By James Heinz
(Steinbrenner Story – Chapter Six)
Henry Steinbrenner I also built a ship that would pass into Great Lakes legend as one of the Ghost Ships of the great Armistice Day Storm of November 11, 1940.
The freighter ANNA C. MINCH was named for the wife of the Minch family patriarch Philip Jacob Minch I. She was launched in 1903 at the American Shipbuilding Company yard, the same yard where the ROGER BLOUGH would burn 68 years later. She was a typical steel Great Lakes bulk carrier of the design introduced by the husband and son of the woman she was named for. She displaced 4,825 tons, was 380 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 28 feet wide.
She was a hard luck ship from the beginning. In her career before 1926, she was involved in 4 collisions with 5 different ships, including two at the same time, one of whom was her fleet mate PHILIP J. MINCH, named after the husband of the woman she was named for. Apparently even ship collisions were a family affair in the Minch family.
She ran aground or was stranded 5 times, including once off Fox Point, Wis., and collided with docks or other structures 4 times. She suffered gale damage once and ice damage once, and suffered “wheel damage” at Milwaukee. Perhaps her finest moment came when she and another freighter broke loose from their moorings and had an excellent adventure together drifting down the Black River in Lorain, striking “several” other ships and crushing a yacht.
Perhaps this history of 13 accidents in 23 years spurred Henry Steinbrenner I to sell her to the Western Navigation Company of Canada in 1926. And it was under the Canadian flag that she sailed into legend.
Wikipedia tells us: “The morning of November 11, 1940, brought with it unseasonably high temperatures in the Upper Midwest. By early afternoon, temperatures approached 65 °F over most of the affected region. However, as the day wore on conditions quickly deteriorated. An intense low pressure system tracked from the southern plains northeastward into western Wisconsin, pulling Gulf of Mexico moisture up from the South and pulling down a cold arctic air mass from the North.
The result was a raging blizzard that would last into the next day. Snowfalls of up to 27 inches, winds of 50 to 80 miles per hour, 20-foot snow drifts, and 50 °F temperature drops were common over parts of the Midwest. Transportation and communications were crippled, which made finding the dead and injured more difficult. Survivors describe the cold as so severe that it was difficult to breathe, with the air so moisture laden it was thick like syrup and that the cold seared the survivors lungs like a red-hot blade.”
The official death toll was 146, including 24 Minnesota duck hunters and 66 men who died on three freighters that wrecked on Lake Michigan. One of those freighters was the ANNA C. MINCH.
Other than the fact that she sank, what happened to her is unknown. Her wreck was eventually located on November 15, 1940, when a wind vane on top of a steering pole was seen sticking out of 40 feet of water 400 feet offshore one and a half mile south of Pentwater, Mich. She was found by Clyde Cross, master of the fish tug THREE BROTHERS, who had rescued the crew of the stranded NOVADOC on November 13.
Divers determined that the pole was attached to the wreck of the ANNA C. MINCH, sitting upright in about 30 feet of water with her pilot house and foremast missing. In the tradition of the traditional Great Lakes bulk carrier design pioneered by the husband of her namesake, she was broken in two, and one hundred feet of her stern was missing. They also found a 23 foot gash in her port side.
At the time it was known that the ANNA C. MINCH had been closely following the WILLIAM B. DAVOCK as they proceeded down the lee shore of the west coast of the lower Michigan peninsula. They were on the wrong side of 120 miles of open water across which the waves could build up, and their course left them broadside to the waves.
It was thought that the two ships might have collided, since the DAVOCK also disappeared in the same storm. However, in 1972 divers found the DAVOCK lying upside down off Little Sable Point, MI., where the NOVADOC went ashore in the same storm. There was no sign of collision damage.
Today the wreck of the ANNA C. MINCH is described on the website of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association as: “The stern section is smaller than the bow section although it has a series of triple boilers side by side that form the most prominent feature of the wreck. The boiler rises to within about 20 feet of the surface and on a clear, calm day, you should be able to see the dark shapes below the dive boat.
“The wreckage is very damaged and has broken up considerably both during the sinking process as well as the surf conditions and ice over the six decades since it went down. The debris covers an area about 60 feet in diameter with the boilers at the center. The bow section is about 1/10 of a mile north of the stern, and actually seems to face southeast, suggesting that one half swiveled around as it broke up near shore.”
Perhaps the saddest part of the end of the ANNA C. MINCH is that she sank in such shallow water so close to shore but not one of her 24 crew survived.
NEXT: HENRY STEINBRENNER II AND THE SHIPWRECK THAT BECAME A SHIP AGAIN
Photo at top of paged: ANNA C. MINCH
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
