5 Ships that Mysteriously Vanished on the Great Lakes

foreign it's often said that the Great Lakes of North America resemble Inland Seas they are the largest group of lakes in the world by area and they contain 21 of the Earth's surface fresh water they provide a vital link between Rich natural resources incentives of Industry making them a key driver of economic growth in both the United States and Canada their vastness economic importance and terrifying unpredictability have also made them some of the deadliest waterways in the world from giant state-of-the-art Raiders to modest cargo ships said to haunt The Lakes to this day hear the stories of five ships that vanished on the Great Lakes [Music] foreign early August 1890 the Cleveland Shipping Company began construction at their Detroit Street yard on a brand new freighter labeled hold number 10. the new vessel was constructed for William H Gilcher Randall e shock and Joseph C gilcherist the three prominent Ohio Lumber Merchants were in the process of building out a network of Great Lakes trading vessels hole number 10 was contracted at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars and was by far the new Ventures largest vessel her design was almost an exact copy of another freighter being built by the shipyard at the same time the SS Westing Reserve they were both highly modern two of the first Lake Freighters with holes constructed out of steel plates instead of water iron despite a great deal of fanfare and a number of high-profile people in attendance hole number 10 was launched on December 18 1890 without a christening or official naming ceremony she would not be officially christened the wh Gilcher named after one of her three honors until she was nearly completed in March of 1891. the use of Steel allowed the wh Gilcher and the Western Reserve to be two of the largest ships on the Great Lakes of the time she measured 301.5 feet or 91.9 meters long with a beam of 41.2 feet or 12.6 meters she came in at 2 414 tons and was able to carry 140 000 cubic feet of bulk cargo on each voyage her triple expansion steam engine produced 1 200 horsepower that drove a single screw achieving a speed of 9.5 knots during her short career the wh Gilcher carried various cargos including wheat corn coal and iron ore all across the Lakes [Music] he broke records for the largest cargos carried out of various ports at the time on October 26 1892 under command of Captain Leeds H weeks the wh Gilcher departed Buffalo Bound for Milwaukee with a crew of 18 and a load of 3080 tons of coal at 2 30 PM as she passed through the Straits of Mackinac the weather was good and the voyage seemed nothing but routine but his evening mirrored the barometer dropped and ominous clouds gathered over Lake Michigan and by Nightfall a storm was ravaging the Lakes on October 30th the storm had cleared and numerous vessels delayed and battered began limping into port but in Milwaukee the wh Gilcher was nowhere to be found it seemed unimaginable that one of the largest and most capable ships on the Lakes would succumb to a storm but soon stories of the horrors she faced that night began trickling in Captain Buchanan of the Schooner seamen claimed they saw a large steamer struggling through the storm 20 miles Northwest of North Manitoba Island just after 8 pm on October 28th strangely the steamer appeared unresponsive and they saw no signs of Life on her decks the ghostly sighting didn't bode well for the fate of the steamer and as the day passed more reports began painting a picture of what might have happened to the wh Kilcher another Schooner the John Shaw reported sailing through a debris field just off South Manitoba Island a steamer called the white and friend picked up pieces of the gilcher's pilot house and soon more debris washed up on the beaches of the Manitoba Islands then on November 18th a grisly Discovery was made on Fox Island the bodies of two Sailors wearing life preservers from the Gilcher were found on the beach along with the ship's myth and mast despite the discoveries no one knows for sure what happened to the wh Gilcher but the fate of her sister ship the Western Reserve might offer some Clues only eight weeks prior on August 30th 1892 the freighter was sailing to Two Harbors on Lake Superior when she suddenly ran into trouble and foundered of the 32 people on board only one survived wheelsman Harry Stewart who managed to make it to shore on Michigan's Upper Peninsula he told a chilling Tale at some point during their Voyage the ship's steel hole began to fail in the huge freighter broken two and sank in only minutes this seemed a freak accent but now with the loss of the wh guiltshire it seemed clear that both ships were probably constructed with substandard steel the two disasters created a major Scandal and prompted permanent changes in the types of Steel used in U.S and Canadian Shipbuilding neither wreck has been found while it's likely the wh Kilcher suffered the same fate as her sister without a wreck or any eyewitness testimony her ultimate fate remains unknown the last credible sighting a ghostly steamer fighting through the storm left an impression on Lake Michigan that resonated for decades until her final resting place is discovered what happened in those final moments will remain a mystery on September 20th 1924 Captain Emmett D Gallagher found his vessel the whaleback freighter SS Clifton critically short-handed is he prepared for an upcoming Voyage leaving from Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin the last few days had seen numerous crew departures but the Clifton wasn't a stranger to high turnover constructed in 1892 by the American Steel barge company in West Superior Wisconsin the Samuel Mather later to be renamed the Clifton was built for Pickett's Mather and Company to carry iron ore her unusual cigar-shaped whale back design almost resembling a submarine when fully loaded came out of a brief design trend on the great lakes that lasted from 1887 to 1898 and resulted in 44 similarly designed vessels this design was created by Captain Alexander McDougall a scottish-born Great Lakes seedman who took note of the limitations the Lakes posed on ship design and the difficulties created by the common practice of Towing barges he set out to create a barge design that would be easier to tow and handle while 25 of these ships were unpowered tow barges some were self-powered including the Samuel Mather she came in at 308 feet or 94 meters in length with a beam of 30 feet or 9.1 meters the whaleback design created a challenging environment to live and work on crew spaces were awkward dark humid and often smelly the unusual hole design didn't allow for portholes and spaces were typically lit with only a single oil lamp or light bulb when fully loaded these ships sailed almost fully submerged creating a loud shuttering environment that made sleep difficult the lack of a real deck made any work topside a perilous situation that required the men to cling to a Lifeline as they struggled to complete their tasks with all of this in mind it's no wonder that Captain Gallagher a deeply respected Mariner from a family of seamen based out of Beaver Island Michigan struggle to keep a ship properly crude for 31 years the Samuel Mather reliably carried iron ore but in 1924 she was deemed Obsolete and ownership passed over to the progress steamship company out of Cleveland Ohio she was renamed the Clifton and refitted to carry Stone aggregate the changes to the ship included the installation of a large self-unloading crane that made it easier and faster to load and unload cargo by the morning of September 21st 1924 Captain Gallagher and chief engineer Walter Orting secured the crew they needed to begin their next voyage 21 year old Robert Stedman and his best friend Harold Hart joined as coal passers recruited by the chief engineer the clean-cut young men were quite a bit better off than the typical crewmen pulled at the last minute but the two friends thought it would be a good way to see Detroit Captain Gallagher was equally Lucky in pulling deckhands nineteen-year-old Lawrence Han a cousin of longtime crew member Bernard Han signed on along with George husak a 21 year old who was searching for independence from his well-off family the Clifton departed with 30 crew members and A Cargo of 2 200 tons of crushed stone by 10 20 on the morning of September 21st 1924 she passed through Mackinac as she entered Lake Huron but after clearing the streets she was never seen again that afternoon a fear scale descended over the lakes and when the Clifton failed to arrive in Detroit it was assumed that the freighter an aging Relic from another time succumbed the storm in the days and months after her loss debris was found all over Lake Huron on October 1st an empty life raft was found 24 miles Northeast to point a Bark's light and 70 miles away a steamer called the Glencairn found hatch covers and the forward end of her pilot house with a Searchlight and clock still attached the timepiece was stopped at four o'clock and it was presumed that this was the time on the morning of September 22nd the ship met her end no bodies were ever recovered suggesting that the Clifton went down quickly giving her crew no time to escape for decades The Mystery of the Clifton haunted the communities that lost so much with the ill-fated ship the prevailing theory was that the new self-emoting crane Broke Free in the storm sending the ship to the bottom but then in 2016 a team led by David Trotter a maritime researcher who had spent 30 years searching found the wreck of the Clifton a full 100 miles from where she was thought to have gone down the wreck was found intact resting on her side with her massive self-unloading crane still attached dashing the long-standing theory that the new equipment led to her sinking her Rudder pointed straight and her bow was caved in 40 feet this suggested that the Clifton might have been taken down by the incredible force of a single massive rogue wave that swallowed the ship in an instant and drove her straight to the bottom it's a horrifying image that did little to lay the Clifton or her victims to rest in the small community of Beaver Island Michigan the loss of Captain Gallagher and two other residents had a profound impact an Islander Frank McCauley wrote a folk song called the Siemens lament to honor his lost friends his lines written long before the wreck provided Clues to the ship's fate proved hauntingly accurate in the madvillas leap like wild beasts from their Lair and in their wild Rush not a life will they spare and as they roll on over the structure of Steel the steamer does tremble from four top to keel [Music] on the morning of December 7th 1909 the train car Theory Marquette and Bessemer number two was being loaded with 26 cars of coal three cars of structural steel and one car of iron castings for her daily round-trip voyage across Lake Erie to Port