By James Heinz
(Steinbrenner Story – Chapter Eight)
As you read this story, you may notice many of the same things keep happening to different ships. And so it will prove to be with the next vessel that Henry II purchased in 1944, possibly as a replacement for the GEORGE M. HUMPHREY. This ship may have the most interesting history of all the Kinsman ships.
She was shipwrecked before she was even commissioned.
The winter of 1903/1904 was a severe one in Cleveland. One source puts it this way: “The winter of 1903-04 was savage. The Siberian weather redefined ice accumulations and windrows and naked cold.”
The EDWIN F. HOLMES had been launched on December 12, 1903, into the Black River in Lorain at the American Shipbuilding Company. She was 4,638 tons, and 420 feet long and 50 feet wide.
The only thing worse than a heavy snow accumulation and ice buildup in rivers is a sudden warm spell with heavy rain. And that is what happened starting January 20, 1904. For two days a warm front settled over Lake Erie, accompanied by rain so heavy it was described as a “mid-winter monsoon”.
The combination of pouring rain and melting ice and snow caused the Black River to swell and run very fast indeed. A number of barges and scows were torn loose by the current, which slammed them into the Nickel Plate Railroad bridge. A huge ice flow, loosened by the warm weather, and propelled by the strong current, homed in on the bridge and brought it down. The bridge tender had to be rescued.
What followed could best be described as a prison riot carried out by ships.
A dredge torn loose by the flood hit the steamer E. M. PECK, ripping her loose from her mooring along the river banks, much to the astonishment of the ship keeper and his wife. As the steamer whirled down the river, bystanders on shore could hear the screams of the ship keeper’s wife. The PECK came to a stop when the current jammed her against a solid sheet of ice.
The HENDRICK S. HOLDEN was also torn loose and apparently floated through a coal dump before hitting the tug GULL, crushing the tug and sinking it, before the HOLDEN escaped from the scene of the crime and floated out into Lake Erie, where she was later recovered.
The wooden tug PANKRATZ had her steam up, but that did not save her. In fact, it doomed her. She was torn from her moorings and driven aground so hard that hot coals spilt from her fire box and set her on fire. She burned merrily as loose barges, huge chunks of ice, and huge quantities of lumber from a flooded lumber yard sped past.
And inevitably, the newly launched but not yet finished EDWIN F. HOLMES joined the parade. Torn from her riverside moorings by the flood, she jackknifed across the river, damaging her hull plates on one side, and embedding her bow into the river bank.
Shortly thereafter, possibly as a result of the HOLMES acting as a sort of floating steel dam athwart the current, the Black River decided it did not like its current channel and made a new one, flooding over the east bank of the river and carrying a tide of debris across the marshlands to Lake Erie. The debris consisted of the tug BLAZIER, barges and scows, boathouses, huge chunks of ice, and a shed from the flooded lumber company.
The cold weather then promptly returned, freezing the river solid, so solid that two weeks later the HOLMES was still stuck in the bank. Workers dynamited the ice upstream from her to try to clear the way for a tug to get to her, while other workers dug away the frozen dirt from around her bow, which was not completed until February 5th.
Due to flood damage to the American Shipbuilding yard and an adjacent steel mill, which were both closed for three weeks, the HOLMES was not put back into service until April 29, 1904.
Having survived one encounter with ice, the HOLMES found herself stuck in the ice off Lime Island in the St. Mary’s river, on April 13, 1905, leading a parade of 20 ships.
But the HOLMES greatest test came during the great storm of November 8-10, 1905, known as the MATAAFA storm, when that ship was driven ashore and broke up just yards from the harbor entrance while thousands on shore watched helplessly.
The HOLMES made it through the Soo upbound. She was listed as overdue on November 28th but she arrived in Duluth on December 1st, steaming past the wreck of the MATAAFA as she did so. The storm wrecked a total of 30 ships on Lake Superior.
The HOLMES was a survivor. She also survived the Great Storm of 1913. Downbound on Lake Superior, she made Whitefish Bay on November 8th after taking a beating in the rough seas. Her crew took the opportunity to further secure her hatch covers.
