1849
1849: CHICAGO (wooden passenger-package freight vessel, 95 feet, 151 tons, built in 1842 at Oswego, New York) burned in Buffalo Harbor. No lives were lost.
1862
1862: UNION (wooden propeller passenger-package freight steamer, 163 feet, 434 tons, built in 1861 at Manitowoc, Wisconsin) was sold by the Goodrich Line to James H. Mead and J.F. Kirkland for $28,000. This was $9,000 more than Goodrich had paid to have the vessel built just the previous year.
1871
1871: The construction of the canal through the St. Clair Flats was finished at a cost of $365,000. It was the first real channel built to help ships through the shallow waters where the St. Clair River empties into Lake St. Clair and where there are seven mouths or passes. It took the Canadian contractor John Brown 3 years to dig the channel that measures 300 feet wide and 8,421 feet long. The water was 18 feet deep. It was protected on most of its sides by piers and dikes. The new channel was considered too small even as it was being dug. At only 300 feet wide, tows of log rafts were encouraged to sue the old shallower channels. Within 20 years, plans were made to deepen the channel to 20 feet.
1911
1911: Seven lives were lost when the wooden passenger ship SIRIUS capsized and sank in the St. Lawrence 8 miles from Massena, New York. There were 75 passengers on board headed for a picnic when the accident occurred. Apparently, many passengers had rushed to one side of the ship to see a woodchuck as the ship was turning in the current, and this led to the ship going over.
1951
1951: YANGTSE PHOENIX dragged her anchors while riding out a typhoon near Tai Po, Hong Kong, went aground and was wrecked. The vessel was built as SAGUENAY (i) for CSL at Govan, Scotland, in 1913 and entered service between Quebec City and Saguenay River ports. It left Canada for the Far East as b) KIANG YONG in 1946 and became c) YANGTSE PHOENIX in 1949.
1957
1957: The PERE MARQUETTE 18 of 1911 was sold to Luria Brothers, Chicago scrap merchants, along with the PERE MARQUETTE 14.
1969
1969: The British freighter BETHLEHEM sank following a collision with the SHOWA MARU about 30 miles from Singapore. The ship was en route from Tokyo to Aden, and seven of the crew were lost. The vessel made two trips to the Great Lakes in 1959 as HOPERIDGE.
1982
1982: The Canadian tanker L’ERABLE NO. 1 entered service. Renamed b.) HUBERT GAUCHER in 1982. Sold foreign in 1996, renamed c.) RODIN and d.) OLYMPIC PRIDE in 2000.
Data from: Skip Gillham, Jody Aho, Joe Barr, Dave Swayze, Mike Nicholls, Father Dowling Collection, 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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- 1959 postcard of Hoperidge in the Soo Locks. Boatnerd files
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- Hubert Gaucher in 1994.
