictures. I'll bet he did not have permission to be there, nor did they ever catch the murderer!

http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/sh ... eQT_5exXi0

Cheers!

[beecher]

Thanks Bookworm, I like the research and discovery stuff. I have my irons in the fire on a couple of more similar projects right now.

And Paul, yes F & J are just that.

This skinny river has a growing recreational community that is adding pressure to the industrial & commercial traffic.

There was a second body pulled from the river a week or so ago.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ss ... river.html

Cleveland Thermal has been operating in Cleveland since 1894.
It was just sold to a Canadian Company. They are going to abandon the Old Canal Road coal fired boiler works by the end of the year or so. They are fitting out the Hamilton Rd plant with natural gas boilers. Thus eliminating their coal delivery & consumption. I wonder what will become of the old works & property.
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... herma.html

I wonder what will happen to the supporting yards as well. I know nothing of the works and supporting cast. but just assume there will be changes. The void may create new development. Usually losing yet one more industrial or commercial service entity along the way. Here are the yards with the coal and I believe they have coke there as well. The view from downtown here:

The view from the opposite direction atop of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge shows Cleveland Thermal's Old Canal Road facility off to the right below Quicken Loans Arena. The support yards here. I can see losing this property to the new mindset of residential neighborhoods. They can't build them fast enough downtown.

A closer look reveals what I believe to be the bulkhead corner of the old "Cincinnati Slip" Mr Lafferty has spoken of in the LL portion of the picture.

We won the Civil War and the world wars with the big help of the large industrial might and all the small machine shops right here on the Great Lakes. Losing them one at a time eats at me a bit.

The Buffalo is backing down the river now. Her hatches are on so I guess they are done with the shuttle for now.

We had a famous visitor a little while back. I never met an actual Knight before. His group had a 12 y/o that wanted to see the lakefront attractions. I talked with them. They were from outside the country and were very interested in the Great Lakes after encountering them. I feel they will come back and tour the lakes by boat some day. Nice folks too. I had my picture taken with him. Big guy.

Sir Nick Faldo!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Faldo

Cheers!

[Bookworm]

Oh Beecher, what a fascinating historical find! That young man must have had mariner's blood in his veins from an early age. Hard to imagine his being admitted to the US Naval Academy at only 14. Thanks for sharing the story and the photos you post from your "lofty" vantage point.

[beecher]

The American Courage sailing up the river about to make the turn on collision bend.

More Salty's coming in and the pipe is being stacked in the Port lots once again.

I was reviewing some old documents a while back and found the ship's ledger for the Schooner Nellie Fox from the end of the Civil War. Here is an example of some entries:

I found a kid had got his hands on the book and was drawing a military officer in it. His name was Charlie Putnam:

I wonder who he was drawing; US Grant?
I did some digging. This Charles putnam was aboard the Lillie fox in her maiden season. He was 12. I believe him to be a decedent of revolutionary war general Israel Putnam. So it makes sense how he had some pull to get on the Fox and was able to get his hands on the ledger.
Charlie Putnam was admitted into the US Naval Academy at the age of 14. He graduated in 1873. Two ships have been named the USS Putnam after him.

Very sad how his life ended.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Putnam

http://research.udmercy.edu/find/specia ... onCode=gls

Cheers

[beecher]

Thanks and you're welcome Paul.

The Saginaw is calling on us now. She just sailed up river. Nice day!

New graffiti on the old bridge next to the Carter bridge. Quite a climb.

Cheers!

[Paul A]

Hi Beecher
Flotsam and Jetsam are the river debris collectors aren't they? Nice snaps and thanks for sharing with us!
Paul

[beecher]

River traffic has seemingly been light.
All the gas pipe is gone from the Port lot West of the Stadium!
The containers are piling high off down by dock 20 something.
The salty traffic has got to be a record high for Cleveland.
They are still moving the breakwall jacks to the barges from Alega Cement in Valley View.

Collision Bend here with the CFD's old hot potato fire boat Calebrese by the firehouse and Captain Bratton's Holiday to the right. They have that firehouse closed most of the time now. I performed work on the firehouse's mechanical decades ago. We found the foundation granite to be well over 4 feet thick!
The Norfolk Railroad Lift Bridge is on the horizon. It is one of, if not the busiest RR bridges in the midwest. An Ohio Watercraft Officer had an incident last year that prompted him to order the RR bridge closed. It screwed up much of the RR traffic across the USA. There was a backlash from it. He says he learned a lot from the incident.
The bridge before the NS Bridge is the route 2 Shoreway Bridge. It is the longest bridge in Ohio built around WWII. The next nearest is the trusty old Detroit Superior Bridge.

Sherwin Williams annual back yard shin-dig. Flotsam and Jetsam at the old CW dock too.

We went to the Browns Bills battle of Lake Erie game Thursday night. The Battle was staying awake. They have a new drum line too. I don't particularly seem to feel the home team benefits from from this new drum line. I found myself calling it the dumb line. It belongs anywhere, but not in pro football.

Cheers!