Lured into believing the storm had passed when the “eye” of the freshwater hurricane passed, on November 9th the HOLMES headed out into Lake Superior and through the Soo into Lake Huron, only to be caught by the back side of the ferocious storm, where following seas hit her after deck house and the resulting spray went over the top of her funnel.
Sustained winds of 90 miles an hour caused 35 foot waves to crash into the HOLMES until the afternoon of November 10th when the storm began to subside, damaging her pilot house. She would have passed the capsized hull of the CHARLES S. PRICE floating off Port Huron. The HOLMES was reported wrecked again by the press, but fortunately rumors of her death were once again greatly exaggerated.
In 1911, the HOLMES was involved in legal trouble when it was found that she and several other ships were the result of the American Shipbuilding company paying kickbacks to the Acme Transit Company which owned her. This litigation was not settled until 1916 and as a result the HOLMES was sold to the Pittsburgh Steamship Line and renamed the E. C. COLLINS.
As noted, Henry II purchased her in 1944 and kept her name. He used her mostly to haul grain. The ship was sold to the Huron Cement Company in 1956, converted to a self-unloader in 1958-59, and renamed in 1959 for the company’s founder, J. B. FORD. That would remain her name for the rest of her life.
And a long life it would prove to be.
Her career with Huron Cement was uneventful but the ravages of time caused her to develop engine problems which resulted in her being laid up in Milwaukee on November 15, 1985, where she remained until she was moved to Chicago’s Lake Calumet and used as a floating cement storage barge. In 2001, she was moved to Superior, Wis., and again used as a cement storage barge.
In 2011, the Great Lakes Steamship Society was formed in an effort to preserve the ship. However, in July 2014, the Society announced that they could not raise the $1.5-$2 million needed to preserve the now 111 year old ship.
On October 9, 2015, the J. B. FORD made her last voyage of two miles across Duluth harbor to Azcon Metals, where she was moored for scrapping. This included her three cycle reciprocating steam power plant, the last one on the lakes.
For reasons not entirely clear, the now 118 year old J. B. FORD was still afloat in Duluth harbor on March 2, 2021, when she caught fire at 3:21 pm. Apparently, a cutting torch spark ignited wood in the captain’s cabin. The Duluth Fire Department, ignoring the irony of saving something that was in the process of being sent to the great “scrapyard in the sky” anyway, was able to contain and knock down the flames within an hour.
As we shall see, the HOLMES/COLLINS established a precedent for her sister ship to follow.
NEXT: HENRY II AND GEORGE STEINBRENNER III: LIKE FATHER LIKE SON
Photo at top of page: The J. B. FORD in the Menomonee River at South 26th Street, Milwaukee.
Photo Credit: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
GEORGE STEINBRENNER, GREAT LAKES SHIP OWNER – Chapter One
THE WRECK OF THE WESTERN RESERVE – Chapter Two
NUTTY PHIL AND THE WRECK OF THE ONOKO – Chapter Three
SOPHIA MINCH AND THE WRECK OF THE SOPHIA MINCH – Chapter Four
HENRY STEINBRENNER I, GORDON LIGHTFOOT, AND THE WRECK OF THE HENRY STEINBRENNER I – Chapter Five
THE WRECK OF THE ANNA C. MINCH – Chapter Six
HENRY STEINBRENNER II AND THE SHIPWRECK THAT BECAME A SHIP AGAIN – Chapter Seven
AN OLDIE BUT A GOLDIE: HENRY STEINBRENNER II AND THE J. B. FORD – Chapter Eight
HENRY III AND GEORGE STEINBRENNER III: LIKE FATHER LIKE SON – Chapter Nine
KINSMAN TRANSIT IS IN TROUBLE – Chapter Ten
GEORGE III SAVES KINSMAN TRANSIT – Chapter Eleven
GEORGE III SAVES AMERICAN SHIPBUILDING – Chapter Twelve
