Tragic Tale of Louis M. Janes and his Voyage on the Ill-Fated Steamer Pewabic in 1865

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The Pewabic prior to her sinking.

FROM THE 1859 AKRON, OHIO CITY DIRECTORY:

Louis M. Janes, deputy sheriff, es Broadway, boards - Market & Furnace.

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Hello! I'm Mr. Ed

Blog Created: 10-20-2022

Credits:

Find A Grave // Wikipedia // mindat.org // thunderbay.noaa.gov

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Louis M. Janes perished in the sinking of the Steamer Pewabic. The Pewabic was launched in 1863 and quickly became one of the Great Lakes' finest ships. Her Lake Superior excursions were frequented by the local wealthy who took advantage of the ship's luxurious state rooms and other fine qualities.

On the evening of August 9, 1865, the Pewabic and another ship, the Meteor, were passing close just off shore on Lake Huron when, suddenly, for reasons never explained or known, the Meteor crossed in front of the Pewabic and rammed her. The damage was fatal, the Pewabic took on water and sank in a very few moments. 70-passengers and crew scrambled to safety on the nearby Meteor or were rescued from the water. 125-passengers, including Louis Janes, could not make it out of the ship fast enough or were never found.

Louis Janes' body was never recovered. The inscription on his family's grave monument was carved in his memory. He was 67 years old.

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The Following was taken from this website:

http://thunderbay.noaa.gov/history/salvage.html

Salvage of the PEWABIC:

One of the most famous Thunder Bay shipwrecks was a highly prized target for salvage. The wooden propeller PEWABIC was lost on August 9, 1865 after a collision with her sister ship the METEOR. The vessels had drawn close together in order to pass messages and packages (a common practice of the day) when the PEWABIC suddenly cut across the METEOR's bow. The PEWABIC sank in just a few minutes in 180 feet of water, with the loss of an estimated 125 lives. Fifty passengers were rescued by the undamaged METEOR.The PEWABIC was carrying a valuable cargo of copper from the Keweenaw Peninsula mines, making her a target of numerous salvage efforts. Her cargo consisted of copper ingots from four mines (Quincy Mining Co., Hancock Mine, Pewabic Mining Co., and the Franklin Mine), a quantity of barrel copper (chiseled from a large mass of native copper), and several large pieces of mass copper weighing up to 16,000 pounds each. The total copper cargo approached 200 tons. The PEWABIC also was carrying 75 tons of specular hematite (iron ore) from the Marquette area and 25 barrels of fish.The great depth of the wreck caused many of the salvage efforts to end in failure, and some in death for the divers (at least five have died while attempting to salvage the wreck). Some of the copper bars were saved from smelting by Mueller Brass employees in Port Huron when about half the cargo was recovered during World War I. The most successful salvage attempt was made in 1974 by Busch Oceanographic. Virtually all of the copper has been recovered and some artifacts, including an anchor, are on display at the Jesse Besser Museum in Alpena. Although the PEWABIC's hull is generally intact, most of the upper works is long gone, removed by salvors. The wreck today is a far cry from that reported by a 1917 salvage diver, who claimed that her rigging and structure were still intact, skeletons were in the cabins, trunks were open with clothing still hanging, and cheese and beef were in the pantry. More information about the PEWABIC can be found in Lake Huron's Death Ship by Gregory Busch, the last salvager on the vessel. Special thanks to Frederick Stonehouse, author of A Short Guide to the Shipwrecks of Thunder Bay, and contributors to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Research Newsgroup, for information about the PEWABIC.

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From Wikipedia

The 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 a collision with her sister vessel. There was significant loss of life, with a number variously estimated at 100 or 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.

History ~

The Pewabic was built for the Lake Superior Transit Company by the Peck & Masters yard in Cleveland. She was 200 feet (61 m) long and had a beam of 31 feet (9.4 m). Known as the Pioneer Line, Lake Superior Transit specialized in the fast shipment of passengers and freight between Lake Erie and Lake Superior, especially the Copper Country centered on the Keweenaw Peninsula of far northern Michigan. Ingot copper from the Upper Peninsula's booming mines had found eager customers during the commodity boom that accompanied the Civil War. The Pioneer Line was highly successful in moving passengers in both directions; and the Pewabic, acclaimed as "one of the finest vessels on the lakes", ran in coordination with a sister vessel, the SS Meteor. Both vessels sped through fresh water at what was then a blazing speed of 12 knots. Whenever one vessel was going north, the other would be going south, and their paths typically crossed in northern Lake Huron.

The rendezvous moments of the two vessels were often treated as an event calling for playful salutes and celebrations, and the respective ship's captains developed the custom of running close by each other. One oft-repeated story asserts that it was the custom for a seaman on the northbound vessel to heave a mail sack onto the deck of the southbound vessel; the bag allegedly contained Civil War newspapers that could be sold to news-starved passengers. In any case, the August 9, 1865 rendezvous ended in mishap and tragedy, with the Meteor's prow buried deep in the forequarters of her stricken sister ship. The Pewabic, mortally wounded, sank no more than 30–45 minutes after the collision. The site of the accident was six miles off Thunder Bay Island near Alpena. The Meteor was able to save some of the passengers and crew; the lost vessel's passenger manifest, which would have been able to clarify the death roll, went down with the ship.

The Pewabic's wreck was 182 feet (55 m) feet below the water's surface. However, its cargo of 267 tons of solid copper ingots was extensively salvaged in 1917 by Benjamin F. Leavitt, and again in 1974 by Gregory James Busch. In his World War I-era dives, Leavitt is acclaimed as having pioneered the use of atmospheric diving suits in American waters.

Today ~

Today, the wreck of the Pewabic sits in over 160 feet 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 pounds (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.

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1852 $20 gold coin from the Pewabic.

1862 Dime.

Copper from the Pewabic.

This Copper ingot was salvaged from the wreck of the Pewabic in 1917 and is displayed at the Besser Museum in Alpena.

This ingot was also salvaged from the SS. Pewabic. It is currently displayed at the Seaman Museum in Houghton, Michigan. The letter F stands for the Franklin Mine.