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DISPATCHCedar Point ferries have historic namesly GORDON WENDTWhen the three Cedar Point ferry boats :hanged hands recently and became the iroperty of Res-Q Marine Service they vere given new names. Two of the names ire not really “new” to Sandusky at all, ilthough they have been absent from the icene for many years — one for 66 and the ther for 60 years! The boat formerly mown as Cedar Point II has become Dispatch and Cedar Point is now Arrow. Arrow’s namesake was the steelsidewheeler built in Wyandotte, Mich., in L895 for the Sandusky and Islands Steamboat Company. She ran from Sandusky to Lakeside, Kelleys Island,Middle Bass, North Bass and Put-In-Bay until she was consumed by fire at Doller’s dock at Put-In-Bay, October 14,1922. She was rebuilt here at the B 0 Dock during the winter of 1922-1923 but emerged looking little like her former handsome self. She never returned to Sandusky and she never relinquished the name Arrow. She ran briefly in 1923 from Chicago to Waukegan, Illinois in Lake Michigan and finished her days in the Caribbean in the banana trade where she foundered August 9,1948 on the Great Barrier Reef.She was much larger than her current namesake — her dimensions were 165 feet 3 inches by 28 feet (55 feet overall) by 9 feet 5 inches. Her engine was a vertical beam (walking beam) built in 1868 and had served previously in Jay Cooke and City of Sandusky II, which was a rebuilt version of Jay Cooke.Interestingly enough, the locally owned and operated tour vessel City of Sandusky III is managed by Captain Dennis Wieber, who is also the principal owner of Res-Q Marine. City of Sandusky operates on the same run as did Arrow and her predecessors so many years ago. The captain, it seems, has a nice sense of marine history!The namesake of Dispatch, formerly Cedar Point II, was built in Sandusky in 1905 at the foot of Meigs Street by Joseph Pouliot. She was first named Col. Woodward and was owned by the Sandusky and Fremont Transit Company. A gas propelled double-ender she was 49 feet by 12 feet 3 inches by 4 feet 3 inches. She ran only a few trips to Fremont before changing owners and route. The Cedar Point Resort Company apparently effected a “swap” of their Columbus tor Col, Woodward. The former also was a double-ender, built in 1905 by Pouliot, similar to the Woodward but 10 feet longer.Col. Woodward ran for Cedar Point as the employee spare boat until she was severely damaged in the Columbus Avenue slip November 9,1913 during the great storm that wreaked havoc over aO the Great Lakes. She broke loose from her moorings, collided with Louise and sank — a wreck. She was taken to the Lake Erie Dry Dock Company (successor to Pouliot at Meigs Street) and rebuilt during the winter of 1913-1914. She came out with a new name. Dispatch but operated in the same service for Cedar Point until the company purchased the America in 1925 to replace her.June 19,1926 Dispatch was sold to Worthy R. Brown of Lakeside to run from Sandusky to Lakeside via Cedar Point. Brown, in turn, sold her in 1929 to parties at Sault Ste. Marie where she burned to a total loss May 6, 1931.A boat with a very similar name, Despatch, operated here during all but four years of Dispatch’s local ownership. She was built at Erie Pa., in 1916. Her dimensions were 47 feet by 14 feet 7 inches by 4 feet 2 inches. By 1918 she was owned by John Gilbert in Sandusky. Lay Brothers Fisheries, also of Sandusky, owned her from 1920 until 1953 when she was sold to Cleveland parties. She was renamed Atlantis at that time and was used in connection with a commercial diving company. She burned at Rondeau, Ontario, November 21,1958.The third of the Cedar Point motor boat trio is now known as Island Trader, her third name. She came out as G.A.The Steamer Arrow near Columbus Avenue,The Dispatch in Sandusky Bay around 1920.The newly renamed Dispatch, Arrow and Island Trader, now being run by Res-Q Marine to Cedar Point and other destinations.Boeckling Hand was renamed Cedar PointIII in 1970. 1While Dispatch returns a name to the same run her namesake operated so many • years ago, Arrow’s predecessor was much too large for that route and seems only once to have filled in on a big holiday by taking an overflow crowd on August 6,1906 (this of course was before the sidewheeler G.A. Boeckling came on the scene in 1909), Arrow must have looke very unusual tied up at the bay shore pier at the Point!Island Trader has no known local namesake and thus is starting a new tradition in Sandusky's marine history.Wendt is a local historian.
Newspaper Details
Sandusky Sunday Register
Sandusky, Ohio, US
Sun, May 21, 1989
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Massillon P.
OH, USA 02 Mar 2019
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