On December 7, 1909 – the same date as the fateful attack on Pearl Harbor, albeit 32 years earlier, another maritime tragedy was about to play out on the waters of Lake Erie. Leaving her berth at the port of Conneaut, Ohio was the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2, a 350 foot long steel-hulled rail car ferry that was filled to capacity with a load of coal bound for Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada.

Locals, much like the native inhabitants of the region before them, are well aware of the wrath of the Great Lakes, and Lake Erie has the reputation of being the most treacherous of them all. Powerful storms known as microbursts virtually appear from nowhere, hurricane force gales whip across the surface of the water and the tide swells can create deadly walls of water in a matter of minutes. This, as fate would have it, was to be one of those days – the lake was lonely and there was a storm brewing on the horizon. The temperature began to drop – 45 degrees over 24 hours. The storm blew in from the west on seething wings of black clouds, the sky weeping an icy rain over the surface of the water and the wind raged, screaming and howling with gales in excess of 90 miles per hour.

As large as the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 was she was battered and thrown around as she tried, in a vain attempt, to ride the storm out. As darkness fell over the lake, so too, did the shroud of darkness fall over the ship. The captain and crew did all that could be done, all that was humanly possible in an impossible struggle against insurmountable odds, but the lake would not give up what it claimed as its own. On that fateful evening 31 souls lost their lives to the frigid assault that the lake waged on their battered and broken vessel. As the icy fingers of the lake hauled its latest prize down to the depths it is said that ship’s whistle let out a last mournful cry as the ship sank beneath the waves of the lake. The lake, however, was not done. On December 12 a lifeboat washed ashore near Erie, Pennsylvania that contained the frozen remains of 9 crew members.

In the 100 years since the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 sank the mournful call of the ship’s whistle has been heard by numerous sailors who report that, although no ship or other watercraft is in the area the sound like that of an old fashioned ship’s whistle can be heard. It seems that this is a precursor to what comes next – a phantom ship appears, sailing on the horizon. It is described by those who have witnessed it as “…an old ship with two forward smokestacks belching black smoke from coal fired boilers, then, after a minute or so it vanishes into a haze.” To add to this phantom ship mystery it should be noted that the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 sank in relatively shallow waters and that the sheer size of the ship – 350 feet long – the equivalent of a football field – should have warranted its discovery, however, the ship’s resting place has continued to elude those seeking it.

Perhaps the legend of the lake is true, that it never gives up what it claims as its own and that the fate of the unquiet dead who populate the depths of the lake can be seen only as apparitions of the past who now a part of the lake but whose eternal resting place can never be discovered.