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Clayton locals had a saying: “The River remembers.” It wasn’t just about the mighty St. Lawrence’s ever-changing moods, but the secrets it held beneath its surface. Take the Picton Island Barge, for example. A wooden vessel full of rose granite sitting on the bottom of the river, a silent testament to a furious storm that shut down the island’s quarry back in the late 1800s. The quarry itself, once a busy hive of activity, was now a wooded shoreline with protruding rock cliffs and a stack of stone that never left the dock, a chilling reminder of the river’s power.
Fast forward to present day. Your dive boat sliced through the glassy morning surface near Angler’s Point, a familiar landmark for those who frequent the area. But today, the River had unearthed a new mystery. A blip of something on the screen reveals something on the bottom which caught your eye – the unmistakable hull of a pleasure craft, its once vibrant paint dulled by the water’s embrace and the congregation of zebra mussels. This wasn’t your typical shipwreck; this one had a secret story to tell from a bygone time.
YouTube Video by Dan Gildea, SLD CC2024
Intrigued, you descended. The steel hull, surprisingly intact, whispered of a misfortune or possibly a tragic loss. As you explored the wreckage, you notice a large school of black bass have made it their home but a hint of rusted metal nearby caught your attention. It appears to be a section of the Picton Island dock, half-buried in the silt. An unsettling connection began to form.
The Picton Island Quarry, operational from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, had provided the limestone that built much of Kingston and well known historical structures in Clayton. Now, an eerily similar metal object lay wrecked nearby. Could there be a link? Perhaps the pleasure craft had strayed too close to the pilings that once supported the dock, a silent sentinel warning of the river’s fury. Or maybe a rogue current, the same one that claimed the barge over a century ago, had played a role in this new tragedy.
The dive yielded no immediate answers, only a deeper sense of the River’s history. The pleasure craft, a stark contrast to the weathered barge, spoke of a past where this portion of the river was once the center point for barges, tug boats, and those enjoying the river who wished to watch the quarry operate. Back on the surface, the Clayton locals, their eyes reflecting the knowledge passed down through generations, would likely nod knowingly. The River remembers, they’d say. And perhaps, with your next dive into the submerged dock of the Picton Island Quarry, you’d be able to coax another piece of the story from its watery depths.
Links and Resources
https://fb.watch/s4mkIw1FIc/
