The Record
Great Lakes bulk freighter, 524 feet, steel hull, coal cargo. Vanished in the Great Lakes Storm of November 1913, the 'White Hurricane' that killed more than 250 mariners across the lakes in sixteen hours. Found two days later floating upside down like a dead whale, her propeller turning slowly in the air. All 28 crew lost; the only body identified was the cook, washed ashore still wearing his white apron.
The Vessel
The SS Charles S. Price was a Canadian steel-hulled Great Lakes bulk carrier, built at the Lorain, Ohio yard of the American Ship Building Company in 1910. She was 160 metres long, 6,322 gross tons, and powered by a triple-expansion steam engine of approximately 1,800 horsepower. She had been built for the Great Lakes iron-ore and coal trade: a specialised carrier designed for the narrow locks and confined waters of the Great Lakes system, with a long and narrow hull configuration optimised for maximum cargo capacity within the Soo Locks' beam restriction.
By November 1913 she had been operating for three years on the standard Great Lakes bulk-carrier circuit: iron ore from Duluth, Minnesota to Ashtabula, Ohio; coal from Ashtabula back to Duluth. Her operator was the M.A. Hanna Company, a Cleveland-based Great Lakes shipping firm. Her master in November 1913 was Captain William Henry Black, 42, a career Great Lakes master of substantial experience on the Lake Huron and Lake Superior routes.
The specific operational and design issue relevant to her subsequent loss was the Great Lakes bulk-carrier configuration: a long, narrow, heavily-loaded hull with relatively low freeboard, substantially optimised for cargo-carrying economics rather than for storm resistance. The specific structural weakness of the early-generation Great Lakes bulk carriers was the stress concentration at the midship section in heavy weather: the hulls were insufficiently strong in torsional loading and in the bending loads imposed by long-crested Great Lakes storms.
The Voyage
On 6 November 1913, Charles S. Price was approximately halfway through a routine coal-delivery voyage from Ashtabula, Ohio to Fort William, Ontario (now part of Thunder Bay). She had loaded approximately 8,400 tonnes of coal at Ashtabula on 5 November 1913 and had departed for the upper Great Lakes at 18:00 on 5 November 1913. Her planned route: eastward along Lake Erie to the Detroit River, northward through the St Clair River and Lake St Clair to the Saint Clair River, thence into Lake Huron, northward across Lake Huron to the Straits of Mackinac, westward through the Straits into Lake Michigan and the St Marys River, and thence into Lake Superior for delivery at Fort William.
The total voyage distance was approximately 1,500 kilometres; the expected transit time was approximately seven days. The coal cargo was destined for the Canadian National Railway's bunker-coal stockpile at Fort William, for subsequent transshipment to CNR locomotives operating in the western Canadian provinces.
On 9 November 1913, Charles S. Price had reached the southern end of Lake Huron, approximately 20 kilometres north of Port Huron, Michigan. The weather forecast for Lake Huron on 9-10 November 1913 was for moderate north-to-northwesterly winds with occasional snow squalls; Captain Black's operational assessment was that the forecast conditions were within Charles S. Price's operational capability, and the voyage continued on schedule.
The specific weather event that struck the Great Lakes on 9 November 1913 was, as subsequent meteorologists would determine, one of the most severe extratropical storms ever to affect the Great Lakes region. The storm was the product of two converging weather systems: a cold front descending from central Canada and a low-pressure system moving northeast from the central United States. The two systems merged over Lake Huron on the morning of 9 November 1913, producing a rapid intensification of wind, snow, and wave conditions that substantially exceeded any available weather forecast.
The Disaster
By 10:00 on 9 November 1913, the Great Lakes storm had intensified into what has been subsequently designated the "Great Lakes Storm of 1913" or the "White Hurricane". Wind velocities on Lake Huron were measured at force 11-12 (hurricane-force) from the north-northeast, with sustained speeds of 100 kilometres per hour and gusts exceeding 145 kilometres per hour. The wave heights in central Lake Huron were measured by subsequent storm reconstruction at 10-12 metres (exceptional for a Great Lakes storm, which typically produces wave heights of 3-6 metres).
