Harbor History: November 21, 1902: The Steamer Bannockburn Vanishes

November 21, 1902: The Steamer Bannockburn Vanishes By Tony Dierckins On November 21, 2012

The Bannockburn, the “Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes.” (Image: Great Lakes Vessel Index)

 On this day on Lake Superior in 1902, the steamer Bannockburn—a 254-foot, 1,620-ton steel-hulled steamer—vanished. She was headed down lake to Saulte Sainte Marie from Port Arthur/Fort William (today’s Thunder Bay, Ontario) with 95,000 bushels of wheat grown in Manitoba. Built in Scotland in 1893, the Bannockburn was piloted by Captain George Woods, who had a crew of 19 with him. The reports of her disappearance first reached Duluth on November 27, in a report from Chicago. At first it was hoped she was stranded on Caribou Island. The steamer John D. Rockefeller reached Duluth the day before, and the same issue of the Duluth News Tribune that carried the Chicago story also reported that the Rockefeller’s crew said they had passed through a large debris field off Stannard Rock east of the Keweena Peninsula, with no signs of life. Later the steamer Algonquin reported seeing her on November 17 about sixty miles southeast of Passage Island (part of today’s Isle Royale National Park) and northeast of Keweenaw Point, within a heavily used shipping lane. Tugs searched along the entire north shore of Lake Superior to no avail. In December, one of her life preservers was found near Grand Marais. No one ever saw her again. Except…well, some did. She apparently had a unique profile and was easily identifiable from a distance. In the years after she vanished, crews of Lake Superior vessels have reported seeing her, most often in November storms. In the late 1940s the captain and crew of the Walter A. Hutchinson claimed seeing the ship during a November storm. The Bannockburn reportedly forced the Hutchinson to change course, then rammed itself into rocks the Hutchinson would have otherwise hit. The Bannockburn then started breaking up and, suddenly, vanished. She is known as “the Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes.”
Read more about theBannockburn here and here.
Zenith City Online

Duluth Harbor Boat Traffic for Tuesday 11/20/2012

Indiana Harbor arrived at 02:15
Arthur M. Anderson departed at 02:30
American Century departed at 03:55
Algorail arrived at 06:25
James R. Barker arrived at 09:30
Paul R. Tregurtha departed at 13:00
Algorail departed at 16:10
Alder arrived at 16:45
Lakes Contender/tug Ken Boothe, Sr. arrived at 18:30

Duluth Harbor Boat Traffic for Monday 11/19/2012

Walter J. McCarthy Jr. departed at 06:45
American Century arrived at 15:30
Arthur M. Anderson arrived  at 17:30
Paul R. Tregurtha arrived at 18:40

Harbor History - Nov 19th 1886: Sinking of the Wallace

The Robert Wallace, which sank in Lake Superior in both 1886 and 1902. (Image: Great Lakes Vessel Index.)

Sinking of the Wallace 

by Tony Dierckins - Zenith City Online
On this day on Lake Superior in 1886, the steam barge Robert Wallace—as well as her consort, the schooner barge David Wallace—sunk after over a day of being pounded by waves and running ashore at Chocolay, four miles east of Marquette on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, on November 18. They had been taking a combined 104,000 bushels of wheat downlake from Duluth when they encountered the storm. Initially all hands on both vessels were thought loss, and efforts to save them were hampered by the storm. U. S. Life-Savers stationed at Michigan’s Portage Ship Canal, 110 miles away, took a train through the storm—a blizzard on land—in order to reach the crews. Both vessels sank, their loads of grain said to have “fed the wildlife of the Michigan Coast.” All were saved, but elsewhere the storm cost forty lives and financial losses of over $620,000, $300,000 for the two Wallace vessels and their cargo alone Twenty-eight vessels were damaged and most, including the Wallace and the Wallace, were rebuilt and returned to work on the lakes. On November 17, 1902, the Robert Wallace sunk once again, just southeast of Two Harbors with a load of iron ore, but her consort, the Ashland, did not sink—and the Wallace was not raised. Read newspaper coverage here (wallace_11.19.1886_DWT, wallace_11.26.1886_DWT, wallace_12.3.1886_DWT) and read about the unlikely rescue here.

Duluth Harbor Boat Traffic for Sunday 11/18/2012

Walter J McCarthy Arrival

James R. Barker arrived at 00:45
John J. Boland departed at 01:15
Lee A. Tregurtha departed at 03:30
James R. Barker departed at 10:10
Hon. James L. Oberstar arrived at 10:50
Walter J. McCarthy Jr. arrived at 16:50
Hon. James L. Oberstar departed at 20:40