Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes

According to the late reporter and marine historian, Dwight Boyer ("True Tales of the Great Lakes," "Great Stories of the Great Lakes," etc.), even the plodding ore freighters, limestone haulers, and coal barges of our great inland lakes are referred to as 'she'-- whether her name is 'Frank C. Barnes' or 'James H. Reed,' 'she' could be a sweet-handling lady or a cranky shrew with a tendency to sink at the slightest provocation. In "Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes," Boyer reconstructs the last hours of seventeen ships gone missing on the lakes, whether due to mechanical failure, human error, or the inhuman forces of mountainous seas and terrifying winds. Storms can blow up very quickly on our vast inland lakes, and the ships in these tales sank well before the advent of weather satellites or, in many cases, ship-to-shore radios. One of the saddest chapters, for me at least, is "Hard Times for the `Benjamin Noble.'" In the spring of 1914 (as is true now) the United States was in the grip of a severe recession, and the owner of the almost new canaller, "Benjamin Noble" underbid a contract to carry railroad rails from Ashtabula, Ohio to Duluth, Minnesota. To make money, several boxcars of steel rails had to be shipped up the Lakes in one trip. The `Noble' took on so many loads that her anchors were partially submerged when her young captain finally ordered his first mate to leave the last two boxcars of rails behind. Otherwise "their weight would have sunk the ship right there in her loading slip." This was the first trip of Captain Eisenhardt's first command. He knew that if he complained, there were other men who would be glad to take the `Benjamin Noble's helm. He couldn't complain to the Coast Guard, because in 1914 they had "no marine safety-enforcement powers...Their responsibility was saving lives after a disaster occurred." The `Benjamin Noble' set out on that mild day in April, 1914 and made it all the way up to the Soo Locks without any problems. However, shortly after Captain Eisenhardt's overladen ship passed beyond sight of the locks, warnings of what turned out to be the worst spring gale in years were hoisted. But the warnings came too late for the `Benjamin Noble' and her crew of eighteen souls. Boyer sketches the lives of his sailors, with quick, telling details, but his narrative powers are most especially displayed during the ferocious storms that sank these seventeen vessels, and turned them into "Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes." Note: 36 years after this book was published, and 90 years after the `Benjamin Noble' set sail for Duluth, her remains were finally discovered under nearly 300 feet of cold Lake Superior water. See www.superiortrips.com/NShoreShipwreckImages/Ben_Noble.htm for more information about this doomed canaller.

Dwight Boyer, an experienced journalist, and the marine writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has written a series of books on Great Lakes history. This is one of his best. Boyer's writing style is lucid and entertaining, encompassing not only the vessel(s) involved in each narrative, but also presenting the persons who make each yarn a complete story. Each chapter covers a separate vessel or instance, and each is enormously interesting. A section of black and white photographs or drawings is contained in the center part of the book. The particular volume discussed here contains a series of narratives about vessels that sank, usually with at least some loss of life. A particularly good series of chapters concerns four vessels that sank in the terrible autumn of 1929 in storms, collisions, fog, and other mishaps of fortune. One of these is the Milwaukee, a big Grand Trunk railroad ferry that went out in the face of a storm that kept other vessels in port. The captain, Robert "Heavy Weather" McKay, was known for his disdain of the elements, and the boat foundered and sank somewhere in Lake Michigan. One lifeboat with four sailors who had perished from exposure, part of the bridge, and a purser's note, telling what had happened were all that were ever found. Also covered is the result of the investigation of the calamity. Other stories include the disappearance of the famous "Alpena", the loos of the "Senator" a car hauler, in a fog-occasioned collison and the like. Any fan of Great Lakes history will enormously enjoy this wel-written book, which covers many noted sinkings and disappearances, and which always seems to add a human side that only very careful research discloses. I highly recommend this wonderful book to any student of Great Lakes and Midwest history, as well as to anyone who enjoys a few colorful yarns about boats and those who work on them. Enjoy.

Dwight Boyer's "Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes" is almost a classic of Great Lakes literature. The author, a longtime Cleveland, Ohio, journalist, had many friends in Great Lakes shipping and was able to draw upon his numerous contacts to produce a series of works that carry with them the smell and sight and sound of the Great Lakes. "Ghost Ships" is written as a series of article-length stories about Great Lakes cargo vessels that met disaster - in some cases, disaster so complete that no one was left alive to tell the tale of how the boat went down. Boyer expertly combines contemporary evidence, in many cases gathered from local news stories, to develop believeable theories as to how these "ghost ships" met their end.Some readers may be troubled by Boyer's ability to guess what happened and his ability to blend fact and fiction together to create his tales. However, all of his stories are firmly grounded (if I can use this word when writing about the water) and the man knew more than any living person how these disasters happened. Modern technology has lowered the probability of great disasters on the Great Lakes, and as of the Year 2000 there have been no "ghost ships" for the past 25 years. Long may it so continue. In the meantime, we have Boyer's fine book.