SS D. M. Clemson (1903)

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D.M. Clemson.jpg
History
Flag of the United States (1912-1959).svg United States
NameD. M. Clemson
NamesakeDaniel M. Clemson
OperatorProvident Steamship Company
Port of registry Duluth, Minnesota
Ordered22 July 1902
Builder Superior Shipbuilding Company, West Superior, Wisconsin
Cost$315,000 ($8.58 million in 2023) [a]
Yard number510
Launched3 July 1903
Maiden voyage13 August 1903
Out of service30 November 1908
IdentificationUS official number  157703
FateSank in a storm on Lake Superior
General characteristics
Class & type Lake freighter
Tonnage
Tons burthen17,000
Length
  • 468 feet (143 m) o/a
  • 448 feet (137 m) p/p
Beam52 feet (16 m)
Depth28 feet (8.5 m)
Installed power
Propulsion1 × propeller
Capacity7,500 long tons (7,620  t) [b]
Crew24
Sister ship(s) D. G. Kerr
James H. Reed

SS D. M. Clemson was a steel-hulled American lake freighter in service between 1903 and 1908. She was built by the Superior Shipbuilding Company in West Superior, Wisconsin, for the Provident Steamship Company of Duluth, Minnesota, managed by Augustus B. Wolvin. She was engaged in the iron ore, coal and grain trade, breaking various haulage records on multiple occasions. She was involved in a number of serious accidents, almost sinking in a storm on Lake Superior in September 1905, as well as a collision with the piers of the Ashtabula Harbor Light just a few weeks prior to her loss.

Contents

On what was her final voyage of the year, D. M. Clemson locked through the Soo Locks into Lake Superior on the morning of 30 November 1908, with a cargo of coal loaded two days prior in Lorain, Ohio, consigned to Duluth. She was under the command of Captain Samuel R. Chamberlain, who was scheduled to retire after D. M. Clemson's trip ended. Chamberlain chose to take his vessel on the southernmost route to Duluth, which required passage through the Portage Canal. She was accompanied by the freighter J. J. H. Brown until Whitefish Point, when the latter altered course for the north shore of the lake. J. J. H. Brown was the final vessel to verifiably encounter D. M. Clemson. Shortly thereafter, an unusually powerful snow storm descended on Lake Superior. She sank with the loss of her complete crew.

Within a few days, wreckage began to wash ashore between Crisp Point and Grand Marais, Michigan. Initially believed to be from a different freighter, the discovery of several different pieces of wreckage bearing a legible name and the confirmation she was the only missing vessel on the lake conclusively identified D. M. Clemson as the source. Contemporary sources believed she was lost shortly after entering the storm. Modern authors have attributed her unexplained loss to structural or mechanical failure, or the loss of her hatch covers.

Despite repeated searches by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, the wreck of D. M. Clemson has never been found. As of 2025, she is the largest undiscovered shipwreck the Great Lakes.

History

Background

The gunship USS Michigan became the first iron-hulled vessel built on the Great Lakes, upon her completion in 1843, in Erie, Pennsylvania. [2] By the mid–1840s, Canadian companies had begun to import iron vessels prefabricated in the United Kingdom. The first iron–hulled merchant vessel built on the lakes, Merchant, was built in 1862, in Buffalo, New York. [2] Despite Merchant's clear success proving the potential of iron hulls, ships built from wood remained preferable until the 1880s, due to their lower cost and the abundance of high quality timber. [3] That same decade, shipyards around the Great Lakes began to construct iron ships on a relatively large scale. [4] The most notable being the freighter Onoko, built by the Globe Iron Works Company, which became the largest vessel on the lakes upon her launch in 1882. [5] In 1884, the first steel freighters were built on the Great Lakes. [6] Within a decade of the first examples arriving, the majority of ships built on the lakes were steel–hulled. [7] The development of the pneumatic rivet gun and the advancement of gantry cranes enabled shipyard employees to work at an increased speed, with greater efficiency. [8] This, combined with the rapidly decreasing steel prices, contributed to the rapid increase in the size of lake freighters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. [9] The first 400-foot (121.9 m) freighter was built in 1895, the first 500-foot (152.4 m) freighter was constructed five years later. [10]

Throughout the 1880s, the iron ore trade on the Great Lakes grew exponentially, primarily due to the increasing size of the lake freighters, and the rise in the number of trips made by ore boats to the ore docks of Lake Superior. [11] As the railways were unable to keep up with the rapid production of iron ore, most of it was transported by bulk freighters. By 1890, 56.95% of the 16,036,043 long tons (16,293,372  t ) of the iron ore produced by mines in the United States was sourced from the region surrounding Lake Superior. [11] Freighters engaged in the iron ore trade frequently carried coal on upbound voyages to fuel mining equipment and infrastructure, while hauling ore when heading downbound. [12]

Design and construction

D. M. Clemson (US official number  157703) was built by the Superior Shipbuilding Company in West Superior, Wisconsin. [13] Assigned the yard number 510, she was named after Daniel M. Clemson, the vice president of the Pittsburgh Steamship Company, and an associate of businessman Augustus B. Wolvin. [14]