[beecher]

We woke to emergency vehicles swarming to our location at 05:30 Saturday. They arrived at Settlers landing. There was a drowning in the Cuyahoga River Channel. Sad stuff that could have well been avoided.

http://www.19actionnews.com/story/29740 ... ay-morning

More emergency vehicles later in the day near The Indians Stadium. 40 minutes before first pitch an 8 story building in view over left field caught fire. Flames and smoke were in full view. The Indians went on to clobber the Twins with 19 hits and 17 runs. We should burn more of downtown if this is what we get!

http://fox8.com/2015/08/08/firefighters ... cleveland/

The Manistee is looking like she has been working hard:

This is a newer section of the Ohio Canal Towpath trail shown here among the golden rod leading to collision bend below Tower City, The Q, and Progressive Field. The property was purchased at a steep price and warehouses were removed for the trail you see. The bulkheads failed and can be seen with voids here marked by buoys. They are not replacing the bulkheads but creating fish habitats along the Channel.

http://www.ohioeriecanal.org/about-the-trail.html

The last northern section of the trail is being completed along the Federal Channel with great costs and difficulties with brown fields and radiation leftover from WWII's Manhattan Project. The trail stretches down 100 miles south into Ohio. When we were growing up, we played along the river and canal where there was an "Old Hermit". He lived in a shack off the grid just above the flood line. We gave him squirrels we shot after we overcame our terror of him. He tended to the canal lock gate that fed manufacturing down the river. He died in the early 70's and vividly remember the FD promptly burning the shack down. The Brecksville Dam fed that lock as shown here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ4USjMNM4k

The next big step will be removing the Brecksville Dam. Once that happens there will be a national fishing hot spot in this Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The wandering bears will take up residence. Mark my words.

Wondering how the drama and relations with the Arthur M Anderson's handlers and the USCG have played out since the events of February. Congress seemingly still does not want to spend 200m on a polar breaker. Was it worth the risk?

Cheers!

[shirlohio]

Wow, Beecher, that's interesting about your ggggguncle and Settlers Landing. I'd love to hear his tales of the past also. Pretty interesting I'd bet!
That's some neat shots of the Sam Laud ~ I saw the Laud at the Medusa Plant in Charlevoix way back in the early 1990s.
BTW, that is funny about the yacht.;)

Cheers to you.

[beecher]

Myself and Shirlohio are not the only ones curious to know who was behind the mega yacht that recently visited Cleveland. Channel 19 news is all over the City to find out:

http://www.19actionnews.com/story/29709 ... ast-harbor

Too funny!

I stopped as I crossed paths with The Sam Laud at Settlers Landing yesterday. Settlers Landing has a replica log cabin from when the Connecticut Land Company landed here in 1796 to survey the Western Reserve. For a short time this was the Western most boundary of the USA.

I had a ggggg-uncle on that survey team. He was a boatsman experienced from the Revolutionary War on the New York / Lake Ontario front fighting Indians and the British. He was chosen for the survey team because of that experience. He had several cabins along the way. His first one in Ohio was at the mouth of the Conneaut Creek. Second was like this one along the Cuyahoga River. He and his sons operated a ferry on the river here. Most folks left the Cuyahoga Valley because of the sickness from the swamps (ainge) and the abundance of methane gas. They moved a few miles south down the ridge to be near Mill Creek Falls where he had his Fourth cabin. He moved on to the Maumee River after the war of 1812 to be near his sons and "the richest soil on earth". He lived to the ripe old age of 96 and is buried along the Maumee banks very near Girty's Island. If I had to choose any ancestor I would like to meet and extract history from, it would be him.

Cheers!

[beecher]

Hi Les!
Good to hear from you. I will tell that gang you said hello. They have been busy painting all the decks. The spar deck is so shinny now. My visitation to that boat revealed the lake levels so high that the gangways were about at a 30 some degree angle. Non slip treads had to be installed because the wet weather made them quite slippery.
Sorry to hear of your eyesight. I will try and paint some verbal pictures for you down the road.
I entered in a wing cook off yesterday. The rules were to "wing it". I placed 4th. Great fun. My secret sauce was was laced with Mae Ploy. It caramelized the wing with the sweet zip of chili sauce. The spice lady sells it at the West Side Market. Good stuff!

Hi Shirl,
Fanny is a good companion. Especially when she wants something.lol.

Dorothy Ann\Pathfinder was here:

This tow is going up river right now:

We traveled down to Hale Farm and Villiage to get out of town recently. The farm was settled in about 1810 and has expanded quite handsomely on to the national register of historic places. They have been moving old historic settlement buildings there for almost 50 years. They have duplicated the community life and times with real life volunteers dressed to the period performing all the tasks they did back then from blacksmiths to soap making to spinning wool right off the sheep. Here is a bull they imported from Maine. It is a "short horned" bull that would have made the migratory trek to Ohio with Johnathan Hale & others. They are unlike the Longhorns of the south & west.

Here is a modern day task of window washing a few dozen stories off the ground just like in a bosun's chair. No thanks!

The American Courage and the Sam Laud are sailing here now. The Cuyahoga is in the old river channel. I see the Neah Bay is headed this way as well. Same bunch of boats.
Cheers!

[shirlohio]

I love your kitty too, Beecher. They are such great companions. I lost my 14 yr. old one a year ago. Miss him terribly.
That is also a beautiful sunset shot.
Cheers to you!

[shirlohio]

I love your kitty too, Beecher. They are such great companions. I lost my 14 yr. old one a year ago. Miss him terribly.
That is also a beautiful sunset shot.
Cheers to you!

[Les Weston]

Hi, Beecher.

Cathy and I loved the photo of the cat, bad pun and all.

A belated welcome back. I enjoy your posts.

Please let my friends on the WGM know I miss them. I'd like to get down there, but my vision has deteriorated more.