1910                                  Brandon                                  1948

Steel St. Lawrence River canal size package freighter

Built at Wyandotte MI by Detroit Shipbuilding Co. Hull 183
Launched March 19, 1910

253’ LOA, 244’ LBP, 43’ beam, 26’6” depth
2 decks, hatches @ 24’, coal-fired boilers, quadruple expansion engine, 1400 IHP

Enrolled at Detroit MI May 25, 1910 (Temp #101)
244.0 x 43.2 x 27.2, 2338 GT, 1691 NT     US 207300     to:
Western Transit Co., Buffalo NY
(The actual owner and operator of this vessel — and of all the other five steel vessels of her fleet — for her entire career on the Great Lakes until the fleet was disbanded in 1915 was Rutland Transit Co., Ogdensburg NY although, for reasons unknown to this researcher, she was enrolled to Western Transit Co. and her home port was shown as Buffalo NY, not Ogdensburg NY)

Entered service 1910

Sold Feb 15, 1915 for off-Lakes service and left the Great Lakes.
(The railroads had been ordered under the provisions of the Panama Canal Act of 1912 to divest themselves of competing vessels and Great Lakes Transit Corporation had been organized to own and operate these vessels.  The new firm bid on the six steel Rutland vessels but since they were small enough to leave the Great Lakes without being cut in two and since prices on ocean vessels were abnormally high because of World War I vessel shortages, they were outbid by off-Lakes operators.)

Sold 1922 to Rutland-Lake Michigan Transit Co., Chicago IL, D. Sullivan & Co., Mgr. (home port to Chicago IL) and returned to the Great Lakes.
Returned at her ocean tonnages of 2431 GT, 1431 NT

Converted to self-unloading bulk freighter 1929 at Toledo OH by Toledo Shipbuilding Co.

Fleet transferred 1931 to Gartland Steamship Co.

Home port to Wilmington DE 1934

Removed from documentation 1943.  Reportedly scrapped 1948 at Chicago IL

1024