She was built on the channel system, a longitudinal frame style introduced on the Great Lakes in the mid–1890s. [15] It constituted several rows flanged steel plates running the entire length of a vessel's bottom, deriving its name from the "channels" between the frames. [16] This method provided vessels with additional strength, as well as providing damage sustained in groundings from spreading to other areas of the hull, and an increased cargo capacity. [17] In spite of rapid advances in shipbuilding technology, the cargo hold of D. M. Clemson remained reminiscent of those found on older wooden lake freighters. Between 1882 and 1904, the cargo holds of all iron and steel freighters contained stanchions and steel angles which were the equivalent of the knees used on wooden freighters. [18] The stanchions within her hull were located 24 feet (7.3 m) apart, at the spaces between D. M. Clemson's twelve hatch covers, which were 8 feet (2.4 m) in length. [19] This configuration complicated the loading and unloading of cargo, since the chutes of most ore docks were set 12 feet (3.7 m) apart, while the stanchions frequently obstructed the buckets of automated unloading rigs, frequently receiving damage from them during unloading. [c] [21] Her hull contained three watertight bulkheads, as well as at least two which were not watertight. [22]

The hull of D. M. Clemson had an overall length of 468 feet (142.6 m), a length between perpendiculars of 448 feet (136.6 m), as well as a beam 52 feet (15.8 m) in width. [23] The moulded depth, roughly speaking, the vertical height of D. M. Clemson's hull, was 28 feet (8.5 m). [24] The measurements of her register tonnage were calculated as 5,531 gross register tons and 3,991 net register tons, respectively. [25] Maritime historian Frederick Stonehouse describes her as the "[r]epresenting the highest state of the shipbuilders' art". [26]

D. M. Clemson was powered by a 1,370  ihp (1,020  kW ) 90 rpm triple-expansion steam engine; the cylinders of the engine were 15 inches (38.1 cm), 23.75 inches (60.3 cm), 36.5 inches (92.7 cm) and 56 inches (142.2 cm) in diameter, and had a stroke of 40 inches (101.6 cm). [27] Steam was provided by two water-tube boilers 13 feet 6 inches (4.1 m) in diameter, 12 feet 2 inches (3.7 m) in length, with a working pressure of 250- pound-per-square-inch (1,700  kPa ). The boilers were each fitted with four furnaces, accounting for a combined grate surface of 128 square feet (11.9 m2), and a total heating surface of 5,000 square feet (464.5 m2). The engine was manufactured by the shipyard in West Superior, while the boilers were supplied by Babcock & Wilcox of New York City. [28]

Service history

D. M. Clemson in the Soo Locks D.M. Clemson (1903).jpg
D. M. Clemson in the Soo Locks

Final voyage

An unconfirmed sighting of D. M. Clemson was reported by the captain of the freighter Paliki of the Algoma Central Steamship Line, who claimed to have spotted her amid heavy snow west of Whitefish Point. This sighting would have been the final time D. M. Clemson was seen afloat. [29]

Aftermath and wreck

The wreck of D. M. Clemson has never been found. She became the largest undiscovered shipwreck on the Great Lakes following the discovery of the 550 foot (167.6 m) Canadian freighter James Carruthers in May 2025. [30] The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society has sought the wreck of D. M. Clemson since at least 2002. [31]

Notes

  1. ↑ Johnston, Louis & Williamson, Samuel H. (2023). "What Was the U.S. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth . Retrieved 30 November 2023. United States Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the MeasuringWorth series.
  2. ↑ Some sources listed her capacity as 7,000 long tons (7,112 t) or 6,900 long tons (7,011 t) on an 18 foot (5.5 m) draught. [1]
  3. ↑ It would not be until 1904 that the traditional construction methods were abandoned in favour of steel arches and sloped side "hopper" tanks, in the freighter Augustus B. Wolvin. [20]

References

  1. ↑ The Cleveland Leader (1912b), p. 11; The Marine Review (1912a), p. 65.
  2. 1 2 Bugbee (1962a), p. 24.
  3. ↑ Bowlus (2010), p. 85; Bugbee (1962a), p. 26; Thompson (1994), p. 32.
  4. ↑ Bugbee (1962b), p. 48; Thompson (1994), p. 32.
  5. ↑ Thompson (1994), p. 31.
  6. ↑ Bugbee (1962b), p. 50; Thompson (1994), pp. 40–42.
  7. ↑ Bugbee (1962b), pp. 49–51.
  8. ↑ Stonehouse (1990), p. 65.
  9. ↑ Stonehouse (1990), p. 65; Thompson (1994), pp. 59–84.
  10. ↑ Thompson (1994), pp. 59–84.
  11. 1 2 National Park Service (2018), p. 16.
  12. ↑ National Park Service (2018), p. 7.
  13. ↑ Bowling Green State University; The Cleveland Leader (1902a), p. 5.
  14. ↑ The Buffalo Commercial (1902), p. 7; The Plain Dealer (1902b), p. 8.
  15. ↑ The Marine Review (1895a), p. 6.
  16. ↑ The Marine Review (1895a), p. 6; The Marine Review (1895b), pp. 20–22.
  17. ↑ The Marine Review (1895b), p. 21.
  18. ↑ Thompson (1994), p. 91.
  19. ↑ Green (1912), p. 101; Thompson (1994), p. 90.
  20. ↑ Thompson (1994), pp. 90–92.
  21. ↑ Thompson (1994), pp. 90–91.
  22. ↑ Herriman (1905), p. 83.
  23. ↑ Green (1912), p. 101; The Marine Review (1912a), p. 65.
  24. ↑ The Cleveland Leader (1902a), p. 5.
  25. ↑ Bowling Green State University (2021) ; Herriman (1905), p. 83.
  26. ↑ Stonehouse (1990), p. 68: "At time of her launching she represented the highest state of the shipbuilders' art".
  27. ↑ Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library ; Herriman (1905), p. 41.
  28. ↑ Herriman (1905), p. 41.
  29. ↑ Stonehouse (1990), p. 71.
  30. ↑ Baillod (2025); Lofton (2025); Witsil (2025).
  31. ↑ Inland Seas (2002), p. 238.

Sources

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