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Ship of the M onth - cont'd. C a r negie boats in their or iginal colours, and smokestacks. It has been said, however, that large, white letter 'P ' on their stacks. both some 6. of those show a l l -black of the ships ca rried a At the turn of the century, the steel i n d u s t r y in the U n i t e d States was d o m i n a t e d by A n d r e w Carnegie, who se mills p r o duced almost hal f of the ten m i l lion tons of steel made a n n u a l l y in the country. C a r negie was, however, anxious to retir e from active busines s pu rsuits and to dev ot e hims e l f to his love of philant hr op y. At the same time, J. Pierpont Morgan, who also was much i n v o l v e d in the s t e e l - m a k i n g bus in es s as well as ra il roading, was i n t e rested in e l i m i n a t i n g co mp etition, not thro ug h cut- th ro at price wars but r a ther by buying up the opposition. W o r k i n g through Charles M. Schwab as int er me di ar y, M o r g a n st ruck a deal with Carnegie, the former a g r eeing to the latter' s de mand of $ 4 0 0 , 0 0 0 , 000 for his steel and shipping interests. The t r a n s a c t i o n was com p l e t e d on F e b ruary 25th, 1901, and thus was for me d the U n i t e d States Steel Cor po ra ti on , wit h Judge El bert H. Gary h a n d l i n g for Mo r g a n the legal n i c e t i e s of the i n c o r p o rat i o n and subseq ue nt administr at io n. So powerfu l was the new firm that only one m o n t h after its formation, it was able to buy out the steel and shipping interests of John D. Ro ck efeller! Other acquisitions were to follow. V e r y sh ortly after Morgan and Gary for me d the United St ates Steel C o r p o r a tion, they also formed a new compa ny to ha ndle the big firm' s lake shipp in g r e q u i r e m e n t s - m a i n l y the ca rriage of iron ore. The ne w fleet took its name from C a rnegie's old op eration, cal li ng itse lf the P i t t s b u r g h Stea ms hi p C o m pany, of Cleveland, Ohio. BR YN MAW R thus was one of the frei gh te rs that b e gan sa iling for the new firm in 1901, and she was to be part of the largest U . S. fleet ever to operate on the Great Lakes. The ne w P i t t s b u r g h fleet a d o p t e d some rathe r stun ni ng colours for its v e s sels. Their hulls were painted a dark green, their ca bins were a str aw c o lour, and their stacks were all silver, without even a s m o keband at the top. It is a shame that these colo ur s cannot be seen on the ships today, but in fact they did not last v ery long at all. As pretty as the ships ma y have been (and today we can only imagi ne it), the colours were not very pr ac tical for c o a l - b u r n i n g ore carriers. The funnels requ ir ed co nstant cl eaning to r e move soot deposits, and the green hulls quickly became stre ak ed w i t h r e d d i s h - b r o w n ore dust. D u r i n g the 1905 season, the ships' hul ls were r e p a i n t e d red, their cabins became white, and their silver stacks were given a b lack sm okeband at the top. It has been said that the black s m okeband was first tried on the supply ship SUPERIOR, w h i c h se rviced the co mp any's boats at the Soo, and that it was ad opted by the who le fleet whe n its e f f icacy be came evident. The life of BRYN MAWR in the service of the "Steel Trust" was unev e n t f u l and we cannot find ment i o n of even one acci de nt in volving the barge. She was towed by a v a r i e t y of steamers over the years, and not just the "College Class" steamers for whose towlines she had been built. (Only one of the "College" boats came to an u n t i m e l y demise, that bei ng the LAFAYETTE, whi ch s t r anded to a total loss on Lake Su perior in 1 9 0 5 . ) In 1921, BRYN MAW R was r ebuilt at South Chicago, and we bel ie ve that it was at this time that her ori ginal masts wer e taken out of her, to be re placed by v ery thin and light pipe masts set forw ar d and aft. As a result of this r e c o n s t ruction, w hich no doubt included m uch interna l w o r k on the tanktop and sidetanks, her tonnage was de c r e a s e d to 3854 Gross and 3412 Net. BRY N M AWR c o n tinued to op erate for the Pitt s b u r g h S t e a m s h i p Comp a n y through the 1930s, a l t hough she p r o b a b l y saw little if any servi ce du ring the years of the Great Depression. By the latter half of the decade, however, the fleet had begun to dispose of m any of its smaller and least e conomical v e s sels, and BRYN MAWR, wit h a c a p acity of only some 7 , 000 tons, c e r tainly fell into that category.