Stanley Ontario the ship was relatively new having been built only four years earlier in 1905 by the American shipbuilding company in Cleveland Ohio for the Marquette and Bessemer Dock and navigation company designated hole number 428 the number two was designed to be a sturdy Workhorse and came in at 350 feet or just under 107 meters long with a beam of 54 feet or 16.5 meters she was powered by a pair of triple expansion engines that drove twin screws and achieved a service speed of around 10 knots her cargo deck had four tracks that could hold a maximum of 30 rail cars from her maiden voyage the number two was commanded by the well-respected captain Robert MacLeod he was joined by his eldest brother Captain John McLeod while John could have commanded his own vessel he chose to join his brother as first mate so he could remain close to his wife in newly acquired property in Kania this was one of the advantages to working on a car ferry and it's What attracted many of the crew members most of which lived locally the Marquette and Bessemer number two was considered a happy ship but after a difficult season the crew began to doubt the ship's ability to handle rough weather on another Voyage in November 1909 the number two was caught in a fierce November Gale the ferry had a clear and well-known design flaw her Stern featured a large opening used to load and unload train cars this open Stern had no gate or closing mechanism leaving it open even while the ship was underway during the storm a massive wave unexpectedly hit from behind and nearly flooded the ship she only barely escaped the ordeal that left her crew terrified soon after the incident Captain McLeod complained to the company about the safety of the open Stern and they agreed that a gate would be installed at the end of the season but in the meantime the number two would continue sailing and on the morning of December 7th as storm clouds built over Lake Erie she departed kanyat with between 33 and 38 crew members and one single passenger as the storm grew worse the number two failed to arrive in Port Stanley put all through the night people on both the North and South Shore of Lake Erie claim to see and hear the massive Ferry fighting through the storm despite numerous eyewitness accounts and several search attempts the Marquette and Bessemer number two was never seen again then on December 12th a grisly Discovery was made 15 miles off the shore of Erie Pennsylvania the ship's lifeboat number four was found drifting with the frozen bodies of nine crew members and clothing that belonged to a tenth man who is believed to have suffered paradoxical undressing during the late stages of hypothermia and jumped overboard none of the bodies were dressed in warm clothing suggesting that they abandoned their ship quickly but the strangest Discovery was found on the body of Stuart George Smith who had two knives and a large meat cleaver from the galley the mystery deepened when the body of Captain MacLeod was found a few months later with several slash wounds while some speculated that the two discoveries indicated some sort of altercation between the captain and the crew there was no evidence found to confirm that theory and there are numerous possible ways the captain's body could have sustained the slash wounds after spending months floating in Lake Erie it's widely assumed that the Marquette and Bessemer number two was swamped when a massive wave flooded through her open Stern but the wreck of the massive fairy has never been found to this day despite numerous attempts to find her without a wreck her fate remains a mystery and the story of her final moments will go on Untold foreign some shipwrecks of the Great Lakes live on a memory for Generations told and retold over and over taking on a new life after death but count with others fade from memory quickly becoming just another statistic from a region and time all to use to loss the freighter DM Clemson is one of those seldom mentioned tragedies that occupies little more in a footnote in history completed on July 3rd 1903 by the superior shipbuilding company the DM Clemson was one of the largest Freighters on the Lakes she measured 468 feet or 143 meters in length with a beam of 52 feet or 16 meters and came in at 5531 tons she entered service on August 14 1903 and enjoyed a relatively uneventful career until October 20th 1908 when she collided with a lighthouse pier in Ashtabula Ohio while the Collision to significant damage rupturing 10 hole plates and a water tank on her starboard side she was okay to finish out the season after some temporary repairs more extensive repairs were planned during her winter layup at the end of the season only a few weeks away the temporary patches seemed to hold up on subsequent voyages but Captain Chamberlain was no doubt relieved to see the season come to an end as they left Lorraine Ohio with a load of coal down for one last run to Duluth but after passing through the Sioux locks and entering Lake Superior on December 1st 1908 the ship and her 24-man crew were never seen again a storm soon swept over Lake Superior despite numerous contradictory sightings that proved to be other Freighters fighting through the stormy night the Clemson's ultimate fate faded into mystery for weeks after that fateful night wreckage from the Clemson washed ashore between Chris point and Grand Marais five bodies were eventually found including Watchman Simon Dunn and second made Charles Woods still