Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 29, no. 9 (Mid-Summer 1997), p. 7

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7. Ship of the Month - cont'd. and well raked pole foremast rose out of the texas, just abaft the pilot­ house. In the old style, both it and the mainmast were fitted with ratlines to make it easier for the crew to go aloft if necessary. There was an open post-and-wire rail down either side of the spar deck, and a closed steel taffrail beside the after cabin and around the fantail. The roughly rectangular after cabin, with flush boilerhouse at its forward end, had a number of doors and portholes in either side, but no deckhead overhang on the sides except for the platforms on which the lifeboats reposed. The bunker hatch was set in the forward end of the boat deck, above the boiler­ house, and at first there was no rail around this hatch. As time passed, however, a wooden rail was erected in front of the hatch and, in later years, a heavy steel bulwark was placed there. The two lifeboats were worked from radial steel davits which, in the latter years of the steamer's life, were replaced by very prominent Welin luffing davits which held the boats not in chocks on deck but rather in cradles, well above the level of the boat deck. The tall and well proportioned smoke­ stack was heavily raked to match the foremast and the main, which rose very close abaft the funnel. At first, only a single steam whistle was fitted on the leading face of the stack, but after a few years, a second single-note whistle was added for emergency back-up. Both whistles were rather tall, which gives us the impression that they sounded a deep tone, although this writer never recalls having heard them. MARTIN MULLEN apparently operated successfully after she was placed in ser­ vice and, in 1905 (some sources say 1908), Hutchinson & Company transferred her to the ownership of the Pioneer Steamship Company, Cleveland. She opera­ ted in Hutchinson's normal trades, usually carrying iron ore downbound and coal upbound, although grain also was a frequent cargo on downbound trips. The 1905 season featured a number of severe weather disturbances around the Great Lakes, and there were more vessels lost that year than in any other year in lake history. Two of the ships that foundered were the wooden-hulled Hawgood steamer IOSCO and her consort schooner-barge OLIVE JEANETTE, which disappeared with all hands on Lake Superior off the Huron Islands Light, east of the Keweenaw Peninsula, on the night of September 2-3, 1905, in ex­ tremely heavy weather. Two ships probably had last been seen by Capt. Massey of the MARTIN MULLEN when the IOSCO and her barge were labouring in high seas on the afternoon of September 2nd, some 20 miles east of the Huron Is­ lands. The pair apparently tried to turn back later to seek the shelter of the Keweenaw, but both foundered and their wreckage was scattered over thir­ ty miles of the Michigan shoreline. As our photopage will show, a 1910 photo by the Young Studio caught MARTIN MULLEN upbound below the Soo Locks, with her bow severely stove in as a re­ sult of striking another vessel. There is another photo of the damaged MUL­ LEN with the big wooden tug WINSLOW (II) assisting her. Unfortunately, how­ ever, we never have been able to find out any details concerning the acci­ dent in which the MULLEN received her damage, nor do we know where she was repaired. Another accident occurred on Friday, July 7th, 1916, when MARTIN MULLEN was hit in Lake Superior off Ontonagon, Michigan, by the 504-foot steamer HERBERT K. OAKES (25), (a) MILINOKETT (16), (c) STEELTON (I) (43), (d) CORN­ WALL. The accident occurred during a fog, and the MULLEN reportedly sustain­ ed some $12, 000 worth of damage, a rather substantial sum by the standards of that period. MARTIN MULLEN was given a new, wooden upper pilothouse during the World War One years, and the windows of the old lower house were plated over, with portholes cut in their place. A large liferaft was placed on the roof of the new pilothouse. In her earlier years, the MULLEN had a red hull with a white forecastle and cabins, and a black stack with a large, white letter 'H ' em-

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