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NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8-86) Wisconsin Word Processing Format (Approved 3/87) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Schooner-barge PRETORIA Section 8 Page 9 Ashland County, WI will leave on her maiden trip and will probably go to Duluth for the first time (Saginaw Courier-Herald 27 July 1900). Pretoria had a gross tonnage of 2,790.53, a net tonnage of 2,715, a single deck, and a round stern. Reportedly, she had eleven hatches in her deck, each 7 by 26 feet. (Bureau of Navigation 1900; Lewis 1948:207; Runge Collection n.d.). Like many Great Lakes schooner-barges, Pretoria carried a cut-down gaff schooner rig, with no bowsprit (Carrell 1984:14-16). Pretoria was initially enrolled at Port Huron, Michigan on July 27, 1900, with James Davidson as owner and master (Bureau of Navigation 1900) . Vessel documents issued in March, 1902, show that official ownership had passed to G. A. Tomlinson, Davidson's son-in-law and vice-president of the Davidson Steamship Company of Duluth. The enrollment also lists Tomlinson as master (Bureau of Navigation 1902; C. Patrick Labadie 1991, pers. comm.). Davidson, however, retained actual control of the ship. Pretoria's service with the Davidson Steamship Company appears to have been satisfactory and uneventful for just over five years. She was classified as a schooner-barge, and was towed by Davidson- built steamers, participating in the iron ore, coal, and grain trades. Her home port was Duluth. On September 1, 1905, the Pretoria loaded a cargo of iron ore at the Allouez docks at Superior, Wisconsin. Late that morning the big schooner-barge and her consort, the 263-foot Davidson-built steamer Venezuela, also carrying a heavy cargo of ore, cleared Superior for South Chicago. As the two ships headed out into Lake Superior, their crews probably watched as another impending casualty, the steel freighter Sevona (also built at Bay City, Michigan) moved under the Allouez ore chutes (U.S. Light House Service 2 September 1905; 4 September 1905; Keller 1984:107; Wolff 1990:105-106) . Serious storms are fairly rare on the Great Lakes in late summer, but on the evening of September 1 conditions on Lake Superior became unexpectedly ugly. By early the following morning ships all across the lake were in trouble. At 5:15 a.m. the steel Sevona,