Pere Marquette 18 was a steel-hulled Great Lakes train ferry that served on Lake Michigan from her construction in 1902 to her sinking in 1910. On September 9, 1910 while bound from Ludington for Milwaukee with 62 passengers and crew and 29 rail cars filled with general merchandise and coal, she began taking on massive amounts of water. The pumps were turned on, but all attempts to save her were futile, and she sank off the coast of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Her fleetmate, Pere Marquette 17 was nearby and managed to save 35 of her passengers andcrew. Twenty-seven people on board Pere Marquettes 18 were killed, while Pere Marquet 17 lost two of her own crew during the rescue.
About SS Pere Marquette 18 in brief
Pere Marquette 18 was a steel-hulled Great Lakes train ferry that served on Lake Michigan from her construction in 1902 to her sinking in 1910. On September 9, 1910 while bound from Ludington for Milwaukee with 62 passengers and crew and 29 rail cars filled with general merchandise and coal, she began taking on massive amounts of water. The pumps were turned on, but all attempts to save her were futile, and she sank off the coast of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Her fleetmate, Pere Marquette 17 was nearby and managed to save 35 of her passengers andcrew. Twenty-seven people on board Pere Marquettes 18 were killed, while Pere Marquet 17 lost two of her own crew during the rescue. The wreck of Pere Marquete 18 was discovered in July 2020 in about 500 feet of water about 25 miles east of Sheboysgan by a wreck hunting team from Minnesota. The true cause of Pere marquette 18’s flooding remains a mystery, as none of her officers survived to recount what happened. She was equipped with two 3,000 hp ) triple expansion steam engines which were powered by steam from six Scotch marine boilers. She had four railroad tracks on her main deck, which could accommodate up to 30 rail cars.
She contained 50 staterooms and several other rooms, providing sleeping accommodation for 250 people. She spent the summers of 1909 and 1910 giving pleasure cruises between Chicago and Waukekegan, Illinois. She rejoined the train ferry fleet on September 8, 1910 after passing an official government inspection in Ludington, Michigan. Her home port also changed multiple times during her career; one of these ports was Ludington and her final home port was Grand Haven. Her call whistle was long-long-short. She received her first enrollment in Cleveland, Ohio on July 19, 1902; her initial homeport was Saginaw, Michigan on March 6, 1903; Port Huron also became her home port. In 1907, she was chartered by the Chicago and South Haven Steamship Company for service as an excursion steamer. In 1909, she spent the summer of 1909 giving pleasure Cruises between Waukesha, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois for the excursion cruises. On November 4, 1903 she rescued the crew of six from the sinking schooner barge A. T. Bliss, which was bound from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin for Ludington.
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This page is based on the article SS Pere Marquette 18 published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 09, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
