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Philip Minch

Ohio waters · lost 1904

  • Fire
  • Lives lost: None recorded

No public position. General area: About eight miles east of Marblehead, Ohio.

The big wooden freighter Philip Minch caught fire off the Ohio shore east of Marblehead in November 1904 while running empty to Sandusky. All seventeen of her crew took to the boats and were brought in by the Marblehead lifesavers. She burned and sank in about 45 feet of water.

The story

The Philip Minch was a wooden propeller built at Cleveland in 1888 by William Radcliffe, about 275 feet long and first enrolled at Cleveland that April. Her tonnage was remeasured at Cleveland in 1900.[1]

She turns up in other ships' stories. In April 1896 she struck the whaleback barge 104 amidships in the Detroit River, a collision that later sank the barge in Lake St. Clair before it was pumped out and returned to service.[2]

In November 1904 she was running light, with no cargo, from Fairport to Sandusky, Ohio. About eight miles east of Marblehead she caught fire. Her crew of seventeen got away in the yawl boats and were rescued by the Marblehead life-saving crew, according to the HCGL vessel record; Wikipedia's list of 1904 shipwrecks says the crew reached shore in her boats.[1,3] The burning hull was abandoned and sank in about 45 feet of water, which the 1904 list places six miles east of Chickenolee Reef and eight miles off Middle Island.[3]

The HCGL record dates the fire to November 20, 1904; the Wikipedia list of 1904 wrecks files it under November 19, and Wikipedia's list of Lake Erie shipwrecks describes her as burning and sinking near Pelee Island.[1,3,4]

Her name lived on. A later freighter called Philip Minch collided in fog with the Frank E. Vigor in the Pelee Passage in April 1944 and rescued the Vigor's entire crew.[5]

Sources differ: The HCGL record and Wikipedia's Lake Erie list give November 20, 1904; Wikipedia's 1904 list files her under November 19.

Lives lost: All seventeen crew escaped in the yawl boats and were rescued by the Marblehead life-saving crew.

Questions people ask

Did anyone die when the Philip Minch burned in 1904?

No. All seventeen crew escaped in the yawl boats and were rescued by the Marblehead life-saving crew, according to the HCGL vessel record.

Is this the Philip Minch that collided with the Frank E. Vigor?

No. That was a later freighter of the same name, in 1944. This wooden Philip Minch burned east of Marblehead in November 1904.

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.[6][7][8]
  • 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.[9]

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: MINCH, PHILIP, Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University. Accessed .
  2. 104 (barge), Wikipedia. Accessed .
  3. List of shipwrecks in 1904, Wikipedia. Accessed .
  4. List of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes (Lake Erie section), Wikipedia. Accessed .
  5. SS Sir William Siemens, Wikipedia. Accessed .
  6. 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 .
  7. 43 U.S. Code 2101 - Findings (Abandoned Shipwreck Act), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  8. 43 U.S. Code 2102 - Definitions (Abandoned Shipwreck Act), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  9. Ohio Revised Code 1506.32 - Application for salvage permit for submerged watercraft or aircraft, Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Accessed .

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