Murder on the S.S. Oneida? Lake Champlain ferry was millionaire's legendary yacht

TICONDEROGA | Before the S.S. Oneida ended its maritime career as a Lake Champlain ferryboat, it had already achieved legendary status. First conceived as a pleasure boat and acquired temporarily by the U.S. Navy for possible use as a coastal patrol boat during World War 1, this fancy steam yacht served three East Coast millionaires. Weighing in at 552-gross-tons, the private yacht was 200 feet in length, with a beam of 24 feet and drawing 11.5 feet. The Oneida was much like a small passenger ship of its era. Today, the famous Oneida is remembered as being the site of the mysterious death of Hollywood silent-movie producer Thomas Ince in November 1924. Best known as newspaper publisher magnate William Randolph Hearst's floating Xanadu pleasure boat, the Oneida was built in Delaware in 1913. Christened by Philadelphia banker George William Childs Drexel, the vessel was acquired by Manhattan banker Elias Cornelius Benedict after the war. Recorded in the lost log of the Oneida was an interesting and historic voyage: the millionaire's yacht was one of the first private vessels to enter the newly built Panama Canal. Benedict sailed the Oneida until his death in 1922; in a few years, he had logged many nautical miles in both Atlantic and Pacific waters. Then, in stepped the powerful, kingmaker Hearst. "Citizen Kane" Hearst — so dubbed since the classic 1941 film "Citizen Kane" was largely based on his life — acquired Benedict's vessel for his own private escapades. The vessel was overhauled with many navigational and safety features added. While Hearst owned the Oneida for just a few years, he and his many celebrity guests managed to pack a lot of entertainment onboard. After the war, Hearst, then in his late 50s, became interested in staking a claim in Hollywood movie-making. Hearst, it appears, was interested in launching the career of his 20-something lover, actress Marion Davies. Soon the owner of International Film Service Company, Hearst used the Oneida as a floating party boat to entertain Hollywood celebrities and as a way to showcase the "talents" of the fetching Ms. Davies. According to Davies' autobiography, she began her sexual relationship with Hearst when she was a New York chorus girl in her teens. Even while he was married to his wife Millicent, Hearst kept Davies well-pampered in mink and diamonds. The celebrity affair didn't seem to bother Davies who has been viewed by some film historians as the consummate golddigger. "Love is not always created at the altar," she said. "Love doesn't need a wedding ring." The fact that New York and Los Angeles gossip columnists, along with millions of movie fans, were curious about the illicit affair also didn't seem to bother Davies. "I (may) live in a fishbowl, but everything I want is mine," she said. Starting in 1922, Hearst and Davies did considerable entertaining along the California coast aboard the future Lake Champlain ferry. Authors, movie stars, and several international VIPs made frequent cruises aboard the Oneida. Hearst's ocean-going parties included alcohol, gambling, various games, and sunbathing au naturel. Enter Hollywood producer Thomas Ince. Ince and Hearst began negotiations by which Hearst-owned Cosmopolitan Productions would make films in Ince's Hollywood studio located along then-rural Sunset Boulevard. In November 1924, Hearst invited Ince, and movie star Charlie Chaplin, among others, for a frolicking weekend cruise on the occasion of Ince's 44th birthday on Nov. 16. The short Pacific cruise would give both men time to seal their movie-studio deal. But then something went terribly wrong on the Oneida during the evening of Nov. 19, just two days after Ince's birthday. Historians aren't exactly sure what happened to the movie producer while he was aboard the yacht. And Hearst and his guests would never speak about it in public. Was Ince shot that night or did he suffer a heart attack? The incident still remains a mystery after the passing of nearly a century. After returning the Oneida to its Los Angeles-area berth, Hearst had the stricken Ince taken off the yacht and taken to his 1051 Benedict Canyon Dr. home, where the producer died. "Ince's death at the age of 44 has been the subject of much speculation and scandal, with rumors of murder, mystery, and jealousy," according to Ince's biographer Brian Taves. "The official cause of his death was heart failure, and while witnesses (including his widow Nell) corroborate that his medical condition brought about his death, rumors and sensationalism continued decades later, fueled with the 2001 release of the movie The Cat's Meow." What really happened aboard the Oneida? According to a report in the L.A. Weekly, "Several conflicting stories circulated about the incident, often revolving around a claim that Hearst shot Ince in the head after mistaking him for Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin's valet, Toraichi Kono, claimed to have seen Ince when he came ashore via stretcher in San Diego. Kono told his wife that Ince's head was 'bleeding from a bullet wound.' The story quickly spread among Japanese domestic workers throughout Beverly Hills... Movie columnist Louella Parsons' name also figured into the Ince scandal, with some speculating that she had been aboard the Oneida that fatal day. When the Oneida sailed, Parsons was a New York movie columnist for one of Hearst's papers. Supposedly, after the Ince affair, Hearst gave her a lifetime contract and expanded her syndication. However, other sources show that Parsons did not gain her position with Hearst as part of 'hush-money' but had been the motion picture editor of the Hearst-owned New York American in December 1923 and her contract was signed a year before Ince's death." The shadow of Ince's death forever dogged the Oneida. Hence, less than a decade after the death, Hearst sold the yacht at auction. It was purchased for a less-than-glamorous mission, this time, to ferry passengers across Lake Champlain. Sailed from California to Quebec, the Oneida was brought down the St. Lawrence River to the Richelieu Canal where she entered Lake Champlain. Refitted in the shipyard at Burlington, Vermont, for her new ferry duties, the superstructure of the former floating pleasure palace was greatly altered. The New Yorker magazine first reported the fate of the infamous yacht in 1932: "The ferry company, it came out, had got her at a bargain... Passengers who do not themselves recognize the Oneida as the former Hearst yacht are likely to be advised of this chapter of her history anyhow, for over a stairway leading down from the main deck is a sign: 'Museum: Admission 10 cents.' Our traveler paid a dime and descended to the museum, which he found to be the Hearst living quarters, faithfully preserved in their elegance: two of the rooms, usually occupied by Mr. Hearst and his secretary in the old days, fitted with mahogany furnishings, dark-red damask hangings, and notably soft and deep bedding accessories; and the third room, Mrs. (Millicent) Hearst's, in ivory and gilt with a bath which even now has gold-plated fittings. The curator of the museum is a young lady who chats interestingly about the Hearsts, dealing in both facts and surmises, and sells souvenir postals of the interior for 10 cents each." Sadly, on Aug. 21, 1940, her ferrying days over, the Oneida was sold as scrap metal and used to make ammunition by the Canadians at the start of World War II. Today, all that remains of the Oneida in the Adirondack region are its two tender boats, once used for shuttling yacht visitors to and fro. The boats are stored in a private warehouse in Champlain, New York. At this time, it's uncertain if the twin tenders will ever be restored and exhibited to the public.

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Murder on the S.S. Oneida? Lake Champlain ferry was millionaire's legendary yacht

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