1889
WILLIAM ARMSTRONG, a wooden rail car ferry, sinks in the St. Lawrence off Morristown after being swamped. One life is lost, but the ship is refloated and repaired. It was renamed MONS MEG in 1910 and served as a drill barge but was abandoned due to its age and condition in 1938.
1900
MARIAN TELLER (wooden propeller tug, 52 feet, 33 gross tons, built in 1879 at West Bay City, Michigan) was towing the barge CANTON on Lake St. Clair. The TELLER sprang a leak about 1 mile from the Lake St. Clair Lightship. The rising water put out her fires. In the scramble to escape, the yawl was swamped, and three lives were lost. Only Captain Cornwall and his son were saved when the passing steamer NORWALK picked them up.
1917
While being towed out of the Milwaukee River by the tugs WELCOME and KNIGHT TEMPLAR, the Goodrich Lines’ CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (steel propeller whaleback passenger steamer, 362 feet, 1,511 gross tons, built in 1893 at West Superior, Wisconsin), with 413 passengers onboard, was caught by the current and swung close to shore. The overhang of her snout-bow sheered off two legs of the water tower of the Yahr-Lang Drug Company, and the tower fell onto the vessel, destroying the pilothouse and forward decks. The water from the tower rushed down the length of the upper decks. 16 were killed, and over 20 were seriously injured. The surviving passengers were taken to Chicago by train. The vessel was repaired and put back into service the following year.
1940
The Imperial Oil tanker ACADIALITE cuts too close to shore and strands off Cape Hurd of the Bruce Peninsula. The ship received about $100,000 in damage and is repaired at Collingwood. It later sails as IMPERIAL CORNWALL and GOLDEN SABLE before being scrapped at Louiseville, Quebec, in about 1980.
1959
TAXIARHIS, a Lebanese flag visitor to the Great Lakes, and the West German freighter CARL JULIUS are in a collision 6 miles west of the Eisenhower Lock. The former is most seriously damaged and goes aground with a V-shaped dent in the port bow, but both were repaired. The former arrived at Piraeus, Greece, for scrapping as d) TONY C. on March 29, 1972, while CARL JULIUS was scrapped as d) MACHIAVELLI at Savona, Italy, in 1982.
1962
The CLIFFS VICTORY passed down through the Welland Canal to become the first boat in the Cleveland-Cliffs Fleet to enter Lake Ontario in 20 years.
The GUIDO DONEGANI gets stuck in the St. Lawrence below the Iroquois Lock due to engine trouble. Part of the cargo of corn is lightered to P.S. BARGE NO. 1, and the Italian freighter is refloated on July 1. It is also a Seaway trader as b) PUNTA MESCA beginning in 1970 and as c) COCLERDUE in 1979. This ship arrived at Savona, Italy, for scrapping on June 1, 1981.
1974
KIMIKAWA MARU began Great Lakes trading in 1962, and the Japanese freighter made a single visit each year through 1965. It went aground as b) WELFARE NO. 2 off Navlakhi, India. The ship later broke in two and sank in shallow water as a total loss.
1980
VILLE DE MONTREAL was engaged in pre-Seaway service to the Great Lakes. It was sailing as c) CHERRY MAJU, en route from Bahrain to Colombo, Sri Lanka, when it developed a list and drifted aground off Karwar, India. The ship became partly submerged and was abandoned as a total loss.
2005
The CSL ASSINIBOINE was rechristened at Port Weller Drydocks Ltd. She was the a.) JEAN PARISIENNE and the fourth CSL vessel to receive a forebody replacement.
Contributors & Sources
Skip Gillham, Joe Barr, Dave Swayze, Russ Plumb, Mike Nicholls, Ahoy & Farewell II, and the Great Lakes Ships We Remember series from the Marine Historical Society of Detroit.
