SS Chicora
{{Short description|Passenger-and-freight steamer in service on the Great Lakes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2016}}
{{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image |Ship image= 300px |Ship caption= The Chicora underway }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country= United States |Ship flag= {{shipboxflag|USA|1895}} |Ship owner= |Ship name= SS Chicora |Ship namesake= |Ship operator= Graham & Morton Transportation Company |Ship ordered= |Ship builder= Detroit Drydock Company |Ship laid down= |Ship launched= 26 June 1892 |Ship completed= July 1892 |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship struck= |Ship homeport= St. Joseph, Michigan |Ship motto= |Ship honours= |Ship fate= Sunk on Lake Michigan January 1895 |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship type= Passenger-cargo |Ship tonnage= {{GRT|1,123}} |Ship displacement= |Ship length= {{convert|200|ft|abbr=on}}; {{convert|217|ft|abbr=on}} oa |Ship beam= {{convert|40|ft|0|in | abbr=on}}
|Ship draft= |Ship depth= 15 ft (4.6 m) |Ship power= 1 × 2500 HP Triple expansion |Ship propulsion= Single screw |Ship speed= 15.5 kn (18 mph/29 km/h) |Ship range= |Ship crew= 21 |Ship passengers= 1,200 (summer season) |Ship armament= |Ship notes=21 crew & 1 passenger lost{{cite news |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059522/1895-01-25/ed-1/seq-8/#date1=1895&index=1&date2=1895&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=&words=Chicora&proxdistance=5&state=Minnesota&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Chicora&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 |title= Not One Rescued: That the Steamer Chicora Was Wrecked Is Now a Curiosity |work= St. Paul Daily Globe |date= 25 January 1895 |page=8 |issn= 2151-5328 |oclc= 21579130 |lccn= sn90059523 |access-date= 16 January 2016 |via= Chronicling America }} }} |
SS Chicora was a passenger-and-freight steamer built in 1892 for service on the Great Lakes. Considered to be one of Lake Michigan{{'}}s finest steamers, she was lost with all hands in January 1895. She is now remembered chiefly for being mentioned by Chicago writer Nelson Algren, in Algren’s prose-poem, Chicago: City on the Make: “Who now knows the sorrowful long-ago name of the proud steamer Chicora, down with all hands in the ice off South Haven?” as well as “Sunk under the ice in the waves off South Haven, sunk with all hands for good and forever, for keeps and a single day.”
Construction and design
Chicora, a wooden-hulled, screw-propelled, passenger-cargo ship, was built in 1892 by the Detroit Drydock Company of Detroit, Michigan, for the Graham & Morton Transportation Company. Designed by Frank Kirby, her cost was $150,000. Chicora was launched from the builder{{'}}s Orleans Street yard at about 3 pm, 26 June 1892, and completed in July; her yard number was 111.
Chicora was approximately {{convert|200|ft|m}} in length—{{convert|217|ft|m}} overall—with a beam of {{convert|35|ft|m}}—{{convert|40|ft|m}} over the guards—and moulded depth of {{convert|15|ft|m}}. She had a tonnage of 1,123 gross tons, or 900 tons burden. Chicora was licensed to carry 1,500 passengers as a summer excursion boat, with passenger accommodations which included 56 staterooms, sleeping quarters for 200, a large smoking room and "spacious" social hall. Her passenger cabins, grand staircase and gangways were all finished in mahogany, and an electric plant provided power for the ship{{'}}s 250 lights. For freight service in the winter off-season, Chicora was built "especially stout" and had {{convert|6|in|cm|spell=in|adj=on}} outer planking and three waterproof compartments.
Chicora was powered by a {{convert|2,500|hp}}, triple-expansion steam engine with cylinders of {{convert|20|,|33|and|54|in|cm}} and {{convert|42|in|cm}} stroke, driving a single screw propeller, while steam was provided by two steel forced-draft Scotch boilers with a working pressure of 165 pounds. The ship had a speed of approximately {{convert|15.5|kn|mph km/h}}—a fast speed for the time.
When newly built, Chicora was described as a "masterpiece", with "lines ... as symmetrical and beautiful as any yacht". She was considered to be the premier ship of the Graham and Morton Line, and one of the finest vessels on Lake Michigan—the "Queen Mary" of the lake.
