Frank E. Vigor
Ontario waters · lost 1944
- Collision
- Lives lost: None recorded
- 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.
Built in 1896 as the Sir William Siemens, one of three 432-foot freighters that shared the title Queen of the Lakes, this steel ore boat ended her career as the Frank E. Vigor. On a foggy April morning in 1944 she collided with another freighter in the Pelee Passage and sank. Her whole crew was saved.
The story
The ship was launched at Cleveland on July 25, 1896, by the Globe Iron Works Company for John D. Rockefeller's Bessemer Steamship Company, and named after the German-British inventor Carl Wilhelm Siemens. At 432 feet she was the third of three freighters that briefly shared the unofficial title Queen of the Lakes as the longest on the Great Lakes, a record overtaken within days by a 445-foot ship.[1] She was built for the iron-ore trade and made her first voyage on August 25, 1896.[1]
Her name changed with her owners. The Bessemer fleet merged into the Pittsburgh Steamship Company in 1901; she was later sold to the J.A. Paisley Steamship Company and renamed William B. Pilkey, passed to the Columbia Transportation Company in 1935, and became the Frank E. Vigor in 1941.[1]
On the morning of April 27, 1944, she was bound for Buffalo with a cargo of sulfur. In thick fog in the Pelee Passage, the channel between Point Pelee and Pelee Island, she collided with the freighter Philip Minch. The Vigor was holed below the waterline and soon began to list. The Minch took off her entire crew before the Vigor capsized and sank.[1] Wikipedia's list of Lake Erie shipwrecks records the loss as a collision off Point Pelee.[2]
The wreck lies upside down in about 92 feet of water.[1] The Pelee Passage is in Canadian waters, so this page gives the general area only. Her story spans the steel age on the lakes: Wikipedia's account of her design notes that the first steel freighters were built on the Great Lakes only in 1884, and that the first 400-foot lake freighter appeared in 1895, the year before her launch.[1]
Lives lost: The Philip Minch rescued her entire crew.
Questions people ask
What was the Frank E. Vigor originally called?
She was launched in 1896 as the Sir William Siemens, later became the William B. Pilkey, and was renamed Frank E. Vigor in 1941.
Did anyone die when the Frank E. Vigor sank?
No. After she collided with the Philip Minch in fog in the Pelee Passage on April 27, 1944, the Minch rescued her entire crew.
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.
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.
Nearby lighthouses
- Pelee Passage Lighthouse View from a boat
- Southeast Shoal Lighthouse View from a boat
- Pelee Island Lighthouse Grounds open
- Middle Island Lighthouse (ruin) Ruin or relocated
- Colchester Reef Lighthouse View from a boat
Nearby shipwrecks
Nearby · Sponsored
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Sources
- SS Sir William Siemens, Wikipedia. Accessed .
- List of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes (Lake Erie section), Wikipedia. Accessed .
- law-on-oha-part6, Government of Ontario (e-Laws). Accessed .
- law-on-oreg-11-06, Government of Ontario (e-Laws). Accessed .
- Atlantic (1848 ship), Wikipedia. Accessed .
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