Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 24, no. 4 (January 1992), p. 12

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Ship of the Month - cont'd. This brief report is not, perhaps, as detailed as the information concerning the loss of the WETMORE which was contained in our November feature, but it is interesting in that it indicates that the WETMORE was wrecked on September 7th, 1892, whereas our records, and anything else we ever had seen, indicated that the grounding occurred on Thursday, the 8th. The actual location of the stranding was the North Spit of Coos Bay Bar, and at the time, the WETMORE had been carrying a cargo of coal from Tacoma to San Francisco. Her registry was closed on September 10th, the same day that the advice of her loss was carried in the Superior press. * * * Ed. N o t e : We hope that our readers will enjoy this additional description of the short life of CHARLES W. WETMORE as much as they appear to have liked the original feature concerning the running of the rapids. The November feature generated a great deal of member response, including a letter from one member who recounted that, a few years ago, his wife bought at a flea market a cup and saucer commemorating "Whaleback Str. CHAS. WETMORE on its Trip Around Cape Horn". On the bottom of both cup and saucer appear the words "Made in England" and also "Pederson Bros., West Superior, W i s . ". We had no idea that any such item ever existed, but having now seen from the press reports how much interest there was in the voyage, particularly amongst the residents of the Duluth-Superior area, we suppose that it is not so surprising that such souvenirs were made. In fact, a brief note appearing in the "Superior Daily Call" of May 17th, 1892, indicated that "The Superior Stove Co. is turning out fifty of the miniature whalebacks for advertisements per day. They have made 3, 000 of these articles and sent them to manufacturers and dealers in all the western states. " We wonder whether any of our readers may ever have seen one of these little (iron? ) whaleback advertising models? Another of the members who responded to our feature was Kenneth E.Thro, formerly of the Head of the Lakes area and now a resident of Panama City Beach, Florida. Ken is one of the acknowledged experts on the history of the whalebacks, and it was through his generosity that we were provided with the press reports which make up thebulk of this additional article. We are most grateful to Ken for his assistance in providing this material from his own collec tion. Readers will have noted that we have provided no additional material concerning JOSEPH L. COLBY or the barge 110 in this feature, and that is because we have little else to say about them. We should, however, pass additional comment regarding the 1905 Young photo of BAY STATE (the former COLBY) which appeared in the November issue. We noted that she was still in "Pittsburgh Steamship Company colours", and wondered whether, perhaps, she was running under charter to the "Steel Trust" even though it was evident (from the date and the rename) that she had already passed to the ownership of the Boutell Steel Barge Company, of Bay City, Michigan. Member Ralph Roberts, of Saginaw, wrote to say that he never had heard of BAY STATE being chartered back to Pittsburgh by Boutell, but he did remind us that, as the black-and-white films in use back in 1905 were not of sufficient sensitivity that they could produce an image which would reflect the subtle differences between colours of similar shading or density. Hence, the Boutell white stack with a black top would probably appear on film just like the Pittsburgh stack of silver with a black top. By the way, we did think that our readers might wish to see what BAY STATE looked like as a rather ungainly, self-unloading sandsucker, and so on our photopage this month, they will find an interesting and rare view which came from the collection of our late member, Milton J. Brown, of Cleveland. The photo was loaned to us through the courtesy of T. M. H . S. executive committee member, Capt. John Leonard, of St. Catharines.

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