SS Choctaw was a steel-hulled American freighter in service between 1892 and 1915, on the Great Lakes of North America. She was a so-called monitor vessel, containing elements of traditional lake freighters and the whaleback ships designed by Alexander McDougall. Choctaw was built in 1892 by the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company in Cleveland, Ohio, and was originally owned by the Lake Superior Iron Company. She was sold to the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company in 1894 and spent the rest of her working life with it. On her regular route between Detroit, Escanaba, Marquette (all in Michigan), and Cleveland, she carried iron ore downbound, and coal upbound.
On July 11, 1915, in foggy conditions, Choctaw was upbound for Marquette on Lake Huron with a cargo of coal from Cleveland. East of Presque Isle Light, the freighter was rammed by the downbound Canadian canaller Wahcondah. Although Choctaw sank in only 17 minutes, her crew of 22 escaped, and was picked up by Wahcondah.
For a long time, shipwreck hunters searched for the wreck of Choctaw due to her unique design. The wreck was located by a team from the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary on May 23, 2017, almost 102 years after she sank. She was discovered resting under of water, lying on her starboard side with the bow partially buried in the lake bottom. The wreck was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 10, 2018.
History
Background
In 1843, the gunship USS Michigan, built in Erie, Pennsylvania, became the first iron-hulled vessel built on the Great Lakes. In the mid-1840s, Canadian companies began importing iron vessels prefabricated by shipyards in the United Kingdom. However, it would not be until 1862 that the first iron-hulled merchant ship, Merchant, was built on the Great Lakes. Despite the success of Merchant, wooden vessels remained preferable to iron ones until the 1880s, due to their inexpensiveness, and the abundance of timber. In the early 1880s, shipyards around the Great Lakes began to construct iron ships on a relatively large scale; in 1882, Onoko, an iron freighter, temporarily became the largest ship on the lakes. In 1884, the first steel freighters were built on the Great Lakes, and by the 1890s, the majority of ships constructed on the lakes were made of steel.
Throughout the 1880s, the iron ore trade on the Great Lakes grew exponentially, primarily due to the increasing size of the lake freighters, and the rise in the number of trips made by ore boats to the ore docks of Lake Superior. As the railways were unable to keep up with the rapid production of iron ore (which was normally destined for foundries in Ohio and Pennsylvania), most of it was transported by bulk freighters. The quantity of iron ore mined from around Lake Superior rose from around in 1886, to over in 1890.
Design and construction
Named after the Choctaw Indian tribe from the southern United States, Choctaw was built in 1892, on the banks of the Cuyahoga River by the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company for the Lake Superior Iron Company of Ishpeming, Michigan. Her hull was in length with a beam, and had a hold and water bottom. She had a gross register tonnage of 1573.61 tons and a net register tonnage of 1256.28 tons.
The vessel had a cutaway stern and seven cargo hatches, and there were no interior bulkheads between the forward collision bulkhead and the engine bulkhead in her stern. Choctaw could carry of cargo; when she was fully loaded, she had a draught. She was powered by a triple expansion steam engine, steam for which was provided by two coal-fired Scotch marine boilers.
Designed by Swedish naval architect Arendt Ångström, Choctaw had an unusual design. She was a steel freighter similar to the iconic whaleback design invented by Captain Alexander McDougall, but unlike a whaleback, she had straight sides and a conventional bow. This combination meant from the waterline upward, her sides sloped inward in a "tumblehome" configuration. Ships with this hybrid design were known as "monitors", "semi-whalebacks" or "straight-backs", and like the true whalebacks, they were vulnerable to getting a wet deck in stormy conditions. Choctaw was one of only three semi-whaleback ships ever built; she had an identical sister ship named Andaste and a "near-sister" ship named Yuma.
