The Dean Richmond

The Dean Richmond was a spectacular sight when she was built. She was hailed by the press as a magnificent vessel. The press was infatuated with the steamer. However, she was fraught with bad luck and had a long history of mishaps prior to her foundering. For nearly a century after sinking with all hands, the stories of her treasure grew and grew into fascinating tales. She was once one of the most hunted shipwrecks in the Great Lakes “A New and Splendid Steamer”

The Dean Richmond was built in Cleveland, Ohio, by Quayle & Martin in 1864 for the Winslow Brothers who intended to operate her on the line between Buffalo and Chicago. The Richmond measured 238 feet (72.2 meters) long, with a hold of thirteen and a half feet (4.1 meters), and a beam of thirty-five feet (10.7 meters). The 1,083-gross-ton, dual-screw propeller was built to haul both large freight and passengers.

The Cleveland Morning Leader newspaper wrote that the vessel was “one of the finest propellers on the Lakes.” With all the pomp and circumstance the wooden, arch-type freighter received from the press prior to her launching, the ship could not even leave port on time for her first voyage. The 02 May 1864 edition of The Cleveland Herald reported: “The new and splendid steamer Dean Richmond…leaves for her first trip this evening at 6:00.” The following day it was reported, “The Dean Richmond did not get out last evening, as intended, but if the wind goes down [she] will leave this evening for Chicago with a large freight and a fair passenger list.”

Was this a foreshadowing of things to come? The Dean Richmond would go on to have more than her fair share of accidents, collisions, groundings, and even a fire which completely destroyed her, all before her fateful voyage.

Troublesome Beginnings

At the end of June 1865, as the American Civil War was winding down, and only two months after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, the Dean Richmond was involved in a “disastrous collision” on Lake Erie. The Richmond ran into and sank the propeller Illinois off Point Pelee, Ontario, Canada, in Western Lake Erie. Although the Illinois sank quickly, all crew and passengers were able to escape. Her load of 3,250 barrels of flour, one hundred barrels of wheat, and fifty bales of rags was a total loss.

The next four years were littered with incidents. First, in September 1866, the collided with and sank the schooner off Waukegan, Illinois, in Lake Michigan. In November 1867, the “broke some of her machinery” while on the St. Clair River. On 30 July H. E. and the she was able to make it off the beach. In August 1869, while in Buffalo, the “swung her stern around…just as a vessel was passing.” The vessel’s boom pierced the cabin. Two months later, the barely escaped her second grounding. The wrote “it required the strongest kind of steaming to work her clear of the coast.”