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9. Ship of the Month - cont'd. into the new organization, and the ownership of HENRY CORT was transferred to the Pittsburgh Steamship Company on June 17, 1901. Her port of registry had been changed from Marquette to Duluth prior to 1899 by the Bessemer fleet, and this new home port was retained during the steamer's "tinstack" years. When the Pittsburgh Steamship Company acquired HENRY CORT in 1901, it made the decision that it had no use for the steamer's ability to carry package freight, and accordingly her 'tween deck was removed and her side ports sealed shut. These alterations did not produce any change in her Gross or Net tonnage, although they did make the ship far more suitable for the ore trade, which was the main interest of her owner. The clutter of the 'tween deck and its bracing did nothing but obstruct the machinery used to load and unload ships running in the ore trade. The big new fleet, of which HENRY CORT had become part, adopted a most in teresting colour scheme for its vessels, and the CORT soon was given this new livery. Her hull was painted a very dark green, and her cabins became a straw yellow colour. Her stack was all silver, and although it looked v e ry smart painted that way, her crew was constantly kept busy washing away the accumulations of soot which, as might be expected, collected there. Commencing in 1906, the Pittsburgh boats took on new and rather more prac tical (although less distinctive) colours. Accordingly, the CORT'S hull be came red with green trim, her cabins white, and her silver stack was given a broad black smokeband. Not only did these changes make the steamer's fun nel more easy to keep clean-looking, but they also made the inevitable ore dust streaks less visible than they had been on her previous green hull. The whalebacks were notoriously "dirty" boats in the ore trade, because any cargo spilled during loading or unloading could not collect on the deck where it could be shovelled up, but rather rolled down the curve of the deck and side and fell into the water, creating streaks down the sides of the ship as it fell. HENRY CORT operated successfully for the "Steel Trust", as United States Steel often was known, and in 1911 she was given new boilers in order to maintain her ability to operate economically. The old boilers were removed and in their place were fitted three new coal-fired, single-ended Scotch boilers which measured 13'4 " in diameter and 11'1" in length. These boi lers produced steam at the same working pressure, 1 6 0 p. s. i., and were m a nufactured for the ship by the Marine Iron Works, of Toledo, Ohio. In fact, the Pittsburgh fleet recognized the need to keep its vessels in peak condi tion in order for them to operate dependably, and the company spent a lot of money and time updating its ships on a regular basis. Somewhere around the same time, HENRY CORT was given a new wooden upper pi lothouse to aid visibility and provide shelter for the officers, who often had stood their watches on the open bridge rather than inside the old wheel house. The new upper cabin was the same shape as the lower house, with a flat front and the corners chopped off at an angle. To accommodate the new cabin, the short mainmast, which had sprouted out of the pilothouse roof, was moved to a position immediately in front of the bridge structure, be tween the centre windows. On Monday, December 17, 1917. HENRY CORT was involved in the first of the four major accidents which she would suffer during the course of her life. On that date, she came into collision on Western Lake Erie with the large steamer MIDVALE (25), (b) BETHLEHEM (II). We earlier mentioned that whale backs, with their large, single hold, were very susceptible to loss by col lision, and HENRY CORT was no exception. The CORT soon filled and sank in thirty feet of water, miles from Colchester Light and some 9 1 / 2 miles from the Detroit River Light. The season was too late at that point to consider salvage, and so HENRY CORT lay on the bottom of Lake Erie through the fol lowing winter. Unfortunately, there were extremely heavy ice formations on the lake that winter, and the battering of the CORT by the ice resulted in