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PHOTO BY ROBERT ZELEZNIK CITY OF HANCOCK SHIPS THAT The small, steel-hulled passenger NEVER DIE- Steamer OSSIAN BEDELL was No. 140 launched in “May, 1901, by the Buffalo Drydock Companyas their HULL 99. She was assigned official number 155414. She measured 104.5 feet long, 28 feet wide and 9.5 deep. Her fore-and-aft com- pound engine was built by the American Ship- building Company at Cleveland the same year Her gross tonnage was 296 and net, 192, Her first years were spent operating from Buffalo down the Niagara River to the Bedell House which still stands on Grand Island op- posite Tonawanda, N.Y* Later she was owned by S. S. Staley, of Buffalo, who placed her on the Fort Erie Beach run across the river. In 1925-26 she operated for the Niagara Ferry and Transportation Company and from 1927 to 1931 she saw similar service for the New York and Ontario ferries. About 1931 she left Buffalo and began her roaming which was to take her all over the Upper Lakes. 1932 found her owned by Gallagher, of Boyne City, Mich., and carrying the mail from Charlevoix to Beaver Island. In 1933 and in 1934 she ran from downtown Chicago to the Century of Progress Exposition, but still un- der the same ownership. Early in 1934 the OSSIAN BEDELL was sold to Royale Line Transit Company, of Houghton, Mich., and renamed CITY OF HANCOCK. For the next five years, under PHOTO BY DAN MORTINGER CITY OF HANCOCK SCRAPPING three owners, she sailed Lake Superior, usual- ly on a run from Houghton to Isle Royale and Fort William, Ont. During part of this time she was chartered to carry C.C.C. boys to Isla Royale Early in 1939 she was purchased by the Detroit & St. Clair Navigation Company and brought down to Detroit where she ran early season excursions and charters. During the 1939 summer season she ran from Sandusky to Lakeside and the Lake Erie Islands with special excursions once a week. When she left this run in the fall of 1939, she closed the book on steamer service on this route. In 1940 the CITY OF HANCOCK once again ca'ried C.C. C. boys to Isle Royale. It was also planned that she should sail on Lake Superior in 1941, but in May of that year, while on the drydock at Great Lakes En- gineering Works, the Coast Guard refused to resew her passenger license unless her upper works were completely rebuilt. For the next eight years she was a familiar sight tied up at various docks around Detroit. Her documentation was surrendered in 1945, but although no longer officially a boat, she was to have still another owner in 1946 when she was purchased by Troy Browning. The long layup of the CITY OF HANCOCK came to an end in 1949 when she was scrap- ped at the foot of Dubois Street in Detroit. William McDonald & Dave Glick a