Today in Great Lakes History – September 18

1679
1679:   GRIFFON, the first sailing ship on the upper lakes, left Green Bay, WI, with a cargo of furs. She left the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle behind. GRIFFON never reached her planned destination.

1855
1855:   SEBASTOPOL (wooden sidewheel steamer; 230 feet; 863 tons; built in 1855 at Cleveland, OH) was sailing on Lake Michigan in a gale. Her cargo included copper, tin, lead and iron ingots, safes, and general merchandise. Her skipper misread the shore lights while she was coming into Milwaukee, WI, and she stranded 500 feet from shore, broadside to the storm waves, which pounded her to pieces. Most of the crew and 60 passengers were saved with the help of small boats from shore, but about six lives were lost. This was the vessel’s first year of operation. Her paddlewheels were 50 feet in diameter.

1871
1871:   E.B. ALLEN (wooden schooner; 111 feet; 275 tons; built in 1864 at Ogdensburg, NY) was carrying grain when she collided with the bark NEWSBOY and sank off Thunder Bay Island, MI, in Lake Huron.

1900
1900:   The large steamer CAPTAIN THOMAS WILSON was taken from her launch site on the Black River in Port Huron, MI, out to the St. Clair River. The tug HAYNES was at the bow with the tug BOYNTON at the stern. It took an hour and a half to maneuver through the various bridges. Newspapers estimated that a few thousand people watched the event. Once the WILSON made it to the St. Clair River, she was towed to the Jenks Shipbuilding Co., where she was completed and received her machinery.

1909
1909:   LACKAWANNA lost steering and sank in the St. Clair River with a hole in the starboard bow after a collision with the wooden schooner CHIEFTAIN off Point Edward, ON.

1918
1918:   BUFFALO, formerly the Great Lakes package freighter a.) TADOUSSAC and b.) DORIC, was torpedoed by U-117 and sunk off Godfrey Light and Trevose Head at Cornwall, United Kingdom.

1940
1940:   The Pere Marquette car ferry CITY OF MIDLAND 41 (Hull #311) was launched at Manitowoc, WI. She was built by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co. at a cost of $2 million. She was named after Midland, MI, for one of the Pere Marquette Railway’s biggest customers, Dow Chemical Co. She was christened by Miss Helen Dow, daughter of Willard H. Dow, president of Dow Chemical Co. The vessel was converted to a barge in 1998 and renamed PERE MARQUETTE 41.

1942
1942:   ASHBAY traded on the Great Lakes for Bay Line Navigation from 1923 until 1935 when it was sold for Brazilian coastal service. The ship was sunk by gunfire from U-516 on this date in 1942 at the mouth of the Marowyne River in Brazil as c.) ANTONICO, and 16 lives were lost.

1942:   NORFOLK, en route from Suriname to Trinidad, was hit, without warning, by two torpedoes from U-175 on the starboard side near the British Guiana-Venezuela border. The Canada Steamship Lines ship went down in minutes. Six lives were lost in addition to the cargo of 3,055 tons of bauxite destined for Alcoa.

1946
1946:   E.J. BLOCK, formerly a.) W.R. WOODFORD of 1908, returned to service as the first large bulk freighter powered by a diesel-electric power plant and one of the first equipped with commercial radar on the Great Lakes. She lasted until scrapped in 1988 at Ramey’s Bend in Port Colborne, ON.

1958
1958:   ASHTABULA sank at Ashtabula, OH, after a collision with the inbound BEN MOREELL. All on board were rescued, but there were later two casualties when the captain committed suicide and an insurance inspector fell to his death while on board.

1959
1959:   The HENRY FORD II ran aground in the St. Marys River and damaged 18 bottom plates.

1962
1962:   LAKE WINNIPEG was the first vessel to enter the Nipigon Transport fleet. She loaded her first cargo of 22,584 gross tons of iron ore on this date in 1962, clearing Sept-Îles, QC, bound for Cleveland, OH.

1970
1970:   HIGHLINER was heavily damaged amidships as d.) PETROS in a fire at Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. The vessel was not repaired and, after being laid up at Cardiff, Wales, was towed to Newport, Monmouthshire, for scrapping on June 12, 1972.

1978
1978:   The British freighter DUNDEE was a pre-Seaway trader into the Great Lakes and returned through the new waterway on 14 occasions from 1959 to 1962. It foundered in the Mediterranean Sea on this date in 1978 as g.) VLYHO near Falconera after an engine room explosion caused leaks in the hull. The vessel was en route from Chalkis, Greece, to Tunis, Tunisia, at the time.

Data from: Skip Gillham, Joe Barr, Dave Swayze, Max Hanley, 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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