1922 – Dec 1, Canadian steamer Maplehurst breaks, shoals W of Portage Lake Ship Canal, MI– 11

Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 2-5-2025 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/-

–11  Escanaba Daily Press, MI. “Eleven Seamen Perish in Lake Superior Storm.” 12-2-1922, p1.

–11  Wolff, Julius F., Jr.  Lake Superior Shipwrecks. 1990, pp. 172-173.

Narrative Information

 Wolfe: “The night of November 30 was miserable over western and central Lake Superior with howling winds more than 60 mph and a thick blanket of wet, slushy snow. Struggling northwestward en route to Fort William [Ontario Canada?] with 1,800 tons of coal was the 230-foot, 1,264-ton steel Canadian steamer Maplehurst, formerly the Cadillac of the Cleveland-Cliffs fleet. As he was tossed about unmercifully southeast of Isle Royale,[1] 29-year-old Captain George Menard, one of the youngest masters of the Canada Steamship Lines, decided to abandon his attempt to reach the Canadian Lakehead and sought shelter along the Keweenaw Peninsula.[2] He passed Copper Harbor,[3] thinking the entrance too shallow and dangerous, and fought his way 45 miles to the southwest, being three miles off the piers of the Portage Lake Ship Canal shortly after midnight. Then, with he pummeling of giant waves, the little steamer showed signs of breaking up.

“About 1 a.m., the captain ordered flares lighted as a distress signal. Meanwhile, the lookout at the Portage Coast Guard station had been watching the little ship, half suspecting that she could not long withstand the tempest. The Coast Guard crew had already been alerted. When the flares were displayed, Captain Charles A. Tucker and his lifesaving crew boarded to motor lifeboat and were off. It took the lifeboat a good half hour to reach the steamer which now had been driven in mountainous seas toa about four miles west of the canal and two miles off shore.

“Aboard the stricken Maplehurst, Captain Menard had told his crew that they could leave if they wished, but he was going to stand by the ship. The Coast Guard lifeboat closed on the foundering ship, and Captain Tucker shouted through his megaphone to the crew on deck to jump for the lifeboat as he brought it close under the vessel’s lee. To the Coast Guardsmen’s consternation, The Maplehurst’s people did not comply. With a superb job of small boat handling in an enormous sea, Captain Tucker made 10 passes alongside the floundering ship. Only 10 of the sailors jumped, nine being clutched to the safety of the lifeboat by the Coast Guard crew, although First Mate Henry J. Smith missed the boat and drowned.

“Finally, a towering wave struck the Maplehurst, disabling her power plant, and her lights went out. In the snow and darkness, Captain Tucker was unable to find her again. Accordingly, he nursed the heavily loaded lifeboat back to the safety of the Ship Canal.

“For the Maplehurst, it was the end. The roaring gale drove her into the shoals west of the Ship Canal piers and beat her to pieces, sinking her in 35 feet of water with only the tops of her derricks and smokestack showing. All nine men who stayed with their captain died. When the lake finally calmed, the Reid Towing and Wrecking Company with the tug James Whalen was rushed to the scene, but the Maplehurst was unsalvageable. Thirty years old at the time, the ship was a liability in excess of $75,ooo, and 11 Canadian sailors had gone to eternity with her….”

Newspaper

Dec 1: “Houghton, Dec. 1. – Eleven men, members of the crew of the Canadian Steamer Maplehurst, lost their lives early this morning when the vessel went ashore at the Upper Ore Canal entrance to the Keweenaw waterway, in the worst storm that has swept Lake Superior in the last ten years. Nine others were saved through the heroism of Captain Charles A. Tucker, and the members of the crew of the coast guard station at the canal, who brought the men ashore at the risk of their own lives.

“Not a single life would have been lost, Captain Tucker declared, if the men on the doomed steamer had acted promptly and jumped when he told them to into the coast guard power boat as he brought it alongside the Maplehurst. Ten times Captain Tucker laid his frail craft alongside the steamer and every man aboard had a chance to get off. Ten out of the 20 on board jumped. One missed the lifeboat and went to his death in the lake. The other nine who jumped were saved while ten who remained on the Maplehurst perished. Captain Nelson Menard, in command of the steamer, is among the dead.

“The Maplehurst, one the fleet of the Canadian Steamship company of Providence, Quebec, was bound from Loraine, O., to Fort William with 1,800 tons of coal. The vessel ran into a rising storm Thursday while out on the lake and Captain Menard, fearing that the storm was increasing, decided to enter Copper Harbor.

