The vessel
Show on the chart- Type
- Wooden bulk freight propeller steamer, cut down to a tow barge in 1915, the year she was lost
- Also known as
- Listed by the Regional Science Consortium as Armour
- Built
- 1889 at Detroit, Michigan, by the Detroit Dry Dock Co., hull number 93, launched 20 March 1889
- Size
- 264.0 registered length (280 ft 6 in overall), 40.6 beam, 21.0 depth of hold
- Gross tonnage
- 1990.94
- Net tonnage
- 1452.71
- Owner
- At loss, John J. Boland of Buffalo (Boland and Cornelius in the Swayze file), bought 1915. Previously Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Coal Co. of Erie, 1907 to 1915. Originally R.P. Fitzgerald, Philip D. Armour and Wiley M. Egan of Milwaukee, one third each.
- Cargo
- Coal
- Date lost
- 13 November 1915
- Cause of loss
- Storm. Bound Ashtabula for Welland in tow of the tug Henry E. Gillen. Running for shelter at Erie the tow line fouled the tug's propeller and parted, and the barge drifted onto a reef and sank, slipping into deeper water after her crew abandoned her.
- Lives lost
- 0, with ten aboard, all saved
- Depth
- 30
- Registry
- PHMC site records held by RSC. Detroit Dry Dock hull number 93.
Position 42.12803, -80.17825 (published to arc-second precision, from the ShipwreckWorld (Jim Kennard) (42 deg 7' 40.9188" N, 80 deg 10' 41.7" W))
Recorded location: 42.11666, -80.16666 Sidescan Sonar Images
What it was
Built at Detroit in 1889 as a big wooden bulk propeller for a Milwaukee syndicate that included the meatpacker Philip D. Armour himself. She had a rough start, sunk in a collision with the steamer Marion in September 1889 and abandoned to the underwriters as a constructive total loss, then raised in 1890 by the Reid Wrecking Co. in what was called one of the great salvage feats of its day, rebuilt and returned to service. She worked another quarter century, came to Erie ownership in 1907 under the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Coal Co., and in 1915 was sold to John J. Boland of Buffalo and cut down to a towing barge.
How it was lost
On 13 November 1915, coal laden from Ashtabula for Welland behind the tug Henry E. Gillen, she was caught in a gale. The tow line fouled the tug's wheel and snapped and the barge drove onto a reef off Erie. All ten aboard got off, and after they abandoned her the hull slid into deeper water where it lies today.
Diving it
About 30 feet and rated novice by ShipwreckWorld. She is dived, and diver video of the site exists. No sourced visibility figure was found.
The wreck today
A shallow, broken wooden wreck. The Regional Science Consortium holds sidescan sonar imagery of the site. No detailed structural description was found in accessible sources.