On Friday, October 11th, 1907 the bulk freighter George Stephenson faced a moderate autumn
storm on Lake Superior while towing a barge downbound for the Soo Canal. At around noon,
approximately 18 miles from Deer Park, Michigan, they sighted another freighter fighting through
the storm. It was the brand new, 420-foot Cyprus, launched only two months before, now
on her second voyage. While the storm was challenging, it was nothing that a large steel
freighter couldn’t handle.
The Cyprus sailed at nearly double their speed and soon easily overtook the Stephenson. As
the freighter sailed past, Captain Harbottle noticed that the Cyprus was trailing a blood-red
wake.
As night fell, the lights of the Cyrpus twinkled ahead, giving the men of the Stephenson some
comfort in the storm. But just before 8 pm, long before the freighter could have crested
the horizon, the Cyprus’s lights suddenly disappeared, leaving behind a mystery that
would perplex those on the Great Lakes for decades to come.
The Cyprus, labeled hull 353, was constructed in 1907 by the American Shipbuilding Company
in Lorain, Ohio. The steel-hulled bulk freighter was the fourth of eight nearly identical ships
constructed for the Lackawanna Steamship Company.
The Panic of 1907 created a difficult economic environment and the American Shipbuilding
Company was mired with labor strikes. The Lackawanna Steamship Company was a brand-new
venture, and its backers were eager for a return on their investment. To keep construction
moving, the shipyard had new workers brought in to finish these new freighters.
While not the largest on the lakes at the time, the Cyprus and her fleet mates were
large and well equipped, coming in at 420 feet long, with a beam of 52 feet and a carrying
capacity of 7,500 tons. She was equipped with two coal-fired Scotch boilers that powered
a 1,500-horsepower triple-expansion steam engine. A somewhat respectable power plant
at a time when bulk freighters were notoriously underpowered for their size.
The Cyprus was launched on Saturday, August 17th, 1907. Hazel Arnold of Marine City, Michigan
christened her. She was the daughter of a Pickands, Mather, & Company executive, the
company that owned a majority share of the new Lackawanna Steamship Company.
By 1907, the 48-year-old, Captain Frank Brainard Huyck had 28 years of experience sailing and
8 years of experience captaining ships on the great lakes. Only a few years prior in
1903, Captain Huyck commanded the Union Steamship Company’s passenger freight steamer Chemung
for seven years when the American Association of Masters and Pilots called a strike. The
ship owners soon broke the strike and many sailors, including Captain Huyck were listed
as agitators and were blacklisted from employment.
But by 1906, an old friend, Captain William Reed, offered Huyck a first-mate position
on the steamer Amasa Stone, which was owned by another subsidiary of Pickands, Mather
& Company. After a year of work, Captain Reed was able to vouch for his friend and Huyck
was promised command of the company’s newest ship, the Cyprus. Captain Huyck was thrilled
to finally return to his position. He told a friend that he, “had a good ship and a
first-class company to work for.”
Captain Huyck wasn’t the only one excited to work on the Cyprus. 17-year-old Nathan
Lee Spencer was the eldest son of Port Colborne, Ontario, Postmaster John Spencer. Initially,
Nathan studied business and even filed for the civil service exam to follow in his father’s
footsteps but he soon realized that he wasn’t suited for a government job. He was fascinated
with machinery and marine engineering and sought a position on a lake freighter. In
the summer of 1907, he applied for a job as an oiler and was offered the position of fireman.
Nathan was excited to work with the Cyprus’s new Scotch boilers and he was eager to help
his younger brother land a job with the company next season.
Nathan was the youngest member of the Cyrpus’ crew of 22 men and one woman, the wife of
Steward William Dundon. She served as second cook.
With her captain and crew satisfied with their new ship, there was no reason to think that
the Cyprus was headed for anything but a long and prosperous career on the lakes.
At 9 am on Thursday, October 10th, 1907, the Cyprus left Superior, Wisconsin loaded with
7,103 tons of iron ore, just 300 tons short of her maximum capacity. The weather was calm
as they sailed for Buffalo, New York on what seemed to be a completely routine voyage.
But by 10 am the next day, Friday, October 11th, the weather took a turn. Around 10 miles
South of Stannard Light, the upbound Charles O. Jenkins encountered the Cyprus. As the
downbound freighter sailed toward Captain Smith of the Jenkins, he noticed that the
Cyprus was rolling heavily in the moderate seas, enough that he felt some concern and
he kept watch on the ship as they passed, looking for them to raise a distress flag.
But the two ships passed one another, without exchanging any distress signals, so Captain
Smith thought little more of it as he sailed on through the storm.
