SS Amasa Stone
SS Amasa Stone was a 545-foot Great Lakes freighter built for the Mesaba Steamship Company by the Detroit Shipbuilding Company in Wyandotte, Michigan. Launched March 25, 1905, she measured about 545 feet in length, 55 feet in beam, and 31 feet in depth, with a cargo capacity of around 10,000 tons and a gross tonnage of about 6,282. She was powered by an 1,800-horsepower triple-expansion steam engine with two Scotch boilers, later upgraded in 1952 to a 1,800-horsepower, 5-cylinder Skinner uniflow engine.
In her long career she had several notable moments. On June 18, 1905, while downbound with iron ore from Duluth to Lake Erie, she rammed and sank the steamer Etruria in heavy fog off Presque Isle Light; Etruria’s crew were rescued by the steamer Maritana. In 1913 she joined the Interlake Steamship Company fleet. In 1924 she collided with the steamer Merton E. Farr in fog off Ile Parisienne in Lake Superior, with about $7,000 in repair costs. On October 22, 1929, she weathered the same storm that sank the Milwaukee while downbound with 10,000 tons of coal for Ludington. On July 29, 1930, Amasa Stone rescued six of the 21 crew members from the sandsucker George J. Whelan, which capsized in heavy seas near Dunkirk, New York.
Her boilers were replaced in 1938, and in 1952 she was re-powered with a 1,800-horsepower, 5-cylinder Skinner uniflow engine. The ship made her last voyage in 1959, was decommissioned in 1960, and sold in 1964 to Marine Salvage. In 1965 she was sold to the Medusa Portland Cement Company of Charlevoix, Michigan, where, alongside the steamer Charles S. Hebard, she was sunk at the entrance to Charlevoix harbor to serve as a breakwater, where their hulls remain today.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:43 (CET).