Service history
Originally built for service between St. Joseph and Chicago, Chicora once made the {{convert|65|mi|km|adj=on}} run between Benton Harbor and Chicago in 3 hours 40 minutes, at an average speed in excess of {{convert|19|mph|km/h}}. In the winter of 1893/94, Chicora was placed on the St. Joseph–Milwaukee route, and again the following winter.
Chicora sank in Lake Michigan on 21 January 1895 off Milwaukee with a cargo of flour.{{cite web |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.103308979&view=1up&seq=248 |title=American Marine Engineer May, 1917 |publisher=National Marine Engineers Beneficial Association of the United States |via=Haithi Trust |accessdate=7 October 2020}} Portions of wreckage of the missing vessel-consisting of the Port side and forward upper bulwarks {{convert|5|ft|m|spell=in}} wide and {{convert|12|ft|m}} long along with the passenger gangway were found a mile on the ice near South Haven, Michigan.{{cite news |url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=18950124&id=XVkaAAAAIBAJ&pg=3583,1731525&hl=en |title= Twenty-Six Lives Are Lost: Awful Fate of Capt. Stines and His Crew—No Milwaukee Passengers or Freight on Board—The Loss Is Total |work= The Milwaukee Journal |date= 24 January 1895 |page= 2 |issn= 1052-4452 |oclc= 298956108 |lccn= sn83045292 |access-date= 16 January 2016 |via= Google News}} Pieces of wreckage are also reported to have been found.{{cite news |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059522/1895-01-26/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1895&index=2&date2=1895&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=&words=CHICORA+Chicora&proxdistance=5&state=Minnesota&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Chicora&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 |title= Is It the Chicora?: Rumor that the Supposed Lost Ship Is off Michigan City |work= St. Paul Daily Globe |date= 26 January 1895 |page= 1 |issn= 2151-5328 |oclc= 21579130 |lccn= sn90059523 |access-date= 16 January 2016 |via= Chronicling America }} In April 1895 it was reported wreckage was coming ashore at New Buffalo, Michigan.{{cite news |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059522/1895-04-12/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1895&index=14&date2=1895&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=&words=Chicora&proxdistance=5&state=Minnesota&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Chicora&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 |title= Chicora Wreckage |work= St. Paul Daily Globe |date= 12 April 1895 |page= 3 |issn= 2151-5328 |oclc= 21579130 |lccn= sn90059523 |access-date= 16 January 2016 |via= Chronicling America }}{{cite news |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059228/1895-04-18/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1895&index=17&date2=1895&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=&words=CHICORA+Chicora&proxdistance=5&state=Minnesota&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Chicora&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 |title= The Lost Chicora: Wreckage from the Ill-Fated Vessel Comes Ashore |work= Warren Sheaf |date= 18 April 1895 |page= 2 |issn= 2166-8280 |oclc= 1696330 |lccn= sn90059228 |access-date= 16 January 2016 |via= Chronicling America }} On 19 April 1895 a witness claimed to have seen the Chicora stern down and bow up in the lake between South Haven and Saugatuck, Michigan, on 23 January 1895.{{cite news |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059522/1895-04-20/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1895&index=3&date2=1895&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=&words=CHICORA+Chicora&proxdistance=5&state=Minnesota&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Chicora&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 |title= Save the Sunken Chicora: Michigan Farmer Locates the Wrecked Steamer |work= St. Paul Daily Globe |date= 20 April 1895 |page= 1 |issn= 2151-5328 |oclc= 21579130 |lccn= sn90059523 |access-date= 16 January 2016 |via= Chronicling America }} Two messages that appeared to be from the ship were also found. A bottle containing a note reading "All is lost, could see land if not snowed and blowed. Engine give out, drifting to shore in ice. Captain and clerk are swept off. We have a hard time of it. 10:15 o'clock." was found on April 14. A week later a jar was found in Illinois containing a note reading "Chicora engines broke. Drifted into trough of sea. We have lost all hope. She has gone to pieces. Good bye. McClure, Engineer."{{cite web |title=The search continues: a few of the most-sought-after undiscovered Great Lakes shipwrecks |url=https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/07/08/search-continues-for-undiscovered-great-lakes-shipwrecks-lake-superior |website=MPR News|date=8 July 2018}}
References
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{{1895 shipwrecks}}
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Category:Steamships of the United States
Category:Ships built in Detroit
Category:Maritime incidents in 1895
Category:Ships lost with all hands