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In the autumn of 1905 Kitzinger bought the wooden steambarge Mark B. Covell. During that winter he fit- ted her with passenger cabins and an enclosed freight deck. She joined the fleet in the spring as Pete Mar- quette 6. The new vessel was placed on the Ludington-Manistee run which greatly favored the public, for overland transportation was not-what it is today. With her arrival, Pere Marquette 2, senior member of the fleet, was sold Canadian. In Decem- ber, 1906, Pere Marquette 6 had her hull sheathed with iron so that she could be used _during winter months. There was a s1ight "delay, however, for after the sheathing operation she mysteriously sank in the Manis- tee River. When raised several weeks later, she was found to have a broken seacock, believed to be the cause of the accident. The old F. & P. M. No. 5 joined the fleet as Pere Marquette 5 in 1909, purchased from the Barry Line. In 1911 Kitzinger bought the Frank- fort and Manistee Line from Captain H. Anderson. This purchase gave Kitzinger one less competitor. The F&M Line's only ship, the small pas- senger steamer John D. Dewar, was put on the Ludington-Pentwater run for about a year and then was sold. Later in the same year, Kitzinger bought the passenger steamer Chequa- megon from the Pabst Whitefish Bay Resort. She became Pere Marquette 7. Slightly larger than the Dewar, she was used for private excursions in the summer months, and remained idle during the winter. In 1913 Kitzinger bought the twen- tyâ€"five year old steamer Tennessee (a H. W. Williams) from Crawford Transit Company. She became Pere Marquette 8. This was the last ves- sel in the fleet to have a number. While in service, she generally ran up and down the coast from Pentwater to Frankfort, with stops at Luding- ton, Manistee, Onekama and Arcadia. During the next few years, compe- TELESCOPE November 247 THE PERE MARQUETTE LINE STEAMERS tition often made it unprofitable to run the smaller steamers. They were removed from service and put on the used ship market. In 1917 Pere Mar- quette 6 was sold to the Marinette Transportation Company. After hav- ing her cabins removed, she returned to the trade for which she had been built. 1918 saw the sale of Pete Marquette 7 to the Pringle Barge Line and her conversion to the tug Robert C. Pringle. Unlike boats 6 and 7, the remain- ing steamers were large and powerful enough to serve in the winter trade on Lake Michigan. These winter runs were very hard on the wooden ships, and the steamers frequently became disabled due to damaged rudders, stripped propellers and clogged The westerly winds build up heavy ice the Michigan coast, and especially hard on the water intakes. would often fields on these proved Black Boats. One such ice field was built up between Little and Big Point Sables in early March, 1920. It caught the car ferries Pere Marquette 17 and Pere Marquette 18 (ii) and the Black Boat Pere Marquette 3 just off the Ludington harbor entrance. The wind held from the west, and the ships were immovable, but they were in no danger. On March 7 the wind shifted to the northwest, and the ice began to move, exerting tremendous pres- sure on the hulls of the trapped ships. The steel ferries were cap- able of withstanding this pressure, but the wooden Pere Marquette 3 was not. She slowly began to sink. She ILLUSTRATIONS 0N OPPOSITE PAGE: Above: Pere Marquette 8 approaching the dock at Ludington in the early 19205. Photo courtesy of Mason County Historical Society. Below: The steel steamer Virginia leaving Ludington around 1925. Photo from Mason Co. Historical Society.