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Marquette & Bessemer No. 2

Ohio waters · lost 1909

No public position. General area: Unknown; somewhere on the crossing between Conneaut, Ohio, and Port Stanley, Ontario.

Marquette & Bessemer No. 2
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Toned for this site.

The railroad car ferry Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 left Conneaut, Ohio, for Port Stanley, Ontario, on December 7, 1909, and vanished in a storm with 30 to 38 people aboard. Despite more than a century of searching, her wreck has never been found, and divers call her the holy grail of Lake Erie.

The story

The Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 was built at Cleveland in 1905, a steel car ferry 338 feet long with four tracks on her deck, carrying loaded railroad cars across Lake Erie between Conneaut, Ohio, and Port Stanley, Ontario.[2,3] In Conneaut she was known simply as 'the Car Ferry'.[2]

On the morning of December 7, 1909, she left Conneaut for her usual five-hour run with about 30 railroad cars, most of them loaded with coal. The wind was already gusting to 50 mph from the southwest, and by evening it had reached sustained speeds near 75 mph.[2] What happened next is uncertain. Witnesses in Port Stanley said they saw the ferry offshore that evening, unable to enter the harbour; others on the Ontario shore reported hearing a steamer's whistle in the night; and people east of Conneaut reported seeing and hearing her too.[2] She never arrived anywhere.

On December 12 a Pennsylvania fisheries tug found one of her lifeboats about fifteen miles off Erie, Pennsylvania, with nine bodies in it, none dressed for the cold.[2] Wreckage washed ashore near Port Burwell, Ontario.[2] Everyone aboard died: between 30 and 38 people by Wikipedia's count, and 32 according to the HCGL vessel record.[2,1]

Ohio Sea Grant calls her “one of the most sought-after shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.” Divers on both sides of the border have claimed to find her, but none of those claims has been confirmed, and her resting place, somewhere in the roughly 60 miles of lake between Conneaut and Port Stanley, is still unknown.[3] She was one of several Lake Erie losses in the stormy weeks of December 1909; the steamer Clarion burned near the Southeast Shoal the next day.[4]

Sources differ: Left Conneaut on December 7, 1909; sources date the loss to December 7 or 8.

Lives lost: Wikipedia: 30 to 38; HCGL: 32, all hands.

Questions people ask

Has the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 been found?

No. Several divers have claimed to find her, but Ohio Sea Grant says none of the claims has been substantiated. She lies somewhere between Conneaut, Ohio, and Port Stanley, Ontario.

How many people died on the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2?

Everyone aboard: between 30 and 38 by Wikipedia's count, and 32 according to the HCGL vessel record.

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.

  • United States: under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act (43 U.S.C. § 2105) the U.S. claims title to abandoned shipwrecks embedded in a state's submerged lands, or resting on them and eligible for the National Register, and transfers that title to the state.[5][6][7]
  • Ohio: R.C. 1506.32 requires a permit from the Director of Natural Resources, approved by the Ohio History Connection, to recover, alter, salvage or destroy abandoned property on, in or near a submerged watercraft or aircraft in Lake Erie.[8]

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. HCGL vessel record: MARQUETTE & BESSEMER NO. 2 (1st), Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University. Accessed .
  2. SS Marquette & Bessemer No. 2, Wikipedia. Accessed .
  3. Ohio Sea Grant, Shipwrecks & Maritime Tales: Marquette Bessemer 2, Ohio Sea Grant College Program. Accessed .
  4. List of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes (Lake Erie section), Wikipedia. Accessed .
  5. 43 U.S. Code 2105 - Rights of access (Abandoned Shipwreck Act: title to abandoned shipwrecks), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  6. 43 U.S. Code 2101 - Findings (Abandoned Shipwreck Act), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  7. 43 U.S. Code 2102 - Definitions (Abandoned Shipwreck Act), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  8. Ohio Revised Code 1506.32 - Application for salvage permit for submerged watercraft or aircraft, Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Accessed .

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