1836
YOUNG LION (two-mast wooden schooner, 73 feet, 83 tons, built in 1830 at Buffalo, New York) was carrying railroad iron and lumber on Lake Erie. About 12 miles from Erie, Pennsylvania, in rough weather, her seams opened and she quickly sank with just her topmasts left above the water. Three died, but five managed to clamber up the masts and hold on until the schooner NEW YORK rescued them.
1871
CASTALIA (two-mast wooden schooner, 119 feet, 242 gross tons, built in 1847 as a brig at Sandusky, Ohio) was on her way to pick up lumber at the camp at Bying Inlet, Georgian Bay, when she came too close to Cove Island Reef and stranded in 3 feet of water. Although not badly damaged, she was about a mile from deep water. Tugs could not get to her, and she was sailing light, so there was no cargo to lighten. She was stripped and abandoned. She finally broke up in a storm on July 12, 1871.
The Detroit newspapers Detroit Free Press and Detroit Daily Post both published articles stating that there were rumors on the docks regarding the tug TAWAS having her boiler explode on Saginaw Bay. The rumors originated with sailors from Port Huron and proved to be unfounded. However, in a sense, this rumor turned into a prediction, since TAWAS did blow her boiler about three years later (May 14, 1874) on Lake Huron off Rock Falls, Michigan. At that time, six crewmembers perished.
1893
ROSEDALE, upbound and light, ran aground off Knife River, Lake Superior, in dense fog and was almost on dry land. The vessel was released July 10 and went to Superior for repairs. It combined Great Lakes and ocean service until sunk in the Bristol Channel, via collision, on April 8, 1919.
1932
Canada Steamship Lines’ ASHCROFT was used to haul ore, grain and coal only on the upper Great Lakes until this date when she was able to enter Lake Ontario through the newly expanded Welland Canal. On that trip, ASHCROFT, loaded with grain from Fort William for Kingston, Ontario, was the largest vessel to traverse the canal to date.
1937
The keel was laid for the Pittsburgh Steamship Co.’s GOVERNOR MILLER (Hull #810), at Lorain, Ohio, by the American Ship Building Co.
1941
RAPIDS PRINCE, en route from Prescott to Montreal, went aground in an awkward position in the Lachine Rapids and was stuck for two months. The 218 passengers were removed in motorboats.
1965
LAKE TRAVERSE, built at Duluth in 1918, sank off Tortuga Island in the Caribbean after hull plates were sprung.
1971
CACOUNA’s bow was damaged in a collision with the Greek tanker CAPTAIN JOHN on the fog-shrouded St. Lawrence River. The CACOUNA of 1964 was repaired by replacing her bow with that of her near-sister ship, the SILLERY, which was being scrapped. Later renamed b.) LORNA P and c.) JENNIFER, she foundered 20 miles Northeast of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on December 1, 1974.
1997
COLUMBIA STAR set a record for the head-of-the-lakes coal trade, loading 70,903 net tons of low-sulfur coal at Superior Midwest Energy Terminal in Superior, Wisconsin. She was renamed b.) AMERICAN CENTURY in 2006.
Contributors & Sources
Skip Gillham, 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.
