George Bartley, born in 1835 in Massachusetts, began and ended his sailing career on the Great Lakes. As a child he moved with his family to Wisconsin. He spent four years sailing on the Great Lakes before he took a job on a whaler, taking a three-year cruise hunting sperm whales in oceans ranging from the far north to Japan. In 1859, he returned to Wisconsin and took up sailing on the Great Lakes again, eventually becoming the general superintendent of the Escanaba Towing and Wrecking Company for several decades. He died in 1908.
Captain Robert Caswell's career as a shipmaster was a short one. The New York native captained a steamboat on Lake Erie starting in 1838. He then kept switching boats, serving as captain of a different ship every season, including the small schooner "Sylvenus Marvin," which he built himself. Finally in 1846, less than a decade after he started sailing, he bought farm land from the government and retired from the sailing life. He later started a lumberyard and lived in Milwaukee until his death in 1870.
Not much is known about Captain Joseph Gilson, except what was reported in the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 14, 1871. The Chicago newspaper narrated the tale of his heroic actions that saved many lives and a fellow tugboat during the Great Fire of Chicago. When the fire broke out, he hurried to his tug, the Magnolia, and with his sailors, helped to rescue another tug and its crew and many of the people on the dock who had no other way of escaping the fire. The article commended him for risking his life and letting his own tug be destroyed as he continued in rescue efforts throughout the course of the fire. It then issued a plea that the Chicago community help him as he lost his home and all his property in the fire.
Several members of the Hunter Family took to the Lake Michigan waters as shipmasters before retiring to farm in Michigan. In 1880, according to the census, James Hunter, 51, was a steamboat captain whose sons were already sailing the lakes with him and on other ships. Silas Hunter, who had a reputation for hospitality and dancing, was 22 and an engineer. He became a shipmaster during his first voyage. He would live until he was 81 and fell off a balcony while visiting in Grand Rapids, Michigan. William Hunter, age 20, is also listed as a seaman in this census and would later become an engineer. There is some evidence that James Hunter was the founder of the Merchants Seamen Society. James's other son, Charles, also served as a shipmaster before becoming a lighthouse keeper.
Captain George Lawrence was another Lake Michigan shipmaster who started out his career as a whaler. Born in 1812, he sailed with his father on sea voyages. According to his obituary, he harpooned two whales before he turned 17. Within a few years he'd been made a captain. In 1846, he moved to Milwaukee and bought and built schooners. He died in 1883.