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MARCH- APRIL PAGE 29 The year 1923 saw the Pioneer ships joined by a sister fleet when Captain Hutchinson's' son, John T, Hutchinson, organized The Bucheye Steamship Company, which was also managed by Hutch- inson & Company. In 1925 Pioneer took delivery of their second 600-footer, the PHILIP D, BLOCK, which stayed in the fleet until 1936, when she was sold to the Inland Steel Company, whose fleet was also man- aged by Hutchinson & Co. at the time. Her replacement was the smaller J.S. ASHLEY, which became Pioneer's first self-unloader oor. It is of interest to note that in 1926 the 1920-built World War I standard ship CHIPPEWA came into the fleet for a brief period, being sold back to the Independent Steamship Company in 1927. The DAVID P,. THOMPSON (a. WILPEN) was also acquired from Shenango in 1926, In 1939 John T,. Hutchinson, founder and president of the Buckeye Steamship Company, became president of the Pioneer Steamship Company as well. The years of World War II saw an upsurge in Great Lakes ship- ping and the Company's first new ship in eighteen years, the Standard CLARENCE B. RANDALL, was acquired from the U.S. Mari- time Commission in exchange for the old AMAZON and S.8. COOL- LUGE. After the war the Wo0. CALVEREEY; Jr. was solid to Canad -- ian owners, In 1952 the Company took delivery of a new flagship, the 642- foot Defoe-built CHARLES L. HUTCHINSON ii, the former ship of the same name having been renamed GENE C. HUTCHINSON in honor of the president's brother. (A Bucheye ship had been named JOHN T. HUTCHINSON in 1943, The J. S. ASHLEY went to Boland & Cornelius in 1957 and the DAVID P. THOMPSON was converted into a self-unloader to replace her. Two years later she too went to the "80Co' fleet. At the death of John T. Hutchinson in 1958, his brother Gene C. Hutchinson became president of both Pioneer and Buckeye. The sixties saw the beginning of the end for Pioneer. In the first two years of this decade alone seven' ships were sold to the Canadian shipbreaker and broker, Marine Salvage Ltd. But there still seemed to be hope when in 1961 the Company acquired the war-built tanker GULFOIL (a. NESHANICO and had her converted into the 730-foot laker PIONEER CHALLENGER at Baltimore,