Conditions that day slowly deteriorated as the storm blew over Lake Superior but the
lake was still heavy with ship traffic. It was widely reported that while conditions
were rough, the storm was nothing too challenging, especially for larger, well-equipped vessels.
When the Cyprus encountered the bulk freighter, George Stephenson, at around noon some 18
miles off Deer Park, Michigan, Captain Harbottle of the Stephenson was towing a barge and sailing
with one boiler disabled and still, they were holding their own in the storm. Despite the
ominous red wake that trailed the new freighter, Captain Harbottle and his crew felt comfort
at the sight of the Cyprus, feeling confident that a freighter like that would have no problem
as they plowed forward into the storm.
Not long after the Stephenson first sighted the Cyprus at noon, Second Mate Charles Pitz
of the Cyprus had just come off his watch and promptly went to bed. When Charlie awoke
for his next shift, early that evening, he found that they were rolling heavily in what
was now a full gale and concerningly, he noticed a slight list to port. After reporting for
duty, he was sent to inspect the cargo hold where he found that some of the iron ore had
shifted and there was a small but noticeable amount of water present.
When he went topside, Charlie quickly saw where the water was coming from. The ship’s
deck and hatch covers were repeatedly submerged as waves crashed over them. Soon the storm
was growing worse and by 6:45 pm Charlie and the rest of the crew were growing more concerned
by the increasingly heavy list to port.
Then things quickly began to unravel. Captain Huyck, realizing the severity of the situation,
ordered a watchman to gather all forward crew and send them aft to don lifejackets and prepare
the lifeboats but he stopped short of issuing the order to abandon ship.
This left just Captain Huyck, First Mate John C. Smith, Wheelsman George Thorne, and Second
Mate Charlie Pitz in the pilothouse at the forward end while the rest of the crew was
in the aft section either maintaining steam power in the engine rooms or preparing to
abandon the now clearly crippled freighter. Captain Huyck fought to save his ship but
his primary concern was keeping his crew safe and over the next half hour, he tensely monitored
the situation, grappling over whether it would be best to keep fighting or if he should send
his crew away in the small boats where they would fight their way through the storm to
reach land several miles away. It was undoubtedly an impossible decision to make.
Soon, the Cyprus made Captain Huyck’s decision for him when at just after 7:30 pm her portside
plank sheer, the edge where the spar deck meets the port hull, submerged beneath the
lake, creating a now 20-degree list. 5 minutes later, their fate was sealed when a call came
from Chief Engineer James J. Norcross reporting that they had lost steam pressure and the
boilers had gone out. Captain Huyck turned to the other three men in the pilothouse and
said “It’s all off now”.
At 7:45, the four men in the pilothouse raced to unlash a forward raft as the Cyprus capsized
onto her portside, throwing the men into the churning water. All four quickly resurfaced
and soon climbed into the liferaft. By the time they could catch their breaths, the Cyprus
was gone. In the torrent of the storm, they could hear yelling somewhere in the darkness
from the crew that had gone aft. But it was impossible to reach them as the forward crew
fought to save their own lives.
For hours, the men paddled toward the shore. They traveled an incredible 18 miles, constantly
being thrown into the sea as heavy waves flipped the small raft over and over again. Each time,
the men were able to swim back to the raft and resume their desperate struggle for survival.
By 2 am, they were within sight of the shoreline. Then another heavy wave again flipped the
raft, sending the now exhausted and freezing men into the water. Charlie resurfaced and
saw the empty raft floating nearby. He mastered every ounce of strength he had to reach and
cling back onto that tiny raft. But this time, as he caught his breath, he found himself
alone. Only 300 feet from the shoreline, he paddled forward until his feet touched the
bottom and he finally stumbled on the beach, unable to even stand as he crawled out of
the surf.
In a major stroke of luck, the raft came ashore only half a mile from the Deer Park Life-Saving
Station. United States Life-Saving Surfman No. 7, Ralph Ocha was on a routine patrol
of the lakefront when he came across Charlie barely clinging to life. The only word that
he could utter as Ralph brought him to the station was “Cyprus”. He figured that
if he was going to die, at least it would be known what ship he came from.
Charlie survived 6 hours in the life raft. The bodies of the other three men were eventually
recovered near where the raft came ashore, all having lost their lives only a few hundred
feet from safety.
17-year-old Nathan Lee Spencer, who was so excited to have landed a job on the freighter
was among the crew gathered at the aft end of the ship. He likely helped maintain the
ship’s steam until the end. Whether he and his fellow crew made it into a lifeboat is
unclear, but his body and the bodies of all but two of the ship’s crew were eventually
recovered. In total 22 people lost their lives in the disaster.
As Charlie Pitz regained his strength, he was soon able to retell his experience but
as word of the tragedy spread up and down the lakes the question of what caused the
Cyprus to sink soon became one of Lake Superior’s most enduring mysteries.
