1876
The schooner HARVEST HOME sank on Lake Michigan while bound from Chicago, IL, for Cleveland, OH, with a load of scrap iron. She was about 26 miles off Grand Haven, MI. The crew was taken off by the schooner GRACIE M. FILER just as the boat was going down.
1883
EXPLORER (two-masted wooden schooner; 48 foot; 33 gross tons; built in 1866 at Chatham, ON) struck rocks and went down on Stokes Bay on the outside of the Bruce Peninsula. Her crew was visible from shore clinging to the wreck until the vessel broke up. All five were lost.
1895
S.P. AMES (two-masted wooden schooner; 61 feet; 43 gross tons) was driven ashore at Pointe aux Barques, MI, in a storm. She was quickly stripped before she went to pieces. She had been built in 1879 at Montrose, MI, in farm country, well inland, on the Flint River by Mr. Seth Ames. He wanted to use her to return to sea, but he died the day before her hull was launched.
1929
HORACE JOHNSON sailed on her maiden voyage light from Lorain, OH, upbound for Two Harbors, MI, to load iron ore.
Horace Johnson in Soo Harbor, 1978. Roger LeLievre
1942
HMCS CHARLOTTETOWN, a Canadian naval corvette built at Kingston, ON, in 1941, was torpedoed and sunk by U-517 on the St. Lawrence River near Cap-Chat, QC. Nine of the 64 on board were lost.
1944
The GEORGE M. HUMPHREY was patched and refloated. She had sunk in 80 feet of water after a collision with the steamer D.M. CLEMSON of 1916 off Old Point Light on June 15, 1943. On May 6, 1944, the barges MAITLAND NO. 1 and HILDA were employed as pontoons for the salvage operation positioned over the sunken hull. Cables were attached to the HUMPHREY’s hull and to the barges. The hull was raised through a series of lifts, which allowed it to be brought into shallower water. Partial buoyancy was provided by the HUMPHREY’s ballast tanks, which were pumped out to about 25 percent capacity. She was taken to the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co. first for an estimate of repairs, which totaled $469,400, and then was towed to Sturgeon Bay, WI, for reconditioning, which was completed at a reported cost of $437,000. Captain John Roen’s Roen Transportation Co. assumed ownership on September 18, 1944, and the next year the ship was renamed b.) CAPTAIN JOHN ROEN. She re-entered service on May 1, 1945, chartered to the Pioneer Steamship Co. on a commission basis. The vessel was renamed c.) ADAM E. CORNELIUS in 1948 and d.) CONSUMERS POWER in 1958. She was scrapped at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 1988.
1946
The former Hall freighter LUCIUS W. ROBINSON, heading for new service in the Far East as b.) HAI LIN, ran into a typhoon on the Pacific during its delivery voyage but was unscathed.
Lucius W. Robinson. Peter B .Worden Collection, MHSD
1961
The retired PERSEUS, under tow for scrapping overseas, broke loose of the tug ENGLISHMAN and was abandoned in rough seas near the Azores. The hull was later found drifting and taken in tow only to sink on September 21.
Perseus on August 18, 1957. Peter Vanderlinden Collection
1968
GRINDEFJELL, a pre-Seaway and Seaway-era visitor for the Norwegian Fjell Line from 1953 to 1965, was put into Mozambique as b.) LENRO after a fire had broken out in a cargo hold. The flames spread, and at one time the hull glowed red hot. The ship was gutted, later capsized, and was abandoned as a total loss. The vessel was en route from Assab, Ethiopia, to Rotterdam, Netherlands, with a cargo of bagged niger seed expellers and had to take the long way around due to the Suez Canal being closed. The hull was either scrapped or scuttled.
1969
The Bethlehem steamer LEHIGH, under the command of Captain Loren A. Falk, delivered the first cargo to the new Bethlehem Steel mill at Burns Harbor, IN. The cargo consisted of 15,700 tons of taconite pellets loaded at Taconite Harbor, MN.
Lehigh early in her career. Captain Taylor Photo
1987
An arson fire gutted the bridge and top deck of the laid-up former CSL package freighter FORT YORK at Sarnia, ON. There had been another suspicious fire 3 weeks earlier that had been extinguished.
Fort York on fire.
1988?
Carrying cargoes off the lakes, CANADA MARQUIS departed Halifax, NS, bound for Philadelphia, PA, with a cargo of grain. HON. PAUL MARTIN departed Halifax the same day on her way to Tampa, FL, with a load of gypsum.
Canada Marquis at Toledo in 1989. Jim Hoffman
2001
The former Boblo boat STE. CLAIRE was towed from Detroit, MI, to Toledo, OH, by Gaelic’s tug SHANNON. In August 2005, she was taken to Belanger Park in River Rouge, MI, and in the spring of 2006, she was returned to Nicholson’s slip in Ecorse, MI, by Gaelic’s tugs PATRICIA HOEY and CAROLYN HOEY.
Ste. Claire under tow of tug Shannon on September 11, 2001. Boatnerd files
Contributors & Sources
Skip Gillham, Joe Barr, Dave Swayze, George Wharton, Roger LeLievre, the Ahoy & Farewell series and the Great Lakes Ships We Remember series from the Marine Historical Society of Detroit.
Compiled & Maintained by Roger LeLievre.
