Halcyon Days on Presqu' Isle Bay 5 



have so remained, except for its mysterious sequel. A short 

 time before the tragedy, it had happened that Captain Sellack 

 of Presqu' Isle had been up to Niagara with a load of goods 

 from Kingston and on his return on a sweet summer day the 

 wind was lulled to a calm, the sailors lounging about on deck, 

 when one suddenly saw something dark and strange beneath the 

 smooth glistening lake surface. The captain was apprized, 

 and, taking the ship's yawl of the "Lady Murray," went back 

 with the men and located a large rock just beneath the water. 

 Next day he, with Captain Paxton of the Government schooner 

 "Speedy," took boats and, by the points taken before, located 

 the sunken rock^ scarce three feet beneath the surface, at some 

 four miles out from shore. The rock was some forty feet square 

 and strangely had on every side some fifty fathoms of water. 

 Captain Paxton carefully charted its location and promised 

 to report it to the Department at Niagara to have it placed 

 on the Lake Chart. 



After the "Speedy" had disappeared and the storm subsided, 

 Captain Sellack and the settlers of Presqu'Isle went out in 

 boats to make search and grapple about the sunken rock, seek- 

 ing for some evidence of the lost schooner. They searched the 

 first day, but in vain, for evidence of either schooner or rock; 

 with more men and boats, they went next day and a third, 

 but still no rock could be found, nor has anything further ever 

 been heard regarding the sunken reef. The story of the phan- 

 tom rock could not be dissociated from the loss of the "Speedy" 

 and became the basis of an agitation for moving the District 

 town and Court House to Amherst, now Cobourg. So the alert- 

 ness of old Captain Sellack and his men in searching out the 

 hidden danger became the unlucky occasion of the village los- 

 ing, what in those days was of so great importance, the County 

 Seat. 



But the story of brighter days grew, as Mrs. Keeler saw her 

 sons young men, going forth as their father had before them, 

 taking up new lands and becoming prominent in the community. 

 Settlers arrived in plenty, and every settlement on the shore 

 became a lake port. The young men went sailing on the lakes, 

 their only highway, and the clearing of the forest, cutting ships' 

 masts and square timber for export, and building sawmills for 



