Today in Great Lakes History – September 3

1869
1869:   The 167-foot wooden propeller BOSCOBEL burned about 2 miles below St. Clair, MI. Three lives were lost. The ship was only about 2 years old and was in service of the New York Central Railroad, though owned by the Peshtigo Lumbering Co. of Chicago, IL. The burned hulk was raised in 1876 and rebuilt as a schooner-barge at Algonac, MI. She lasted until 1909 when she sank on Lake Huron.

1887
1887:   BULGARIA (wooden propeller; 280 feet; 1,888 gross tons) was launched at West Bay City, MI, by J. Davidson as Hull #16.

1899
1899:   The Great Lakes Towing Company’s RED CLOUD (wooden propeller tug; 62 feet; 40 gross tons; built in 1883 at Buffalo, NY) was sailing on Lake Erie for Lorain, OH, when a storm forced her to head for port at Cedar Point, OH. However, she was thrown on a reef and broke in two as a total loss. The crew made it to Sandusky, OH.

1905
1905:   The GEORGE STEPHENSON was blown aground at Pointe aux Pins on Lake Superior and struck by her consort barge JOHN A. ROEBLING. Both were released and returned to service.

1910
1910:   The MARQUETTE & BESSEMER NO. 2 (Hull #450) was launched at Cleveland, OH, by the American Ship Building Co. for the Marquette & Bessemer Dock & Navigation Co. She was the replacement for MARQUETTE & BESSEMER NO. 2 of 1905 (Hull #428), which foundered on Lake Erie on December 7, 1909.

1919
1919:   The WILLIAM A. MCGONAGLE loaded a record 15,160 tons of soft coal at Toledo, OH, for delivery to Gary, IN. The record lasted less than 24 hours, as the D.G. KERR, under the command of Captain Harry Harbottle, loaded 15,532 tons of coal at the same Toledo dock for delivery to Gary.

1920
1920:   H.H. PORTER sailed on her maiden voyage for the Brier Hill Steamship Co. (Pickands Mather, manager) light from Lorain, OH, to load iron ore at Two Harbors, MN. The vessel was renamed b.) WALTER E. WATSON in 1957 and c.) NATIONAL TRADER in 1973. She was scrapped at Thunder Bay, ON, in 1978.

1942
1942:   The 250-foot STEEL VENDOR, under the command of Captain G.L. Kane, sank at 03:45 on Lake Superior with a cargo of 3,000 tons of iron ore. The lone casualty was Oiler John N. Sicken. 22 survivors were rescued by the CHARLES M. SCHWAB, under the command of Captain Alfred Drouillard, while two others were rescued by the WILLIAM G. CLYDE and Captain David M. LeRoy. Other boats standing by were the B.F. AFFLECK, ELBERT H. GARY, JOLIET, and EUGENE P. THOMAS. STEEL VENDOR was carrying 3,000 tons of steel billets, not ore, destined for the Waukegan, IL, plant of the American Steel & Wire Co., a U.S. Steel subsidiary. The billets were manufactured at the AS&W Co. plant in Duluth, MN, the home of the former Minnesota Steel Co.

1942:   DONALD STEWART, a canal trader for Canada Steamship Lines, was torpedoed by U-517 and sunk while in a convoy on the Gulf of St. Lawrence while carrying barrels of aviation fuel and bulk cement for the air base at Goose Bay, NL. Three members of the engine room crew were lost.

1944
1944:   LIVINGSTON, a former Great Lakes canal ship, was torpedoed and sunk by U-541 in the Atlantic Ocean about 80 miles east of Cape Breton Island. 14 lives were lost, but another 14 were spared and rescued.

1957
1957:   The HARRIS N. SNYDER of the Boland & Cornelius fleet, under the command of Captain Elmer Murray and Chief Engineer Frank McCabe, rescued two from the waters of Lake Michigan. Not only did the crew rescue Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Colby, but they also used the unloading boom to recover their sailboat and place it on the deck of the SNYDER. The entire maneuver only required 55 minutes.

1965
1965:   The tanker EASTERN SHELL sank the small wooden goelette MONT BLANC in a collision blamed on fog about 20 miles from Trois-Rivières, QC. All crew members of the pulpwood carrier were rescued.

1968
1968:   Keel-laying ceremonies for the 437-foot bow section of the ROGER BLOUGH (Hull #900) took place at Lorain, OH. The hull was float-launched on December 21, 1968, minus ballast tanks, because the existing dry dock wasn’t wide enough to accommodate her 105-foot width.

1970
1970:   KENNETH made a single trip to the Great Lakes in 1959. It caught fire in the engine room on this day off the coast of Israel while en route from Alexandria, Egypt, to Tripoli, Libya, as h.) CHRISTINA MARIA. The ship was abandoned by the crew, towed into Haifa, Israel, on September 6, and sold to Israeli shipbreakers later in the year.

1976
1976:   SOODOC (Hull #210) of 1976 loaded salt at Goderich, ON, on her maiden voyage from Collingwood, ON. She was renamed b.) AMELIA DESGAGNÉS in 1990.

1977
1977:   The BELLE RIVER (now WALTER J. MCCARTHY JR.) set a then-Great Lakes record for coal when she loaded 62,802 tons at Superior Midwest Energy Terminal on her maiden voyage. This record has since been surpassed many times.

1981
1981:   U.S. Steel’s SEWELL AVERY was laid up for the last time at Superior, WI. She was towed to Sault Ste. Marie, ON, in 1987, where the superstructure was removed, and the hull was sunk for use as a dock.

1981:   THOMAS W. LAMONT was laid up for the last time at Hallett Dock 6A in Duluth, MN. She was scrapped at Aliaga, Turkey, in 1987.

1985
1985:   PHILIP R. CLARKE plowed into the Drawbridge Cove Marina on Lorain, OH’s Black River, damaging 5–10 small craft and sinking one at the steel dock. CLARKE managed to stop before hitting the Charles Berry Bridge.

1998
1998:   ORKANGER, a chemical tanker that first came through the Seaway in 1977, began leaking on this day while inbound at Rio Grande, Brazil, as e.) BAHAMAS with 12,000 tons of sulphuric acid. She sank in the harbor. The hull was eventually refloated but never repaired; however, it had subsequent renames and was reported as being broken up in 2003 as h.) ORIENT FLOWER.

Data from: Skip Gillham, Max Hanley, Joe Barr, David Swayze, Russ Plumb, Father Dowling Collection, James Neumiller, Jody L. Aho, Ahoy & Farewell II, and the Great Lakes Ships We Remember series from the Marine Historical Society of Detroit. Compiled by Roger LeLievre.

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