American company White Star Lines operated the Tashmoo or "The Glass Hack," a beloved ship that provided passenger service between Detroit, Port Huron and Sarnia. The swift paddle wheeler took countless Lambton residents on pleasant excursions down the St. Clair River between 1901 and 1936.
The Tashmoo was built at Wyandotte, Michigan in 1899 and was classed as a lake and river boat with a capacity for up to 3,500 passengers. During summer months she made daily excursion trips, stopping at Algonac, Port Lambton, Marine City, St. Clair, Stag Island, South Park, Port Huron and twice at Sarnia.
Leaving from Sarnia, a trip aboard the Tashmoo including a stop at Stag Island cost about 80 or 90 cents. Jean Elford described evenings on the boat: "Hundreds of electric lights twinkled and were reflected on the great stretches of glass that enclosed the dining room and ballroom... With the rest of her in darkness, she gave the illusion of floating above the water, and as she went the music of Finzel's orchestra added all that was needed to make her wonderfully romantic."
In the Sarnia Observer on August 20, 1983, O.N. (Red) Wilson reminisced fondly: "[We] dived into the bubbly wake cast up by the paddle wheels when the big ship left the dock. It took a lot of hard swimming to keep from going under the froth... While the ship was docked at Sarnia the 'water rats' dove for the pennies tossed into the water by passengers. The more successful dove, retrieved the slanting coins, tucked them into their mouths and kept right on chasing the money."
On June 4, 1901, a race was set up between the Tashmoo and the City of Erie after an official from White Star boasted the Tashmoo could beat either the City of Erie or the City of Buffalo. Both ships took the lead at some point during the hour-long race, but the City of Erie edged out the Tashmoo with a speed of 21.76 miles per hour to the Tashmoo's 21.70 miles per hour.
In the evening of June 19, 1936, while approaching the Livingstone channel below Grosse Ile, the Tashmoo hit a rock, and an eight-inch hole quickly began bringing in water. Captain McAlpine wisely brought the ship to shore and the passengers disembarked to the music of the orchestra, quite unaware of the circumstances of their unscheduled stop. The cost of $750,000 to repair the boat was too high, and the Tashmoo was sold for scrap after her 36-year run of creating fond summer memories.
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