“Captain Manard, who was only 29 years old, then decided that there might not be enough water in Coppr Harbor to allow him to enter and he turned down the shore, intending to enter the canal. But the storm was increasing so rapidly that he was afraid to try to enter. Survivors said that the Maplehurst blew distress signals when off the canal at about 9 o’clock last night but in the terrific storm these passed unnoticed although the coast guard lookout watched the Maplehurst pass.

“The Maplehurst continued west three or four miles off shore. Observers think that had Captain Menard turned and gone with the wind, which was from the west, he probably would have save the ship. The storm was raging by this time, the velocity being about 60 miles per hour. About 1 o’clock this morning, the pilot and wheelhouse on the vessel began to break up from the hard pounding it was receiving and Captain Menard lighted flares. Captain Tucker saw these flares and ordered the life boat manned. It was a great task to get the boat into the water. Four men managed to get the door to the boathouse open and fastened it to the hook. The wind was so strong that the hook gave way, allowing the door to slam shut and it broke in two.

“The boat was finally launched and Captain Tucker and six men started out in the face of the gale to attempt a rescue. It took about half an hour for the coast guard cutter to reach the Maplehurst, which was then about two miles off shore and four miles west of the canal. The steamer was still under her own power when Captain Tucker and his men reached her but she was suffering heavy punishment. The pilot house and forward cabin were rapidly breaking up and she was beginning to take water.

“Captain Tucker laid his boat alongside the Maplehurst on the leeward side and yelled to the crew to jump into the life boat. Not a man obeyed. Captain Tucker turned and came back and again yelled to the men to jump and again no one would do so. On the third trip of the life boat to the laboring steamer a single man jumped. Ten times Captain Tucker brought his craft alongside the Maplehurst and on the tenth trip five men jumped. Four had jumped successfully on intervening trips, making nine in all that he took off. Henry J. Smith, the first mate, missed the life boat as it rolled and was lost.

“Captain Menard, the survivors said, told his men to jump if they wanted to but said he was going to stay by the ship. Captain Tucker believes that every man aboard could have been saved if they had heeded his call promptly. He brought his power boat alongside the Maplehurst, often scraping that vessel in passing, and the rail of the Maplehurst was not more than four or five feet above the life boat.

“On the tenth time that the life boat passed Captain Tucker said all the lights of the Maplehurst went out. He passed by the vessel and when he turned he could no longer locate her in the darkness.

“By this time the two vessels had drifted to within 200 feet of the breakwater, and Captain Tucker, knowing that he could not again pass the Maplehurst and knowing that his own boat was in imminent danger of being dashed to pieces,  made for the shelter of the breakwater. He made it after a hard fight and landed his crew and the nine rescued men.

“Northing more was seen of the Maplehurst but she evidently floundered within a minute or two after Captain Tucker passed her for the last time, as she sank about 100 feet from the west breakwater. She is lying about 1,000 feet from shore and 400 feet from the low part off the breakwater. Her smokestack and several derricks project above the water, but all of her cabins have been stripped from her decks. Wreckage from the Maplehurst has washed ashore for miles up and down the beach. The wooden finishings from the cabin have been broken into kindling wood and all manner of fittings have come ashore. An electrical fixture, containing an unbroken incandescent light, was found among the wreckage on the beach.

“One body, that of First Mate Henry J. Smith, was washed ashore early this morning. Patrols were on the lookout for other bodies but none had been reported up to noon….

“The Maplehurst was formerly the Cadillac under American registry. When she was sold to the Canadian Steamship company her name was changed to Maplehurst. She was 230 feet long, of steel construction and her gross registered tonnage was 1,263. She was built in 1892.” (Escanaba Daily Press, MI. “Eleven Seamen Perish in Lake Superior Storm.” 12-2-1922, pp.1-2.)

Sources

Escanaba Daily Press, MI. “Eleven Seamen Perish in Lake Superior Storm.” 12-2-1922, p.1. Accessed 2-5-2025 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/escanaba-daily-press-dec-02-1922-p-1/

Wolff, Julius F., Jr.  Lake Superior Shipwrecks: Complete Reference to Maritime Accidents and Disasters.  Duluth, MN:  Lake Superior Port Cities, Inc., 1990.

[1] Isle Royale is an island in northwest Lake Superior within the waters of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is north of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

[2] Projecting northeast into Lake Superior on northwest side of Upper Michigan.

[3] North Keweenaw Peninsula near eastern tip.