In an era when shipwrecks were regular occurrences and safety standards non-existent, a collision on Lake Erie with a staggering death toll laid the foundation for new safety protocols that protect mariners to this day. by Craig Ritchie

The bottom of the Great Lakes is littered with shipwrecks, some vessels lost to horrendous storms, others to unseen shoals. Yet among them, one tragedy stands out — not just for its appalling loss of life, but because those losses can be directly attributed to a near total absence of anything resembling modern safety standards.

Launched in 1848 for the Michigan Central Railroad, the 1,155-ton side-wheel paddle steamer Atlantic was a big ship for its day, stretching 267 feet in overall length and riding on a substantial beam of 33 feet. Designed to ferry both passengers and cargo on the lucrative run between Buffalo and Detroit, Atlantic was a well-built vessel, constructed with 85 comfortable staterooms. The design also included high-density accommodation below, in what was unofficially referred to as the immigrant class. In all, Atlantic was built to carry up to around 300 people, plus cargo.

At the time of its launch, Atlantic was valued at $110,000 — an enormous sum in its day, and one which reflected the fact that its owners expected the ship to provide many years of service plying the lake.

In spite of her considerable size, Atlantic turned out to be a surprisingly fast ship, typically completing the Buffalo to Detroit run in somewhere around 18 hours. Considering the speed record for that route was not much less — just 16.5 hours, a mark set by Atlantic herself in 1851 — the vessel enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as one of the speediest vessels on the Great Lakes.

But speed records could hardly have been top of mind for Atlantic’s crew on the afternoon of August 19, 1852, as the ship commenced boarding in Buffalo under the command of Captain J. Byron Pettey. Even for the lax standards of the day, this was a heavy load; every cabin was full and the belowdecks immigrant class was jam-packed, leaving an additional 250 or so passengers — most of them Norwegian, German and Irish settlers headed west to the promise of a better life — with no alternative but to huddle out in the open on the main deck.

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Tragedy of the Atlantic

In an era when shipwrecks were regular occurrences and safety standards non-existent, a collision on Lake Erie with a staggering death toll laid the foundation for new safety protocols that protect mariners to this day.

by Craig Ritchie

Beyond the heavy load reducing its speed, Atlantic was not doing the run straight through on this day, but making an additional stop in Erie, Pennsylvania, to take on even more passengers and freight and earn the maximum possible profit for its owners.

Surely at least some of the people among the swarm of passengers waiting in Erie that evening must have recognized that Atlantic was already seriously overloaded when it arrived at the dock, lowered its gangplank, and not a single person disembarked. Yet dozens more piled on, oblivious to the obvious. In keeping with the standard practice of the day, no passenger manifest was filed with the harbormaster and, as a result, we will never know exactly how many people were aboard Atlantic as it prepared to depart for Detroit that night. Estimates run from between 500 and 600 people, on a boat designed for half that number. What is known is that at least 70 people had to be left behind on the dock in Erie after the vessel was so fully jammed with bodies that the crew had difficulty retracting the gangway.

Onboard Atlantic, baggage was piled everywhere on deck, and the newly embarked passengers stood wherever they could — on top of luggage cases, on the roof of Atlantic’s cabins, even atop the uppermost hurricane deck. The passengers left behind on the dock may not have appreciated it at the time, but missing that boat was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Like ships passing in the night

With no moon, the night of August 19 was very dark and Lake Erie as flat as glass when Atlantic rounded the lights at Presque Isle shortly before midnight and sailed into the open water, making for the mid-lake shipping lanes. About 45 minutes later, the vessel entered a bank of fog — a common occurrence in late summer, as bands of cool night air condensed above the warmer lake surface.

As the passengers exposed to the elements on Atlantic’s

open decks settled in for a clammy night, the propellerdriven cargo steamer Ogdensburg was also powering through the mid-lake fog, sailing eastbound for the Welland Canal with a load of wheat. As the ship approached Long Point, First Mate Degrass McNeil spotted a small cluster of lights begin to materialize through the haze off his starboard bow. The patchy fog made it difficult to estimate their distance, but based on the spacing between the lights, McNeil guessed three miles. Studying them for a few moments longer to gauge their speed and heading, McNeil determined that although the other vessel appeared to be approaching his own ship on a quartering course, Ogdensburg should pass ahead of it by at least a half-mile.

As McNeil continued monitoring the lights, it quickly became apparent that the other ship, which he now recognized as Atlantic, was much closer and traveling much faster than he had originally believed. Rather than clearing one another by a good half-mile, the two ships would now pass far more closely than McNeil was comfortable with.

Then, to McNeil’s dismay and horror, Atlantic abruptly changed course, turning directly into the big freighter’s path. Perhaps her helmsman spotted Ogdensburg and thought they could pass in front. Perhaps the big steamer hadn’t been seen at all. What is certain is that the sudden course change virtually guaranteed a collision between the two vessels.

McNeil shouted for Ogdensburg’s engines to be turned to full reverse, and the vessel brought hard about. With its steam whistle not functioning, he ran onto the deck and yelled repeatedly, waving his arms over his head in a desperate bid to catch the attention of the Atlantic’s crew and alert them to the danger. But the ships were too close and there was not enough time. McNeil could only watch and hold on as Ogdensburg plowed straight into Atlantic, its sharply pointed bow cutting deep into the port side just forward of the paddlewheel.

