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MARIN REVIE Vou. IV. CLEVELAND, OHIO, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1891. No. 15. Capt. William W. Bates, Commissioner of Navigation. Capt. William W. Bates, commissioner of navigation and one of the ablest advocates of protection to American shipping, had been connected with the shipbuilding industry on the lakes at different times during forty years previous to his appointment in the government service, and is known in every: port from Duluth to the St. Lawrence. His father was Stephen Bates, a shipbuilder of Calais, Me. In 1845, at the age of eighteen, Capt. Bates came to the lakes and spent the following winter at his trade in Huron and Sandusky. ‘Three years later he settled in Manitowoc, Wis., where he built a number of vessels, among them the Mary Stockton and the schooner Challenge, the first CAPT. WILLIAM W. BATES, COMM clipper on the lakes. He wrote many articles to the press, and soon became known as a critic andan authority on vessel matters. In 1851 he reported the section of naval architecture and ship- building of the World’s Fair in New York for a Chicago paper. In 1852 he began letter writing to public men, by addressing Senator Douglass of Illinois, on reforming our tonnage ad- measurement. rules, and improving the ‘models of vessels of all kinds. With the late famous ship architect and author, John W. Griffiths, he edited and published from 1854 to 1857 “The Nauti- cal Magazine and Naval Journal,’’ and his studies and observa- tions made him master of all the facts in the history of American shipping, in the decade before the war, a period in which it rose and fell like an ocean wave. About, this time he prepared a bill at the instance of Hon John Cochrane, chairman of the House committee on commerce, which, six years afterward, when shorn of some of its best provisions, became our present admeasurement system. . Capt. Bates had returned to Wisconsin and was building steamers for the Goodrich Line when the war broke out. He obtained a commission and raised a company, many of the mem- bers being shipwrights of his employ. After the war he car- ried on a dry dock, shipbuilding and repairing business in Chi- cago, but his entire establishment with all his savings was swept ISSIONER OF NAVIGATION. away by the firein 1871. Capt. Bates spent several years on the Pacific coast later, and returned to the lakes in 1884. He was employed at Buffalo as chief inspector and manager of the Inland Lloyds Register when appointed to the important posi- tion which he now holds. Much of Capt. Bates’ time of late years has been devoted to the obscurer problems of shipping economy and to the advocacy of protection to our marine. No writer has contributed more than he to direct public opinion rightly in matters pertaining to American shipping. He has been a leader in the affairs of the Shipping League. We are in- debted to the Marine Journal of New York for the accompanying portrait. arn ER ASRS NA TRRRCN PAE te an