SS Samuel Mather (1887)
Samuel Mather at dock
|
|
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
|
|
| Name: | Samuel Mather |
| Namesake: | Samuel Mather |
| Owner: | Pickands, Mather Company |
| Port of registry: | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Builder: | Quayle's, Thomas Sons |
| Completed: | 1887 |
| Fate: | Sank in Whitefish Bay 21 November 1891 after colliding with the Brazil |
| Notes: | Official No. 116142 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Bulk freighter |
| Tonnage: |
1576.23 Gross Register Tonnage 1286.72 Net Register Tonnage |
| Length: | 246 ft (75 m) |
| Beam: | 40 ft (12 m) |
| Depth: | 19.3 ft (5.9 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam, propeller |
| Notes: | Sank with no loss of life |
1576.23 Gross Register Tonnage
The SS Samuel Mather (1887) was the first of seven U.S. merchant ships to bear that name. The wooden Mather sank in 1891 after she was rammed by the steel freighter Brazil in heavy fog in Whitefish Bay 8 miles (13 km) from Point Iroquois, ending the Mather's 4-year career. Her intact wreck is a rare of example of wooden freighters that plied the Great Lakes and she is a popular scuba diving site. Although there was no loss of life when the Mather sank, her wreck claimed the lives of three scuba divers more than 100 years after she sank. Artifacts from her wreck were illegally removed in the 1980s by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society. The artifacts are now the property of the State of Michigan and are on display as a loan to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. The wreck of the Mather is protected as part of an underwater museum in the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve.
Shipwreck historian Frederick Stonehouse wrote, "The Mather is a rare example of a type of freighter that has long since disappeared from the Great Lakes." The 246 feet (75 m) steamer was constructed with wood and had two boilers and two masts.
The Mather had a series of mishaps and changes in ownerships after she was launched in Cleveland on 7 April 1887 for her first owners, R. John W. Moore, et al. On 20 October 1887 when she was bound from Sandusky, Ohio to Duluth, Minnesota, the tug Mystic towed her to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan with disabled machinery. On 9 May 1888, she was sold to Samuel Mather, et al. of Cleveland, Ohio. On 11 August 1888, she was damaged in a heavy gale near Detour, Michigan and later repaired in Cleveland. On 13 April 1889, she was sold to James Pickard, et al. of Interlake Transportation Company. In June 1889, she towed the Senator and the Winana. On 30 September 1890, she was libeled for sinking the steamer Ohio. The Mather was a coal-carrying steamer but she "perished with an abnormal cargo of wheat".
...
Wikipedia