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Goderich Signal Star, 2017-02-22, Page 7Wednesday, Fe,bruary 22, 2017 • Signal Star 7 hist 'Crumbled like en eggshell': The Loss of the 'Argus', November 1913 0 n November 13, 1913, a battered lifeboat from the steamer `Argus' drifted ashore near Point Clark. Lashed to its benches were the frozen bodies of four men and a woman who were conveyed to Brophey's Funeral Home in Goderich for recovery by family members. The lifeboat was towed into Goderich harbour where it remained for nearly two years as a morbid reminder of the final agony of the steamer 'Argus' on November 9, 1913. The `Argus' was launched from the American Shipbuilding Company Yards in Lorain, Ohio in August 1903. At 436 feet long and 50 feet abeam, she was originally named the `Lewis Woodruff' and with her sister ships, the 'R. E. Schuck' and J. C. Gilchrist' was built in just eight weeks. Although as one source said `perhaps speed of construction and strength do not auto- matically correlate' because the 'R. E. Schuck' (later `Hydrus') and the `Lewis Wood- ruff' (later `Argus') were both lost in the Great Storm. In early 1913, the 'Woodruff' became the 'Argus' when she was sold with her sister ships to the Interlake Steam- ship Company. The 'Argus' left Buffalo, New York on Friday, November 7 headed for Lake Superior with a load of coal. Sources vary but her crew was estimated at between 24 and 28 hands under the command of Captain Paul Gutch (Goe- tsch). Captain Alfred 'Paul' Gutch was 39 years old in 1913. He was born in Port Hope, Ontario in 1874 and married an American woman, Stella Maciejewski in 1901 in Huron History David Yates Bay City, Michigan. In November 1913, the Gutches lived in Cleve- land, Ohio. At 5:40 p.m. on Satur- day, November 8, the 'Argus' passed Detroit and entered into the St. Clair River system according to Robert Hemming in `Ships Gone Missing.' As he entered Lake Huron, Captain Gutch ignored clearly posted storm warning signals hoisted between Detroit and Sarnia by the U.S. Weather Bureau. Yet, it would be unfair to blame Captain Gutch for making the same decision that several captains made that morning to enter Lake Huron. Captains were expected to have enough confidence in their crew, ship and their own judgement that they would not be frightened by every storm warning. Indeed, a shipowner's representative later told one newspaper reporter that `no master ever paid attention to the weather reports. If they had, they would never have got anywhere." And Captain Gutch had reason to believe the worst of the storm was over by Sunday morning. Winds were abating and barometric pressure was rising. However, seasoned mar- iners call this lull a 'sucker hole' created when the storm's cyclonic winds shifted direction. The counter clockwise rotation of the hurricane meant that its high winds were just shifting direction from nor'east to nor'west. Unbeknownst to Cap- tain Gutch, the most vio- lent storm in Great Lakes history was hear- ing down on his ship from northern Lake Iluron. By early afternoon, the `Argus' and her crew were battling heavy seas, high winds and blizzard con- ditions the likes of which no Great lakes captain had ever experienced. It is impossible to know the terror of the last hours aboard the `Argus' as Cap- tain Gutch and his crew battled to maintain con- trol of the ship with mountainous waves roll- ing over her hull threat- ening to flood her engines. Just before dark on Sunday evening, Cap- tain Walter Iler, in the wheelhouse of the `G.C. Crawford' caught a glimpse of the `Argus' last moments. Great Storm historian Robert Hemming wrote that Captain Iler through "the peaks and valleys of water, was seized by a numbing horror. Ahead of him perhaps two or three miles was the `Argus' caught in a deep trough and struggling like a wounded animal to get out." Captain Iler later said the "Argus just crumbled like an egg- shell and then disap- peared." As the enor- mity of the horror they had just witnessed sank in, no one in the 'Craw - ford's wheelhouse spoke. It was a sight that haunted Captain Iler to his grave. Yet, despite the 'panic and pandemonium' aboard the `Argus' in her last moments, there was time to board lifeboats. The Argus' lifeboat drifted onto the shore near Point Clark with the bodies of the captain, chief engineer and cook. For Captain Gutch's Argus Lifeboat in Goderich. widow, the loss of her husband was all the more tragic because they had lost an infant daughter just two months before in September 1913. Eerily, while the `Argus' was in her death throes off Pointe aux Barques Michigan, her sister ship 'Hydrus' was fighting for her life just a few miles east of her position. The downbound 'Hydrus' foundered with all hands at about the same time as `Argus' near Goderich on Sunday, November 9. Bodies and wreckage from both ships streamed ashore together between Bay- field and Kincardine. Each body told its own tragic tale. Robert Rowan, the 'Argus' Second Mate, the son of a ship's captain was born in Kincardine. He had moved to Con- neaught, Ohio just a few years earlier. When Row- an's body washed ashore just south of his family farm, it was a strange homecoming. For the parents of `Argus' Fireman Elmer Woodruff, the Great Photo cutesy of university of Detroit Steamer 'Argus' c. 1910. Storm brought a double tragedy as another son, Walter, was lost on the `Isaac M. Scott: While asleep in a chair in her Marine City, Michi- gan home, Mrs. Mary Young, the mother of Argus' crewman Van Young, had a 'vision' of her son at the height of the storm on November 9. Mrs. Young dreamt that she saw her son beckoning to her to get into his lifeboat as 'tower- ing' waves rolled over it. Mrs. Young spent the remainder of her days trying to decipher the dream's meaning. The `Argus' lifeboat that was towed into the Goderich harbour was moored to the south pier until August 1915 when Harbour Master Bert McDonald fitted it up with an engine to be used as a motor launch. It was the last relic that testified to the agony of the `Argus' until divers found her lying hull down 12 miles off Pointe aux Barques, Michigan in 1972. Knox Presbyterian Church will commemo- rate the loss of the 'Argus' and the other ships and sailors lost in the Great Storm of 1913 at the 103rd Annual Mariners' Service Sunday, 26 Feb- ruary at 2:30 p.m. The Mariners' service is one of the lakeshore's oldest traditions that allows us to remember those who went down to the sea in ships and to bless the current shipping season.