Walter H. Oades

Walter H. Oades, son of the late John Oades, was born at Clayton, N. Y. in 1849, and came to Detroit with his father in 1865. One year later, when but seventeen years of age, he started a small yard at the foot of Dubois street, and began the building of yawl boats and other small craft. In 1867, he was joined by his father, and their first venture was the schooner W. H. Oades. This little vessel had a disastrous history, being practically burned, together with the shop, after the frame had been erected. The damage was scarcely repaired when she fell down from the keel blocks, continued rains having undermined the supports. After the Oades was launched and put in service, she was sunk, raised and afterward again sunk at Buffalo, then raised and finally sunk at Point Pelee, where she now lies.

Among the many vessels built by Mr. Oades and his father were the following: Propeller, John Oades; schooners, John Burt, the Mineral State, Ganges and Adventure; steamers, Alice Wilds, Shenango (now the Lizzie Madden), Charles Hibbard and Minnie M. The tug Owen was also built at this yard and the steamyacht Lotus, owned in Ogdensburg.

Mr. Oades also built a large number of pontoons for wrecking, and does a great deas of repair work for steam and sail yachts and other small craft not handled in large yards. His plant is well equipped for this kind of work, and his yard headquarters for yachtsmen and owners of pleasure boats.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.