Black Yachting History: The Captain & The Commodore (Updated)

Culrose McLaughlin (From “5,000 Miles in a 27-Tonner” by Aemilius Jarvis, 1921)

In 2023, I published two stories on Caymanian Captain Culrose McLaughlin and Canadian Commodore Aemilius Jarvis; one in Scuttlebutt Sailing News, and the other on Black Ottawa Scene. From 1921 to 1951, McLaughlin went from mate on a Caribbean turtle schooner to captain in the U.S. Merchant Marine. He was mentored in Toronto by Jarvis from 1921 to 1925.

Added details (not previously published) plus new/2026 updates below...

Aemilius Jarvis was a seven-time Commodore of Toronto's Royal Canadian Yacht Club. The title of this article ("The Captain & The Commodore"), however, is a play on words: Culrose McLaughlin was also reportedly a commodore at at least one point, evidently of J.P. Morgan Jr.'s fleet of pleasure craft in Glen Cove, N.Y. (per C.H.J. Snider in the Toronto Telegram in 1941). (Whether McLaughlin did in fact work for Morgan Jr. is TBC.)

Aemilius Jarvis (From “5,000 Miles in a 27-Tonner” by Aemilius Jarvis, 1921)

Jarvis first encountered McLaughlin while on a sailing trip from Toronto to Jamaica and back, chronicled in his 1921 book, "5,000 Miles in a 27-Tonner".

Aemilius Jarvis' schooner "Haswell" at Royal Jamaica Yacht Club, where he first met (& subsequently hired) Culrose McLaughlin. (From “5,000 Miles in a 27-Tonner” by Aemilius Jarvis, 1921)

The crew member who Culrose replaced on Jarvis' schooner Haswell (in 1921) had attempted mutiny – or was at least completely out of control on deck – and Aemilius consequently clocked the man upside the head with “one leg” of a wooden stool, putting him in hospital, where Aemilius left him.

Culrose McLaughlin – whom they nicknamed “Mack” – wasn't the only crew member of colour onboard. Following the dismissal of the Haswell’s cook who couldn’t cook due to seasickness, Jarvis replaced him with a Black cook, Tom Darrell, who “could burn water” just as well as any of his predecessors in the galley, but didn’t get seasick.

Tom Darrell (From “5,000 Miles in a 27-Tonner” by Aemilius Jarvis, 1921)

In 1923, McLaughlin went on another nautical adventure with Aemilius Jarvis, sailing Jarvis' new schooner "Venture" from Marblehead, MA to Toronto. The journey is documented in a book by legendary Canadian yachting writer C.H.J. Snider, entitled "Adventures of the Venture" (1923).

Culrose McLaughlin (From “Adventures of the Venture” by C.H.J. Snider, 1923)

Excerpt from “Adventures of the Venture” by C.H.J. Snider, 1923.

The schooner, Venture. (From "Adventures of the Venture" by C.H.J. Snider, 1923)

In 1925, when applying for U.S. Naturalization, Mack gave his address as Bristol Bay, Rhode Island, living onboard good 'ol Venture. (Jarvis had to sell the yacht around the time to help pay the huge fine attached to his bogus 1924 Ontario Bond Scandal conviction, for which he also served six months at a Richmond Hill jail farm.)

While it's not confirmed that Mack worked for J.P. Morgan Jr., it is certain that he captained yachts for F. Trubee Davison, President of New York's American Museum of Natural History and Treasurer of the Republican National Committee, amongst other things.

Miami Herald – Jan. 4, 1939

F. Trubee Davison on the cover of Time Magazine – Aug. 24, 1925

Capt. Culrose McLauglin (Miami Herald – Nov. 11, 1941)

Shortly after the above photo was taken, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. entered WWII. Early the following year, McLaughlin joined the U.S. Merchant Marine, quickly rising to First Mate/Chief Officer (ie. second in command) by D-Day, 1944, and later to Captain by 1951.

S.S. Twin Falls Victory: Culrose McLaughlin was captain of this U.S. Merchant Marine ship in 1952. (He was licensed to captain any ship other than an oil tanker.) (Photo: Port Louis, Mauritius – Dec. 1964)

2026 Update 1: As many Toronto readers in particular will know, Aemilius' great-grandparents, William Jarvis and Hannah Peters Jarvis, were notorious slave owners in Toronto's early/’Muddy York’ years. A biography of Henry Lewis – a slave who escaped from them – was just published on the Canadian Dictionary of Biography website in 2025.

2026 Update 2: Recent Premier of the Cayman Islands, Sir Alden McLaughlin, clearly shared the same original/early 19th century Irish ancestor to Grand Cayman as Mack (i.e. one John Patrick McLaughlin), however Sir Alden tells a slightly different origin story...

Sir Alden McLaughlin after being knighted by King Charles (Jan. 2023).

"The way the story was told to him, Mr. (Alden) McLaughlin said that his earliest ancestor in Cayman, John Patrick McLaughlin, was dragooned onto a sailing vessel from his home in the Irish port town of Youghal. He was forced into a sailing life, and then, thousands of miles from home, his ship ran aground off Cuba. The boat’s sailors, luckily, were rescued by a Cayman schooner and brought back to Grand Cayman.

"The captain of the vessel, enjoying the privilege of rank, had his wife on board the boat, and shortly after reaching Cayman, he fell ill and passed away.

"John Patrick McLaughlin wound up courting the young widow, and after winning her hand, the pair went to get married in Lucea, Jamaica, because there was no marriage officer available on Grand Cayman."

“Now all that makes sense. Perfectly logical,” said Mr. McLaughlin of his family’s backstory. “The bit I have thought about ever since I learned of the story is, ‘Why did they come back?’

“Jamaica in the early 1800s was a really happening place. [Grand Cayman] was a remote and entirely undeveloped island that ships called at for water and for turtle. Nothing else. Why would these young people – when this was just as far away as the moon from where they came from – come back?” [Grand Cayman Magazine – Sept. 12, 2017]

(The story Culrose heard was that his great-grandfather John Patrick McLaughlin had found his way to the Caribbean rather as a buccaneer, presumably of his own volition.)

The Scuttlebutt version of my Culrose McLaughlin story has been shared widely in the U.S., Cayman Islands, and Europe. (The Black Ottawa Scene version is an accoutrement to the Scuttlebutt one, with some added details.)

You can read the (primary) Scuttlebutt Sailing News version here: Black Yachting History: McLaughlin & Jarvis

You can read the (secondary) Black Ottawa Scene version here: Black Yachting History: Capt. Culrose McLaughlin & Aemilius Jarvis