SS Pewabic 1865
Marker: recorded wreck position (Steam era).
Key facts
| Name | SS Pewabic | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1865 | English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed) |
| Era | Steam era | derived from year |
| Ship type | ship, shipwreck | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Collision | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | United States | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Nearest coast | United States | Natural Earth (public domain) |
| Position | 44.9647, -83.1039 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
SS Pewabic was a package freighter that served ports on the Upper Great Lakes. She was launched in October 1863, fitted out in the spring of 1864, and was in active service until she sank off Thunder Bay Island in Lake Huron on August 9, 1865, due to collision with her sister vessel. There was significant loss of life, with a number variously estimated at 100 to 125 passengers and crew of the stricken vessel going down with the ship. If the higher number is accepted, the loss of life made this disaster, in terms of loss of life from the sinking of a single vessel, the seventh-worst tragedy in the history of the Great Lakes, and the worst ever on Lake Huron.
The sunken hull of the package freighter is a feature of the present-day Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Diving & visiting
The wreck of the Pewabic sits in over 160 feet (49 m) of water. The stern and the majority of the hull remain mostly intact. Due to salvage work in the 1860s and 1917 for her copper ingot cargo, the superstructure and the bow are broken up or missing.
Busch and his crew recovered the Pewabic's 2,345-pound (1,064 kg) bow anchor, which was presented to the Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan in December 1974. The Admiralty-pattern anchor was placed on public display as a memento of the lost vessel.
Location
- Recorded position: 44.9647, -83.1039 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Nearest coast: United States
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article SS Pewabic (revision 1372506174), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Wrecksite”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- MV Nordmeer 1966 · 20 km
- Defiance 33 km
- Norman 41 km
- Kyle Spangler 53 km
- SS Choctaw 71 km
- F. T. Barney 1868 · 82 km
Browse more: North America wrecks · wrecks off United States · Steam era