The exact cause of the Cyrpus disaster is still unknown. Some have speculated that she
suffered an engine or rudder failure that reduced her maneuverability, leaving her vulnerable
to the storm. It’s been suggested that this or another flaw in her construction was the
result of some undiscovered mistake made by the untrained workers who completed work on
the vessel during labor strikes. But no evidence for this theory has ever come to light and
the Cyprus’s 7 nearly identical sister ships, all built at around the same time enjoyed
long careers without any major incidents.
In lieu of another explanation, attention turned to Captain Harbottle of the George
Stephenson’s report that the Cyprus was trailing a red wake. This meant that as waves
broke over her deck, water was penetrating her hatches and mixing with her iron ore cargo
only to be removed by her pumps, creating a reddish hue behind the ship. The flooding
probably caused the cargo to shift, creating a growing list that made her all the more
vulnerable to capsizing in the storm.
It was customary to secure special canvas tarpaulins over the hatches when a bulk freighter
encountered heavy seas, to create a nearly watertight seal. You’re probably familiar
with the phrase “batten down that hatches” and that’s basically what that means. It
seemed inconceivable that an experienced Captain like Frank Huyck would neglect to secure his
ship given the conditions. Charlie Pitz, in his statements to investigators, claimed that
the hatches were secured but he also reported that no tarpaulins were used.
11 days after the disaster, Charlie Pitz secured a first mate position on the Maruba and returned
to the lakes to resume his decades-long sailing career. He lived well into his 70’s and
passed away in 1961. And for a great many years, the Cyrpus disaster stayed little more
than a footnote.
In August 2007, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society was searching for shipwrecks
near the coast of Deer Park, Michigan on Lake Superior when they made a startling discovery,
Their sonar clearly indicated the long wreck of a steel freighter 460 feet below the surface.
After taking measurements they were sure that they had stumbled upon the wreck of the D.M.
Clemson, which mysteriously vanished near that same spot on December 1st, 1908.
A week later, the team was able to send an ROV to examine the wreck. During their first
dive, they were able to confirm that the wreck was indeed a large steel freighter but they
were unable to find a name.
Later that afternoon the team conducted another dive, this time sending the ROV to the ship’s
stern. Soon a name appeared: Cyprus. The crew was shocked, the undiscovered wreck of the
Cyprus was thought to lay at least 10 miles North of where she was found. Remarkably the
ship was intact and offered some important clues as to what brought her down when the
expedition was able to photograph and identify components of telescoping hatches still intact
on the wreck.
The discovery confirmed a theory that the Cyrpus was outfitted with a new design of
telescoping hatch covers patented in 1904 by Harry Brousseau. The initial iteration
of this design was thought to provide a sufficiently watertight seal.
This assumption proved dangerous on other ships. In September 1905, the freighter Powell
Stackhouse, encountered a massive storm on Lake Superior. Equipped with the same telescoping
hatches, Captain Millen had to interrupt their voyage and lighten the ship’s load in Marine
City, Michigan. He reported that he saw his hatches “spring” as the waves hit. This
springing motion allowed massive amounts of water into the ship. A year later in November
1906, another new freighter, the B. F. Jones found itself in a rough November gale. Outfitted
with the same telescoping hatches, the violent waves pummeled the ship, ripping off a number
of hatch leaves and allowing a massive amount of water into the ship. Fortunately, they
were able to reach calmer waters and pump out the water and return the ship to an even
keel. The Captain later reported that the ship’s hatches were unmanageable in heavy
seas.
These ships were quickly outfitted with canvas tarpaulins. It was clear that this was essential
equipment and the company that owned the Cyprus quietly made sure that all their vessels received
a set.
On the first leg of the Cyprus’s final voyage, Captain Huyck’s wife Helen and his two sons,
16-year-old Ansel and 12-year-old Franklin joined their father on his new command. Several
initial news stories actually reported that the entire family was lost with the ship but
fortunately, they left the ship before her final leg to visit family in St. Paul, MN.
Before leaving the ship, Franklin overheard a conversation between his father and First
Mate John Smith as the two men inspected the ship’s hatches. He recalled his father saying
in frustration, “I’ll never make another trip without tarps”.
Even with modern research, what exactly happened that night remains unclear. Why was the Cyprus
ever allowed to leave port without tarps? Who made that fateful decision? More than
100 years later, with everyone involved long since gone, we may never know what caused
the mistakes that led to the deaths of 22 people and the loss of a brand-new freighter.
The story of the Cyrpus now serves as a chilling reminder of Lake Superior’s fury and the
faith sailors place in their vessels. One oversight, especially in the days before modern
safety equipment, can prove catastrophic.
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