On this day February 6, 1904, the steel cargo steamer UMBRIA was launched at the American Ship Building Co. yard in Cleveland. Built for Henry A. Hawgood she cost about $280,000 and measured 420 feet in length, 50 feet in beam and 28 feet in depth.
The UMBRIA had her first real encounter with disaster the next year during the storm labeled the Witch of November 1905. As you will recall this is the same storm that drove the CRESCENT CITY ashore in Duluth and destroyed or damaged 29 vessels and killed 36. The following is the December 2nd Milwaukee Sentinel’s account of what happened.
UMBRIA’S Steering apparatus and binnacle after 48 hour battle with the storm of November 28, 1905
UMBRIA safe at Duluth after the storm of November 28, 1905
UMBRIA Near to Disaster
Pilot House Carried Away in Worst of Superior Storm
By Associated Press. Duluth, Minn., Dec. 1 – Heroism worthy of America’s greatest sailors, daring that mocked at wind and wave, coolness sublime in the face of death, and endurance that beggars conception alone saved the steamer UMBRIA and its gallant crew from destruction in the storm which sent so many noble vessels to the bottom.
Stripped of its pilot house by a billow that smashed its wheel, carried away the compasses, while the men were struggling blinded in the seas, the UMBRIA, which was headed direct into the teeth of the gale, rolled for a moment helpless in the trough of the sea.
With a coolness that never deserted him in this crisis, Capt. C.M. Seph, from the hurricane deck, roared out an order and the forward crew headed by the first and second mates, sprang to the after deck and worked like demons to make the couplings of the after wheel, though every moment the billows swept them like chips to the ropes, where they clung until they could regain their feet.
In six minutes, which seemed like hours to the helpless crew below, the couplings were made and the wheelmen sprang to their posts on the after deck, exposed to the full fury of the elements, and by desperate labor and consummate skill brought the trembling and battered leviathan from the trough of the sea and once more turned its nose to the gale.
Thirty-six hours of endurance that defied despair, tells the tale of the struggle with the waves which brought the boat safe to harbor, battered and broken, its officers and crew cruelly bruised and cut by flying missiles, but triumphant.
MacGILVRAY SHIRAS around 1942
The UMBRIA sailed for Hawgood’s Wisconsin Transit from 1904 – 1910 and his Acme Transit from 1911 – 1915. Pittsburgh Steamship Co. took her over in 1916 and renamed her MacGILVRAY SHIRAS. Kinsman Transit bought her in 1944 and sailed her until 1959.
The MacGILVRAY SHIRAS had her own excitement in January 1959 which is told by a Buffalo newspaper below:
MacGILVRAY SHIRAS damaged by winter storm while in lay up at Buffalo, January 22, 1959
STORM HITS BUFFALO, DROWNS MAN IN CAR; SHIP TOPPLES BRIDGE
Buffalo, Jan. 22 (Staff) – One of the worst winter storms in Buffalo’s history, which struck yesterday evening, caused damage estimated at much more than $6,000,000 and one death.
Homeowners in one 18 block district were forced from their homes by rising waters and the Michigan Ave. bridge was knocked down by a lake freighter which broke from its moorings after it was struck by another ship whose mooring cables parted.
Salvator DiVita, of North Tonawanda, was found dead in his car this morning on Delaware Ave. He had been trapped by rising water and was unable to get out of his flooded auto.
Heavy rains and high winds up to 50 miles an hour caused flooding on Cazenovia Creek, breaking an ice jam and sending a five-foot wall of water surging through residential streets.
Ice cakes, 30 to 40 feet long and three feet thick, crashed into houses and tossed automobiles against light poles and trees.
Hundreds of autos were marooned and left until floodwaters subsided this afternoon. Roads were closed until well after noon today in many districts, but police said all but one had been opened again to traffic.
Shortly before 11 p.m. yesterday the MacGILVRAY SHIRAS, a freighter fully loaded with corn, broke her mooring lines at the Continental Grain Co. elevator at the foot of Smith St. A shipkeeper was on board, but the cables snapped so quickly he was unable to call for help.
Drifting stern first down the swiftly flowing Buffalo River, the ship made three right angled turns in its journey before it was carried into the 525-foot MICHAEL K. TEWKSBURY, which was tied up at the Standard Milling Co. elevator, partly unloaded.
The TEWKSBURY ripped free and the two ships drifted downstream. The stern of the TEWKSBURY struck the Michigan Ave. lift bridge, which the bridge operator had raised partly, knocking it into the river.
The second tower of the bridge collapsed at 7:45 this morning, crashing into Engine House 20, which houses the crew of the EDWARD M. COTTER, a fireboat trapped behind the damaged bridge.
Firemen had evacuated their quarters after the first crash and no one was injured.
Casimer Szumlinski, 49, operating engineer on the bridge, injured his left leg when he and his assistant Victor Winton, 51, who injured his ribs, jumped from the bridge only seconds before the crash. William A. Mack, another bridge engineer, escaped unharmed.
City engineer Charles Love estimated it would cost more than $5,000,000 to replace the bridge. Traffic to south Buffalo was only able to travel over the Skyway Bridge and other longer routes.
Mayor Sedita called an emergency meeting today to try to get immediate action on removal of the crumpled bridge. But the Buffalo River, swollen with waters, was flowing so swiftly that tugs were unable to maneuver to pull the ships away from it.
A crew of steel riggers started cutting the bridge this afternoon to try to clear a path for removal of the ships.
The Republic Steel Corp. plant in south Buffalo, employing 3,000, was forced to close when flood water inundated the boiler rooms. Several schools in the district have been closed until Monday.
Soon after this, Kinsman Transit sold the SHIRAS to Luria Brothers, Inc. for scrapping by the Steel Co. of Canada. She was towed to Hamilton, Ontario, in June, 1959, to be scrapped.
Suzette Lopez
Photo Credit: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
This story was originally posted on February 6, 2024
