Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2013, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Submitted by Linda Talbott for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= U.S. Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== VESSEL NAME: Corsair OTHER NAME(s): -- OFFICIAL NO: 4929 REASON: Storm DATE OF LOSS: 29 September 1872 LOCATION: Saginaw Bay, off Sturgeon Point RIG TYPE: Schooner HULL TYPE: Wooden BUILDER: At Oswego, N.Y., 1866; Lee & Navagh OWNER(S): DeWolf & Smith (1866) Snow & Co. (1871) MASTER: Capt. G. H. Snow TONNAGE: 315 gt LENGTH: 242 ft BEAM: 26 ft DEPTH: 11 ft CASUALTIES: 5 SURVIVORS: 2 Downbound from Marquette, and heavily loaded with iron ore, including 50 tons on her deck, the CORSAIR ran into a heavy gale when off Thunder Bay light. By 10 p.m. she was taking on water as Captain Snow determined to make a run across the bay to Tawas. The pumps, which were kept going almost to the time she sunk, were no match for the inrush of water which had already reached knee deep on deck. The storm reached it's full fury at about midnight, Saturday, September 28, with gale winds shrieking and sending tremendous seas sweeping over the wind-jammer. Throwing over part of the deckload of ore only bought a little more time. Although still taking on water the schooner rode well until about 3 a.m., when the wind suddenly veered and gained in intensity. Realizing that they would never reach Tawas, Capt. Snow decided to put the schooner's bow to the wind but, having already taken too much water in her hold, the CORSAIR was no longer responding to the wheel. The crashing waves made a clean breach over her as she fell off into the trough, her rails only a foot above water and her fate sealed. After a harrowing 18 hour ordeal, clinging to a 10 foot chunk of quarter deck in a raging storm on open lake, the two lone survivors were rescued by the CITY OF BOSTON when about twenty miles off Sturgeon Point. Victims: Capt. G. H. Snow, age 42, Oswego, N.Y.; Left a wife, Emily, daughter, Gertrude (age 6), and one child born after April, 1870. Buried (or perhaps only a marker) at New Haven Cemetery, New Haven, N.Y. S. E. Perkins, Oswego, N.Y. Harvey T. Crouch, Oswego, N.Y. Philip T. Rawlinsor James Kelso & wife, of Oswego, N.Y. Survivors: ____ Grady, 2nd mate, Jordan, Ontario Thomas B. Foley, seaman, Jordan, Ontario ======================================================================== Sources: Oswego Palladium, 21 April 1866 1870 Federal Census, 4th Ward, Oswego, N.Y. Classification of Lake Vessels & Bares, 1871 (rated A2) Oswego Daily Palladium, 3 October 1872 Tombstone inscription: Capt. Geo. H. Snow, New Haven Cemetery, New Haven, N.Y.