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Joseph P. Farnan
N 42° 20.378' In April 2008, Clive Cussler joined Ralph Wilbanks and his NUMA team on Lake Michigan for his very first day of surveying on Lake Michigan in search of the wreckage of a DC-4 Northwest Flight 2501. NUMA and MSRA had been partnering to locate the plane wreck for the prior four search seasons. Within just a few hours of Cussler’s first day on the lake, the team found a target. While not the airplane they had been searching for, the target appeared to be a significant sized shipwreck.
Within a month, MSRA’s dive team explored the wreck which is in 180 feet of water. Initial dives confirmed the wreck to be about 150 feet long. The wreckage appears to have been burned. The bow is somewhat intact, as is the stern, but the sides of the vessel have fallen outward and all but the lower hull is gone. The wreckage is also submerged into the bottom significantly. A steel stock anchor is buried at the bow with only the stock visible. A small engine and boiler sit in the center of the wreck near the stern. A smokestack lays toppled on the port side of the engine. Based on the length, the machinery, the condition and the location of this wreck, MSRA has determined the wreck to be the Joseph P. Farnan. The Farnam was built in Cleveland in 1887 and launched that September. Enrollment documents indicate it to have been 151 feet long, with a 33-foot beam and a nine-foot depth. No photographs of the Farnan have been found, likely because it sailed only two years. However, the Margaret Olwill, considered a sister ship, which was launched just months after the Farnan, is likely to have resembled the Farnan. The Olwill was built by the same yard-- the Roots yard in Cleveland-- and owned by the same individuals, brothers L. Patrick and Joseph A. Smith, also of Cleveland, and named in memory of their mother. Like the Olwill, the Farnan was a rather ordinary wooden steam barge equipped with a single propeller and the engine from the vessel Winnifred. Accounts of the vessel’s career indicate the engine appeared undersized for the length of the vessel. Even before the Farnan’s construction was complete, the Smith Brothers arranged to have their tug, the Patrick Henry, tow the unfinished hull from Cleveland to Vermillion, Ohio for additional work. However, in the early morning hours of Friday, August 12, while towing the soon-to-be-christened Farnan, the tug foundered just four miles off Vermilion, killing one of the four crewmen. The Smith Brothers had the Henry’s equipment salvaged and installed in the Margaret Olwill.
Handy Boy That summer, the Handy Boy caught fire in Lake Huron, and Vosburgh was able to run it ashore to save his crew. This would be Vosburgh’s second shipwreck! Vosburgh then hired on with the Smith Brothers of Cleveland as captain of the Farnan. On July 21, 1889 after delivering cargo of coal to St. Joseph, Captain Vosburgh was taking the Farnan north to Escanaba to pick up another cargo. As was often the custom, he took his wife Belle along. The boat would be crewed by ten men in addition to the Captain. The Farnan however, would not make it very far. When off South Haven, the vessel faced a strong headwind and could make little more than 1 or 2 miles per hour. At about 2 pm, fire broke out in the engine room then under the charge of 2nd engineer John Drew. He summoned 1st engineer Charles F. Martin and together they battled the flames which soon enveloped the stern of the vessel. Knowing the ship would go down they hastily began tearing up the ship to construct a raft. What occurred next is known through a personal account of the events of July 21, 1889 recorded by South Haven's Life Saving Service through the actual log entries of station manager J. H. McKinzie: At 20 minutes to four, surf man William Kibbie called me to the lookout and called my attention to a steam-barge that was heading north towards this port being a great distance from the station. Her mast and a very small portion of the forward hull could be seen with glasses. A few minutes later, she appeared to steam south. As we supposed that she was just returning to some southern port, at 20 minutes after 4 pm I left the lookout and went to the grocers for more supplies. I had scarcely noted the time when serviceman W. P. Boardman appeared on the street and I inquired into the cause of his absence. He informed me that the barge that we were looking at had lost her mast and appeared to be on fire.
Without hesitation or other delay I headed back to the harbor where I urged the steamer Glenn of South Haven to tow our lifeboat to the rescue. Having laid at her dock the entire day, she had to make steam from a cold boiler which detained us some time. As soon as 25 pounds of steam was obtained, she started with a lifeboat in tow. The engineer and captain on the Glenn did their utmost to hasten to the rescue, estimating she was thirteen miles off shore. About seven or eight miles out it was discovered for a certainty that the barge was on fire and every effort was made for greater speed. When about three or four miles from the burning vessel, we spotted what appeared to be a boat to the south of the steamer and immediately pointed for it. It proved to be a raft with seven men and a woman on it. No time was lost in taking them on board the lifeboat, and transferring them to the Glenn, where warm drinks were given to the almost-exhausted people. It was then ascertained from them that the Captain and three others were on another raft to the north and they were in perilous condition. No time was lost in getting underway, and in a few minutes the raft was sighted and when along-side, the four men were taken in the life boat and also transferred to the steamer, where warm drinks and food soon revived them. Afterward, the people were cared for in every possible way and with every comfort available. We headed for the burning steamer to see if it was possible to tow her in and save her machinery. On arriving with Captain Vosburgh of the steamer on board the lifeboat, we went so close as to see that she was entirely gutted by the fire and burnt down to the water's edge at either quarter and taking water. Her sides were so weak that they gave way and she sank stern first, the time being about 8 p.m. more or less. On our way home every attention was given the rescued people, and it was found that some of them were slightly burned while trying to save the vessel. The first mate’s hands and arms were badly burned. On arriving back in South Haven , Dr. Rausours provided aid to allay the pain of the suffering. All agreed that when we reached the burning vessel, the course we steered out was West-South-West.” Signed J. H. McKenzie, Keeper Although some of the Farnan’s crew were burned while fighting the fire, all made it safely to shore. The names of the rescued crewmembers are: Loren G. Vosburgh, Captain; Mrs. Belle Vosburgh; Jas. Bowen, first mate; Daniel Leisenring, second mate; Charles T. Martin, chief engineer; Frank Chambers, wheelsman; James Pratt, wheelsman; John Fay, fireman; James McMahon, fireman; John Mc Nichol, steward; Andrew Mc Nichol, deckhand. The Detroit Free Press, in its July 22, 1889 edition, stated: "Great praise is due to Capt. McKenzie and crew, of the life saving service, and Capt. Boyne, of the propeller Glenn" for rescuing the crew.
Research by Ross Richardson, Craig Rich, Valerie van Heest, Jim Scholz Sources: Detroit Free Press Herald-Palladian Newspaper, St. Joseph, MI David Swayze Shipwreck Files Labadie Collection of the Alpena County Library (MI) MSRA is partially funded through a grant from
and by private contributions from people like you. Email the Webmaster Copyright 2003-200 9Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates |
After
the war Vosburgh came to Chicago in 1865. A year later, he relocated to
Bay City, Michigan where he again started working on the boats,
eventually coming into the employ of the Smith Brothers as captain of
the Farnan. By 1888, he had relocated to Cleveland where he
took over as captain of the Handy Boy. 
An
interesting note to this disaster -- Captain Loren Vosburgh, after
surviving his third shipwreck, went on to sail for a great many more
years. He became captain of the schooner Colonel Cook,
a vessel whose claim to fame was that long before Vosburgh took over and
before it had been renamed and repainted to hide its shame –- while
sailing under the name Augusta, on the evening of August 7, 1860,
it rammed the steamer Lady Elgin sending over three hundred
people to their deaths, ranking as one of the worst losses on the Great
Lakes. 