clad in a life vest labeled DM Clemson these were the days when a ship lost in a storm was considered routine and for the families of the Clemson's crew many of whom spent days waiting on peers anxiously waiting for the ship and their loved ones to return hope soon faded into mourning the wreck of the DM Clemson has never been found some theorize that the temporary repair is made after her Collision earlier in the season gave way in the storm others suspect that her wooden hatch covers buckled under the weight of the waves that battered the freighter in 1917 another ship with the same name was launched the second DM Clemson sailed for over 60 years until she was finally scrapped in 1980. by the time her hole was ripped apart almost no one remembered that another ship wore the same name her Secrets now resting somewhere at the bottom of Lake Superior mmm [Music] perhaps the most famous ghost ship on the Great Lakes is ironically a ship that was built thousands of miles away in 1893 by the sir Royalton Dixon and Company Shipyard in Middlesbrough England not long after completion the SS Bannockburn arrived in Canada to join the Montreal Transportation Company Fleet based in Ontario her design differed from the other ships that served the Great Lakes at the time and her unique profile might be what would eventually make her so infamous she was designed to carry grain and came in at 1 620 tons with a length of 245 feet or 74.7 meters and a 40 foot or 12.2 meter beam by 1902 she was commanded by the 37 year old Captain George R wood from Port Dalhousie Ontario while he was young and only on his first year with the Bannockburn he was an experienced Mariner and previously captained another vessel called the Glengarry her 20-member crew was also quite young but this was somewhat common for the Great Lakes at the time after Captain wood the next oldest on board was 33 year old chief engineer George booth most every other person on board was between 17 and 20. the youngest crew member was the wheelsman Callahan he was an orphan working on board to support his three younger brothers he was just 16 years old the Bannockburn departed Port Arthur Ontario just after 9 A.M on November 21st 1902. they were actually scheduled to leave the day before but the ship had run aground just after departure which forced them to turn back for an inspection which found minimal damage and she was soon cleared to sail as they left Port storm clouds had already began to form over Lake Superior but Captain wood felt that the weather would hold long enough to complete their run the last of the season that afternoon Captain James mcmah of the Fredo Algonquin was navigating through mild wind and waves some 80 miles off qina point when he noticed the silhouette of another freighter making her way downbound approximately seven miles away he immediately recognized the distinctive three-masted profile of the Bannock burn conditions were mild and Captain mcmah didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about the steamer he noted the sighting in his log and briefly checked his charts only a moment or two later he raised his binoculars to take another look what he saw was baffling there wasn't enough time for the Bannockburn to Sail Out of view and yet it was nowhere to be seen he figured that some atmospheric change must have obscured the ship from view but the sudden disappearance always unnerved the season captain that night a fierce storm swept over Lake Superior and as the days passed the Bannockburn failed to arrive at the Sioux locks making captain mcmah's strange account the last credible sighting of the ship after numerous fruitless searches speculation focused on Caribou Island the lighthouse on the island was shut off for the season on November 15th it was suggested that Captain wood search for the light in the storm but got lost without the beacon turned off far too early the only trace of the ship ever found was a single life vest discovered on December 12th near the Grand Marais life-saving station on November 25th the steamer John D Rockefeller claimed to have spotted a debris field but the wreckage was never fully investigated the wreck of a panic burn has never been found with so little to go on the loss of the Bannockburn soon passed into Legend and numerous Sailors claimed to see her distinctive three-masted profile fighting through stormy weather in the area around Caribou Island ghost stories are all that remain of the once proud vessel her crew lost forever to the unforgiving Waters of the Great Lakes laughs thank you so much for watching what other great lake stories should I cover next if you enjoyed this video help the channel grow by leaving a like and comment and subscribe if you haven't already we're getting close to my goal of a hundred thousand subscribers and I think we can get there soon I'd like to give a special shout out to my supporters on patreon they are The ragtag Underdogs destined to win the championship all right crew that's all I've got until the next one be nice to people

Channel: Big Old Boats

Views: 216,528

Keywords: great lakes, lake superior, edmund fitzgerald, ghost ship, great lakes ghost ship, ships that vanished, great lakes shipwrecks, lake erie, lake michigan, lake huron, missing ships, great lakes history, great lakes documentary, ships that disappeared, ghost ships, historical mystery

Id: UUBHXHdoihQ

Length: 26min 8sec (1568 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023