In an era when shipwrecks were regular occurrences and safety standards non-existent, a tragedy half a world away laid the foundation for new safety protocols that protect mariners everywhere to this day.

As the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world spanning an area of more than 244,000 square kilometres, North America’s Great Lakes are rightly known as inland seas. Befitting their enormous size, those five connected waterbodies contain one of the world’s highest concentrations of 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 played a significant role in establishing the maritime safety standards that protect boaties today all around the world.

Launched in 1848 for the Michigan Central Railroad, the 1,047-tonne side-wheel paddle steamer Atlantic was a big ship for its day, stretching 81.3m in overall length and riding on a substantial 10m beam. Designed to ferry both passengers and cargo the length of Lake Erie between Buffalo, New York in the east, and Detroit, Michigan near its western end, 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.

The moment of collision between the two ships is captured in this contemporary print from Gleason’s Pictorial.

At the time of its launch, Atlantic was valued at US$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.

Despite 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, the vessel was seriously overloaded – every cabin was full and the belowdecks immigrant class was jam-packed. Atlantic’s cargo hold was full of baggage and freight, including at least a dozen horses. What’s more, a further 250 or so passengers – most of them Norwegian, German and Irish settlers headed west in search of a better life – were embarked and left to huddle out in the open on the main deck, fully exposed to the elements.

Although it’s the second-smallest of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie, displayed in this 1881 map, is still vast – more a sea than a lake

Beyond the heavy load reducing her speed, Atlantic was not doing the run straight through on this day, but making an additional mid-lake stop in Erie, Pennsylvania. There, the already strained ship was scheduled to take on even more passengers and freight, to earn the maximum possible profit for her owners.

Surely at least some of the people among the swarm of passengers waiting in Erie that evening must have recognised the clear danger as the heavily-loaded Atlantic 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 Harbour Master and as a result, we will never know exactly how many people were aboard Atlantic as she prepared to depart for Detroit that night – estimates run from between 550 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 became so fully jammed with bodies that the crew had difficulty retracting the gangway.

Sandy beaches and rolling surf at Long Point.

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, and 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 mercifully as flat as glass when Atlantic rounded the pier shortly before midnight and sailed northwest for open water, making for the mid-lake shipping lanes. About 45 minutes later the vessel entered a bank of patchy but dense fog – a common occurrence on the Great Lakes 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 propeller-driven bulk freighter Ogdensburg was also powering through the mid-lake fog, sailing eastbound with a load of wheat.

Just after 2:00am, Ogdensburg first mate Degrass McNeil spotted a small cluster of lights begin to materialise through the haze off his starboard bow. The patchy fog made it difficult to estimate distance, but based on the spacing between the lights, McNeil guessed at perhaps three or four kilometres. Studying the lights 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 good kilometre.

Winter storms produce heavy waves at Fort Erie.

As McNeil continued monitoring the lights through the fog, it quickly became apparent that the other ship – which he now recognised as the Atlantic – was much closer and travelling a great deal faster than he had originally believed. Rather than clearing one another by a full kilometre, the two closing ships would now pass far closer than he was comfortable with.

Then to McNeil’s 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 by then the ships were much too close and there was not enough time. McNeil could only watch and hold on as Ogdensburg drove straight into the Atlantic, its sharply-pointed bow cutting deep into the other ship’s 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 good. With its port side buckled, water surged into Atlantic through openings on multiple decks, quickly flooding the lower compartments crammed with passengers, horses and freight. In only a few minutes the water extinguished the fires heating Atlantic’s twin boilers, bringing both engines to a halt before the ship had gone another two kilometres.

Bass Island Light on Lake Erie.

Exactly why Atlantic continued on at full power remains a mystery, but it is possible that Ogdensburg’s sharp bow could have severed mechanical linkages to the paddlewheel in the collision, leaving the Atlantic’s crew with a loss of control. What is certain is that with the ship obviously mortally wounded and already settling lower in the water, Atlantic’s passengers and crew 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 and sank almost immediately, as too many people tried to climb onboard at once. With frightened passengers now charging about in full-blown panic, Pettey was bumped from the hurricane deck while attempting to launch the second boat, falling head-first onto a steel gangway below where he lay either unconscious or dead. The boat was subsequently launched by some of the remaining crew, who promptly boarded it themselves and paddled rapidly away from the ship, leaving the remaining passengers on Atlantic to their fate.

The third lifeboat was launched by a group of passengers, including a young Norwegian immigrant named Erik Thorstad, who wrote to his parents about the tragedy on November 9, 1852. This third lifeboat was found to be in terrible condition, with multiple leaks and no oars. “We rowed with our hands,” he wrote, “and several bailed water with their hats.”

The paddle-steamer Atlantic was large and very fast for her day. She was designed to carry 300 passengers, plus freight, but on the night she was lost carried more than twice that number.

HEROISM, AND RECKONING

Having assessed the damage to the bow of their own vessel, the crew of the Ogdensburg was just about to get back underway when someone onboard realised that the Atlantic hadn’t simply steamed off into the night as was 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 completely submerged, the midships awash and only the stern still clearly visible above the lake surface. Everywhere in the water was debris, cargo boxes, and people screaming for help.

In spite of the darkness, the damage to their own ship and the thickening fog as the air temperature dropped, Ogdensburg’s determined crew pulled more than 240 people from the water, hauling the last survivors aboard just 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 – Erie. Some of the Atlantic survivors were thus reunited with friends and family members they had left behind on the very 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 US 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 Atlantic catastrophe brought widespread condemnation of the ship’s owners for failing to provide adequate lifeboats and lifesaving 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.

What the loss of the Atlantic did generate was unprecedented dialogue about the near total lack of anything resembling safety standards. Searing depositions from dozens of survivors led to a number of recommendations being made, including mandating the provision of adequate numbers of life boats and life preservers for all passengers onboard, implementing the use of onboard fog horns to make other vessels aware of a ship’s presence in conditions of reduced visibility, establishing capacity limits for passenger and cargo volumes, and requiring crews to render aid to passengers in need, 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. Of the 17 recommendation that arose from the Atlantic tradgedy, 14 were ultimately passed into law and formed the foundations of safety standards now observed all around the world. BNZ