McNeil ran back into the pilothouse and ordered Ogdensburg to back away from Atlantic’s crumpled hull and stop, so the crews could assess the damage. To his astonishment, Atlantic simply continued on its way under full steam, as if nothing had happened.

But things had happened, and none of them were good. With its port side buckled, water surged into the ship through openings on multiple decks, flooding the lower compartments. In only a few minutes the water extinguished the fires heating Atlantic’s boilers, bringing the engine to a halt before the ship had gone another two miles.

Exactly why Atlantic continued on at full power remains a mystery, but it’s possible that Ogdensburg’s sharp bow could have severed mechanical linkages to the paddlewheel in the collision, leaving the Atlantic crew with a loss of control. What is certain is that with the ship mortally wounded and already settling lower in the water, Atlantic’s passengers and crew alike began to panic. Within minutes, people on deck were seen throwing anything that they thought would float over the side before jumping into the lake themselves. But many of the cargo boxes and wooden stools jettisoned as improvised life rafts promptly broke apart or sank, leaving dozens of people flailing helplessly in the water.

While its complement of just three small lifeboats would be of limited help to the more than 500 people still onboard Atlantic, Captain Pettey ordered them launched at once. The first boat capsized almost immediately, as too many people tried to climb onboard. With frightened passengers now running in every direction onboard the ship, Pettey was bumped from the hurricane deck while attempting to launch the second boat, falling head-first to a gangway below where he lay either unconscious or dead. The boat was subsequently launched by some of the remaining crew, who boarded it themselves and left the remaining passengers on Atlantic to their fate.

The third lifeboat was launched by passengers, including a young Norwegian immigrant named Erik Thorstad, who wrote to his parents about the tragedy on November 9, 1852. The lifeboat was found to be in terrible condition, with multiple serious leaks and no oars.

“We rowed with our hands,” he wrote, “and several bailed water with their hats.”

Heroism and reckoning

Having assessed the damage to the bow of their own vessel, the crew of the Ogdensburg had just begun to get back underway when someone onboard realized that Atlantic hadn’t just steamed off into the night as initially thought, but was still close by and in serious trouble. Turning around quickly, Ogdensburg caught up to the stricken paddle-wheeler within 10 minutes. But by this point Atlantic’s bow was

already completely submerged, with only the stern end of the ship still visible above the lake surface. Everywhere in the water was debris, cargo boxes and people screaming for help.

In spite of the darkness and the fog, Ogdensburg’s determined crew pulled more than 240 people from the water, hauling the last survivors aboard as Atlantic belched a final gush of air and slid beneath the surface.

Searching for some time longer and finding no one else in the water alive, Ogdensburg steamed immediately for the closest port, which was Erie. Some of the Atlantic survivors were thus reunited with friends and family members left behind on the same dock only hours before, while others who missed the boat searched frantically among the rescued for their own friends and relatives, many to no avail.

News of the Atlantic disaster spread quickly, and the sinking headlined newspapers across the U.S. and Canada the following day, its horrific death toll sparking an unprecedented public outcry. A scathing story published in the Buffalo Daily Republic on August 21, titled “The Appalling Calamity on the Lake,” reported dozens of survivors coming forward to accuse the Atlantic’s officers and crew of gross incompetence, with the exception of the captain and the ship’s clerk, one Mr. Givon, who was widely praised for his efforts to help the passengers. Sadly, neither Captain Pettey nor Mr. Givon made it off the ship alive.

An official inquiry into the catastrophe saw widespread condemnation of the ship’s owners for failing to provide adequate lifeboats and life-saving equipment. Conversely, survivors commended the captain and crew of the Ogdensburg for coming immediately to their aid, and for successfully rescuing as many people as they did.

Speaking at the inquiry, Ogdensburg First Mate Degrass McNeil testified that an inability to communicate with passengers who did not understand English appeared to contribute to the high death toll.

“There was a large number of Norwegians on the main deck who could not understand one word that was said by the officers,” McNeil reported. “They were panic struck and threw themselves, without the least preparation, into the water, where so many of them perished.”

If nothing else, the loss of the Atlantic sparked unprecedented dialogue about the near universal lack of safety standards on the Great Lakes. Searing depositions from dozens of survivors led to a number of recommendations being made, including mandating the provision of adequate lifeboats and life preservers for every passenger onboard, implementing the use of onboard fog horns to make other vessels aware of a ship’s presence in conditions of reduced visibility, establishing limits for maximum passenger and cargo volumes, and requiring crews to render aid to passengers in emergency situations, and to be formally trained in how to do so.

It seems unthinkable that such basic measures did not exist at the time of the wreck of the Atlantic, but its loss — and the loss of up to 400 people aboard her — are a key reason that they do exist now.

Today, Atlantic rests on the bottom of Lake Erie under 150 feet of water, a few miles off Long Point, Ontario. The vessel is considered a gravesite and is protected as such under Canadian law. H