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Atlantic

Ontario waters · lost 1852

  • Collision
  • Lives lost: 130–300
  • Location withheld

This site's location is withheld. In Ontario waters, where the Ontario Heritage Act requires a licence for any work on a marine archaeological site. Position withheld; general area only. This page shows the general area only.

The steamboat Atlantic, drawing by Samuel Ward Stanton
Samuel Ward Stanton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Toned for this site.

In the early hours of August 20, 1852, the overcrowded steamer Atlantic, packed with immigrants bound west, was rammed by the propeller Ogdensburg near Long Point and sank. Somewhere between 130 and 300 people died. The wreck, in about 150 feet of water, later became the subject of a court fight over who owns it.

The story

The Atlantic was a large side-wheel steamer built at Newport, now Marine City, Michigan, by John L. Wolverton and first enrolled at Detroit in 1849. She was about 267 feet long, with 85 staterooms and room for more than 300 passengers.[2,1] Owned by E.B. Ward and run by the Michigan Central Railroad between Buffalo and Detroit, she once made that trip in a record sixteen and a half hours.[1]

On August 19, 1852, she left Buffalo for Detroit with every cabin full and hundreds more on deck, many of them Norwegian, Irish and other European immigrants. At Erie she took on still more Norwegians, leaving about seventy behind for lack of room. By the time she sailed from Erie at 11 p.m. there were perhaps 500 to 600 people aboard, and no exact count was kept.[1]

At about 2 a.m. near Long Point she met the new propeller Ogdensburg, bound from Cleveland with wheat. The Atlantic turned across the other ship's path; the Ogdensburg, whose whistle was broken, reversed engines too late and struck her on the port side, forward of the paddle wheel. The Atlantic steamed on until water reached her boilers and she stopped.[1] Panic followed. One lifeboat capsized, and the captain was injured lowering another. The Ogdensburg turned back and took survivors off the Atlantic's stern and out of the water before she sank.[1] The HCGL record estimates 250 dead; Wikipedia gives a range from about 130 to 300.[2,1]

The legal battle over the collision reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which found both ships at fault. In the 1850s divers went after the safe; one of them, Eliot Harrington, brought up some $36,700 in 1856.[1] The wreck, mostly intact in about 150 feet of water, was rediscovered in 1984 by a Port Dover diver. When a California salvage company claimed it in 1991, Ontario went to court to stop artifacts being removed, and the judge ruled that the Atlantic belongs to Ontario.[1] Wikipedia's list of Great Lakes shipwrecks calls the sinking the fifth-worst single-vessel disaster on the lakes.[3]

Lives lost: No passenger list survived. Wikipedia gives estimates from at least 130 to 300, with 250 often cited; the HCGL record estimates 250.

Questions people ask

How many people died on the Atlantic in 1852?

No one knows exactly, because no passenger list survived. Estimates run from about 130 to 300; the HCGL vessel record and many accounts use 250.

Who owns the wreck of the Atlantic?

Ontario. When a salvage company claimed the wreck in 1991, an Ontario court ruled that it belongs to the province, and the site is now electronically monitored.

Learn more

Museums and groups are linked for further reading; they are not connected with this site.

Look, don't take

Look, don't take. Shipwrecks and everything on them are protected by law; removing or disturbing anything can be a crime.

  • Ontario: under the Ontario Heritage Act no one may alter a marine archaeological site or remove an artifact from it without a provincial licence; fines for breaking this rule can reach $1,000,000.[4][5][1]

How Lake Erie wrecks are protected

Diving Lake Erie wrecks is dangerous: cold water, poor visibility, depth, entanglement and boat traffic. Nothing here is dive guidance or a dive position. Dive only with proper training, a qualified operator and current information from the groups that maintain moorings.

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Sources

  1. Atlantic (1848 ship), Wikipedia. Accessed .
  2. HCGL vessel record: ATLANTIC, Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University. Accessed .
  3. List of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes (Lake Erie section), Wikipedia. Accessed .
  4. law-on-oha-part6, Government of Ontario (e-Laws). Accessed .
  5. law-on-oreg-11-06, Government of Ontario (e-Laws). Accessed .

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