The Jupiter: A Model of a Real-Life 1920s Great Lakes Freighter
John Aird: 1919-2005 (Father)
Following the 2016 death of my mother-in-law, Laurel Aird,
we brought home some family treasures, including a model of a Great Lakes
freighter my father-in-law, John Aird, had built as a child in the 1920s. We
found the model, along with two other more crude models, in the Aird attic. Despite
the model’s awkwardly large shape—it is 32 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 6
inches tall—we couldn’t bear to throw it out. We felt our children and eventual
grandchildren should have this marvelous piece of family history. Therefore, we
brought it with us as a piece of carry-on luggage when we flew home to California.
It wouldn’t fit in the overhead bins, so the flight attendants stowed it in a
special cabinet in the rear of the plane. Fortunately, the model survived its
flight, and now lives atop a bookcase in our home.
When we read John Aird’s memoir, we found a passage
describing the creation of the model and how much he cared for it. He had grown
up in Detroit and as a child he vacationed each summer in Port Huron. He became
fascinated with the Great Lakes freighters that plied Lake Huron and Lake Erie,
and built the models to resemble actual freighters. He would sail them along
the Port Huron shore in the summer.
Here is the section from John’s memoir:
“…the next year I found a one-and-a-half by four board
about three feet long and proceeded to make myself a Great Lakes freighter,
which I named Jupiter, after a small Interlake Steamship Company freighter. This
time I rounded the stern, painted the hull red, a standard freighter color, the
cabins which with black doors and windows, attached two rather thick masts fore
and aft with screws (so they could be removed for transporting), and put a
monogram of my own initials in red on a white band on its black funnel, another
authentic touch. The Jupiter performed admirably. It made very satisfactory bow
waves and a second set of waves from its stern and could even carry deck loads
of stones and seaweed, though sand tended to wash off. In subsequent years I
added a second straight-deck freighter, the Arcturus (named for another Interlake
freighter), larger and with a more carefully fashioned hull, and a still more
realistically moulded package freighter, the Scorpio, modelled after the great
Lakes Transit Company package freighter Daniel Willard, and, like it, panted
white and green. The three boats looked quite impressive when anchored a little
offshore on a calm day.”
John did a fine job of building the model. The photo below
shows the real Jupiter. The model has the same shape. Even the model’s
proportions are similar—the real Jupiter was 346 feet long and 48 feet wide,
while John’s model was 32x4 inches. The Jupiter was built in 1901 and was owned
by Interlake Steamship Company from 1913 through 1936.
John’s memoir continued:
“They apparently impressed other kids in the neighborhood
at Port Huron. One night when I had left the two ore freighters on the railing
of the cottage porch, two boys crept up and stole them. They were halfway down
the block with them when, by the merest chance, my parents, returning from an
evening walk, saw the boys hurrying furtively across a yard near a street
corner. My father recognized the boats as their high gloss enamel reflected the
light of the nearby streetlight, and he yelled at the kids to ‘put them down’
which they did. After that I made a point of taking my boats indoors when I
finished playing with them.”
“In Adelphi one summer when Steve was still small, I got
out the old Jupiter (I had kept all three boats) for him to play with in the
ponds of the George Washington Cemetery behind our Lackawanna Street house. The
boat had not been in the water in more than 20 years, and the forward cabins absorbed
moisture, expanded, and cracked around their nails. I had never gotten over my
emotional attachment to the boat and set about to remodel it, reshaping the
hull fore and aft, replacing the cabins and the funnel, adding hatches
amidships and a coal hatch atop the after cabin, and repainting it. I have kept
it still and still derive a sense of pleasure when I look at it.”
One of the sections John repaired as an adult.
Reading these passages makes us even more grateful that we
decided to keep the model and pass it down to John’s descendants. It is a
marvelous, very personal heirloom, a reminder to our daughter and son of the
grandfather they loved, and a glimpse into the little boy he once was.
Sources:
BGSU Libraries. Historical Collections of the Great Lakes. “Jupiter”.
Photo and specs of the freighter Jupiter. https://greatlakes.bgsu.edu/item/436097
Memoirs of John Shields Aird, pages 91-92.
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