Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the lake is derived from early French explorers who named it for the indigenous people they knew as Huron (Wyandot) inhabiting the region. Hydrologically, Lake Huron comprises the eastern portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the 5-mile-wide (8.0 km), 20-fathom-deep Straits of Mackinac. Combined, Lake Michigan–Huron is the largest freshwater lake by area in the world. The Huronian glaciation was named from evidence collected from the Lake Huron region. The northern parts of the lake include the North Channel and Georgian Bay. Saginaw Bay is located in the southwest corner of the lake. The main inlet is the St. Marys River from Lake Superior, and the main outlet is through the St. Clair River toward Lake Erie. Lake Huron has a fairly large drainage basin covering parts of Michigan and Ontario. Water flows through Lake Huron faster than the other Great Lakes with a retention time of only 22 years.
The Great Lakes Storm of 1913, historically referred to as the Big Blow, the Freshwater Fury and the White Hurricane, was a blizzard with hurricane-force winds that devastated the Great Lakes Basin in the Midwestern United States and Southwestern Ontario, Canada, between November 7 and 10, 1913. The storm was most powerful on November 9, battering and overturning ships on four of the five Great Lakes, particularly Lake Huron.
Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carriers operating on the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. Freighters typically have a long, narrow hull, a raised pilothouse, and the engine located at the rear of the ship.
SS Daniel J. Morrell was a 603-foot (184 m) Great Lakes freighter that broke up in a strong storm on Lake Huron on 29 November 1966, taking with her 28 of her 29 crewmen. The freighter was used to carry bulk cargoes such as iron ore but was running with only ballast when the 60-year-old ship sank. When built in 1906, she was the "Queen of the Lakes", being the longest ship then in service on the Great Lakes.
SS James Carruthers was a Canadian Great Lakes freighter built in 1913. The ship was owned by the St. Lawrence & Chicago Steam and Navigation Company of Toronto, Ontario, with the official registry number 131090. The James Carruthers was lost 9 November 1913 on Lake Huron during the Great Lakes Storm of 1913. The crew of 22 perished with the vessel. How she sank remains unknown along with the location of the wreck.
SS Henry B. Smith was a steel-hulled lake freighter built in 1906 by the American Ship Building Company at Lorain, Ohio USA. The steamship was owned by the Acme Transit Company of Lorain, Ohio, under the management of William A. Hawgood. The hull number was 343 and the registration number was US203143.
SS Wexford was a steel-hulled, propeller-driven, cargo ship built by William Doxford & Sons. at Sunderland, Great Britain in 1883. The official number for Wexford was 87342 with the hull number 00145. The ship was lost on Lake Huron with all hands on 9 November 1913 during the Great Lakes storm of 1913. Sources cite conflicting numbers for crew lost with 17 to 24 crew being listed. Her cargo at the time of loss was 96,000 bushels of wheat. The wreck was discovered 25 August 2000 sitting intact and upright in 75 feet (23 m) of water on the lake bottom. A copper wreath was placed on the wreck to honor the crew of the 100th Anniversary of The Great Storm of 1913.
The SS Regina was a cargo ship built for the Merchant Mutual Line and home ported in Montreal, Quebec. Named after Regina, Saskatchewan, Regina had a tonnage of 1,956 gross register tons (GRT) and a crew of 32.
SS Friedrich der Grosse was a Norddeutscher Lloyd liner built in 1896 which sailed Atlantic routes from Germany and sometimes Italy to the United States and on the post run to Australia. At the outset of World War I the ship was interned by the U.S. and, when that country entered the conflict in 1917, was seized and converted to a troop transport, becoming USS Huron (ID-1408).
The SS Hydrus was an American steel-hulled Great Lakes bulk freighter, constructed in 1903 and launched as the R.E. Schuck. She was following the SS James Carruthers heading south on Lake Huron while carrying a load of iron ore when she and the Carruthers were caught in the Great Lakes Storm of 1913.
The American Ship Building Company was the dominant shipbuilder on the Great Lakes before the Second World War. It started as Cleveland Shipbuilding in Cleveland, Ohio in 1888 and opened the yard in Lorain, Ohio in 1898. It changed its name to the American Ship Building Company in 1900, when it acquired Superior Shipbuilding, in Superior, Wisconsin; Toledo Shipbuilding, in Toledo, Ohio; and West Bay Shipbuilding, in West Bay City, Michigan. With the coming of World War I, the company also acquired Buffalo Dry Dock, in Buffalo, New York; Chicago Shipbuilding, in Chicago, Illinois; and Detroit Shipbuilding, in Wyandotte, Michigan. American Shipbuilding ranked 81st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
SS Mataafa was an American steamship that had a lengthy career on the Great Lakes of North America, first as a bulk carrier and later as a car carrier. She was wrecked in 1905 in Lake Superior just outside the harbor at Duluth, Minnesota, during a storm that was named after her. She was built as SS Pennsylvania in 1899, and renamed Mataafa when she was purchased in the same year by the Minnesota Steamship Company. After her 1905 wreck, she was raised and repaired, and served for another sixty years before being scrapped.
The J. B. Ford was a steamship bulk freighter that saw service for 112 years on the Great Lakes of the United States and Canada.
SS Isaac M. Scott was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank during the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 in Lake Huron, 6 to 7 miles northeast of Thunder Bay Island, while she was traveling from Cleveland, Ohio, United States to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States with a cargo of coal.
SS Clifton, originally SS Samuel Mather, was a whaleback lake freighter built in 1892 for service on the Great Lakes. She was 308 foot (94 m) long, 30 foot (9.1 m) beam, and 24 foot (7.3 m) depth, and had a 3,500 ton capacity. The self-propelled barge was built by the American Steel Barge Company in West Superior, Wisconsin. Her builders used a design well-suited to carry iron ore, her intended trade. The new vessel was christened Samuel Mather, after a cofounder of Pickands Mather and Company, which at the time was the second largest fleet on the Great Lakes.
The SS Argus was a steel-hulled Great Lakes freighter, that was constructed as the SS Lewis Woodruff by the American Ship Building Company, and was launched on 5 August 1903. Its original owner was the Gilchrist Transportation Company, based in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1913, the ship was sold to the Interlake Steamship Company, and was renamed the Argus.
SS Choctaw was a steel-hulled American freighter in service between 1892 and 1915, on the Great Lakes of North America. She was a so-called monitor vessel, containing elements of traditional lake freighters and the whaleback ships designed by Alexander McDougall. Choctaw was built in 1892 by the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company in Cleveland, Ohio, and was originally owned by the Lake Superior Iron Company. She was sold to the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company in 1894 and spent the rest of her working life with it. On her regular route between Detroit, Escanaba, Marquette, and Cleveland, she carried iron ore downbound, and coal upbound.
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