A Confederate pirate ship
The GEORGIAN

A cartoon of the GEORGIAN
The only picture we know of.

On November 1, 1864 Jacob Thompson purchased the steamer GEORGIAN in Toronto, Ontario. It was a new vessel, built a year and a half earlier with great care by George H. Wyatt and "others". It had already made one trip across the Atlantic, and prooved to be a fast sailer, and was hypothesised to be able to do immense injury to the shipping industry of the Great Lakes. She was built for the lumber trade which made her adaptable to heavy loads, and the Confederates intended to stregthen her even more.

When she docked in Buffalo, New York, panic spread that she was armed and dangerous and was going the attack the MICHIGAN. It was later revealed that the GEORGIAN was merely there to just have a Confederate ship on the lakes. Thompson had complained in one of his letters to the Confederate government that "the bane and curse of carrying out anything in this country is the surveillance under which we act". She was often searched by the US, but nothing suspicious was ever found. She seemed to be purpose-less.

On April 6, 1865 the Georgian was caught by the Canadian government in the possession of orders to attack fishing vessels in the area.

She then was sold to G.T. Denison and was put to twenty more years of service on the lakes. In 1874 she was converted in to freighter and rebuilt again 1882. On May 9, 1888, while towing the schooner GOLD HUNTER, she struck an ice floe and sunk in 300 feet of water off of Cape Rich, Georgian Bay.

This page created by Jon Lamphere on October 3, 2006
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