Charles S. Price, sailing north-northeast across central Lake Huron with approximately 8,400 tonnes of coal in her hold, was sailing directly into the peak of the storm. Her position at approximately 10:00 on 9 November 1913 was approximately 35 kilometres east of Huron City, Michigan, in water depths of approximately 75 metres.
At some point between 10:00 and 16:00 on 9 November 1913, Charles S. Price foundered in the storm. The specific moment of her loss was not observed; no distress signal was transmitted (her wireless equipment, if activated, would not have been received due to the storm-generated atmospheric interference); no survivor ever emerged from the disaster to testify to the ship's final minutes.
The forensic evidence of her loss, assembled subsequently from the bodies recovered along the Lake Huron coast, indicates that Charles S. Price capsized in the storm and sank inverted. The bodies recovered from the coast (which began washing ashore on 12 November 1913) were found wearing life preservers with the ship's name, but the specific pattern of injuries - multiple fractures consistent with violent rolling motion, lack of drowning-specific injuries - suggested that the victims had been killed during the capsize itself rather than by subsequent drowning.
The wreck of Charles S. Price was located on 15 November 1913, several days after the storm ended, floating inverted approximately 20 kilometres north of Port Huron. Her overturned hull was identified by divers who made the specific observation that she had her propeller intact and her hull unruptured: her capsize was complete, but her structural integrity was retained through the sinking. The inverted hull drifted southward along the Lake Huron coast for approximately 72 hours before finally sinking to the lake bottom on 18 November 1913.
All 28 aboard died: the entire crew, including Captain Black. No survivors.
The Legacy
The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 was, in cumulative terms, the worst single-storm disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping. Over the three-day storm period of 7-10 November 1913, at least 12 Great Lakes vessels foundered and a further 31 sustained substantial damage; the combined death toll across all vessels was approximately 250. Charles S. Price accounted for 28 of these deaths; sister-ship Regina accounted for 20; SS James Carruthers accounted for 23; SS Wexford accounted for 24; SS Hydrus accounted for 26. The total storm casualty figures exceeded any prior Great Lakes storm by more than 100 per cent.
The subsequent investigation by the Lake Carriers' Association, conducted through 1914-1915, identified the specific operational and design failures. The operational failures included: inadequate weather forecasting and communication (the storm had not been accurately predicted; no emergency weather warning had been issued to vessels in transit); inadequate coordination between Great Lakes ports and vessels in transit; and inadequate inter-vessel coordination (vessels in the storm had no reliable means of communicating their positions to each other or to shore stations). The design failures included the insufficient torsional strength of Great Lakes bulk carrier hulls, the inadequate freeboard for storm operations, and the absence of adequate life-saving equipment for winter operations.
The specific regulatory and operational response included: the establishment of the Great Lakes Weather Service in 1914 with mandatory weather-warning protocols; the introduction of wireless telegraphy on all Great Lakes bulk carriers by 1920; the redesign of Great Lakes bulk carriers during the 1920s with increased structural strength and improved freeboard; and the establishment of the Great Lakes Pilots' Association for coordinated vessel-tracking through the lakes' major shipping channels.
The cultural memory of the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 has been substantial in the Great Lakes maritime community. The specific loss of Charles S. Price, with her all-hands casualty figure and the remarkable circumstances of her inverted-hull discovery, has been one of the most frequently-referenced examples of Great Lakes storm disasters. Gordon Lightfoot's subsequent 1976 ballad The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, although about a different 1975 Great Lakes bulk-carrier disaster, is conventionally understood to have drawn on the broader storm-memory of the 1913 disaster.
The wreck of Charles S. Price was located on the Lake Huron bottom in 1924, at approximately 75 metres depth, inverted as she had sunk. Subsequent surveys through the twentieth century have confirmed her position. The wreck is protected under the Canadian Shipwreck Heritage Act of 1985; the wreck is approximately 20 kilometres offshore and is accessible only to specially-equipped technical diving expeditions. The 28 dead are commemorated by the Great Lakes Storm Memorial at Goderich, Ontario (dedicated 1988), and by the November Gales Memorial at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, Detroit.