On this day December 30, 1926, the GEORGE M. HUMPHREY was launched by American Ship Building at their Lorain, Ohio, yard.  Built for the Kinsman Transit Company she measured 600 feet over all with a beam of 60 feet and a depth of 32 feet.  She was christened by Miss Pamela Humphrey, daughter of the executive vice president of the M. A. Hanna Company for whom the vessel is named.

            She was placed in the command of Capt. H. W. Stewart, who was the sole survivor of the steamer WESTERN RESERVE when it was lost on Lake Superior in 1892.  Her chief engineer was W. H. Miller.  The HUMPHREY was the flagship of their fleet.

            The HUMPHREY received much press from her collision with the D. M. CLEMSON on June 15, 1943.  The collision occurred at 2:50 am about two miles off Old Mackinaw Point near the center of the Straits of Mackinac during a heavy rainstorm and fog.  The HUMPHREY, which was downbound loaded with iron ore for South Chicago, received a hole on her starboard bow that measured 21 x 22 feet causing her to sink within a few minutes of the collision.   The CLEMSON, which was running light, sustained heavy damage to her bow but stayed afloat.  No lives were lost but several of the crew on both boats were injured.

Of the 39 people on the HUMPHREY, eight were rescued by the CLEMSON and 31 who were in lifeboats were rescued by the steamer LAGONDA.

            The HUMPHREY sunk in about 77 feet of water with just the top of her mast showing. 

It was thought impossible to raise her from her resting place on the muddy bottom but that is exactly what Capt. John Roen did in August of 1944. It started in December of 1943 with the removal of more than 8,000 tons of water compressed iron ore from the HUMPHREY and then the following May, 2,000 more tons were removed.  Capt. Roen then started salvaging by sinking the barge MAITLAND over the HUMPHREY, running steel cables from the barge under the keel of the HUMPHREY and lifting by pumping out the barge.  

The hole in the HUMPHREY was temporarily closed with by a patch of foot-square timbers covered with canvas.

The government paid Capt. Roen to clear the sunken ship out of the channel.  He did that and took ownership of the HUMPHREY.   Salvage operations cost between $300,000 and $400,000 but the vessel was valued at $1,000,000 at the time of the collision.   

The HUMPHREY was rebuilt during the winter of 1944-45 at the Roen headquarters shop and the adjoining Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding & Drydock yard.  A large crew worked all through the winter.   She was drydocked at Manitowoc for inspection.

In 1945 the GEORGE M. HUMPHREY was renamed the CAPTAIN JOHN ROEN.  

Roen sold her to the American Steamship Co. in January 1947.   She was converted to a self-unloader at the Manitowoc Ship Building Co. that winter.  She sailed out the summer of 1948 under the name ADAM E. CORNELIUS.  

In 1959 she was renamed CONSUMERS POWER and sailed as that until being scrapped in 1988.

The D. M. CLEMSON was built in 1916 also at Lorain by the American Ship Building Co. but for the Pittsburgh Steamship Co. and measured 580 x 60 x 32.  She sailed under that name her entire career.  The CLEMSON was sold for scrap in 1980 and was gone by the summer of 1982.

Suzette Lopez

PHOTO CREDIT: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.

This story was originally posted on December 30, 2023.