The History Press [New Releases]

Lake Erie has seen its share of disasters, claiming more ships per square mile than any other body of freshwater. Read the mysteries of its most mysterious and notorious wrecks and disappearances.

The great lakes have seen many ships meet their end, but none so much as Lake Erie. As the shallowest of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie is prone to sudden waves and wildly shifting sandbars. The steamer Atlantic succumbed to these conditions when, in 1852, a late night collision brought 68 of its weary immigrant passengers to watery graves. The 1916 Black Friday Storm sank four ships -- including the unsinkable James B. Colgate -- in the course of its 20-hour tantrum over the lake. In 1954, a difficult fishing season sent the Richard R into troubled waters in the hopes of catching a few more fish. One of the lake's sudden storms drowned the boat and three man crew. At just 50 miles wide and 200 miles long, Lake Erie has claimed more ships per square mile than any other body of freshwater. Author David Frew dives deep to discover the mysteries of some of Lake Erie's most notorious wrecks.

The author of Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses shares tales of disaster and misfortune on the Great Lakes.

Losing one's life while tending to a Great Lakes lighthouse sadly wasn't such an unusual occurrence. Death by murder, suicide or other tragic causes--while rare--were not unheard of. Two keepers on Lake Superior's Grand Island disappeared one early summer day in 1908, their decomposed remains found weeks later. A newly hired and some say depressed keeper on Pilot Island in Wisconsin's Door County slit his own throat after a consultation with a local butcher about the location of the jugular vein. A smallpox outbreak in the late 1890s led to the tragic death of a lighthouse hired hand on South Bass Island in Lake Erie.

Join author Dianna Stampfler as she uncovers the facts (and debunks some fiction) behind some of the Great Lakes' darkest lighthouse tales.

The stretch of California coast from San Francisco to Monterey has seen its share of disastrous shipwrecks with devastating losses, but there are also stories of courage, innovative rescues and unique salvage operations. Uncover the tale of the adventurous, ill-fated Sir John Franklin, now marked only by a nearly forgotten cemetery, and relive the wreck of the New York, one of the most notorious ships to ever sail. Learn about the Coastside's worst maritime tragedy, when the passenger steamship San Juan was struck by the oil tanker twice her size and sank in minutes, plunging seventy-five men, women and children into the sea.

Join author JoAnn Semones as she shares the stories of doomed ships that found their end along Coastside California.

Facing the fury and danger of Lake Michigan

Ever since French explorers first cast their eyes on Lake Michigan, this huge inland sea has been the scene of thousands of shipwreck rescues and tragedies. As mishaps and disasters proliferated, a dedicated service of lifesavers arose. Braving perilous conditions, these servicemen pulled those aboard the merchant schooner Havanna from certain death. The intrepid St Joseph Lifesavers saved the crew and passengers of the City of Duluth. Sadly, not all rescues ended in heroism, as was the case with the doomed Arab that went down along with two other ships.

Author Michael Passwater captures the stories of shipwrecks and the brave men and women that risked their lives against an angry Lake Michigan.

On the night of November 26, 1898, with a killer storm of historic proportions approaching, the steamer Portland set out from Boston. By the following night, the winter hurricane sent the vessel to the depths of Massachusetts Bay off Cape Cod, claiming nearly two hundred lives.

On the Cape, a few dozen victims of the Portland disaster washed ashore, while ships piled up in harbors, high tides swept away railroad tracks, and the landscape and beaches were changed forever. Several Cape Cod mariners went to sea and never returned, caught in the gale’s evil clutches.

Local author Don Wilding revisits this disaster and the heroic deeds of the U.S. Life-Saving Service and the Cape’s citizenry in what came to be known as “The Portland Gale.”

Originally commissioned by Cornelius Vanderbilt as he built his maritime empire in New York, the Steamboat Lexington eventually became the most prestigious steamship on the heavily trafficked Long Island Sound...

But in 1840 a fire broke out on the ship, igniting poorly placed bales of cotton which destroyed the ship in minutes. Emergency rafts sank and rescue boats were unable to reach the ship in time. Only four among the over one hundred and forty on board survived by clinging to bales of cotton. The incident would be the worst maritime disaster in Long Island history.

Author Bill Bleyer presents the harrowing story of a ship’s journey from glory to tragedy.

A war over riches on the Columbia River.

While the Civil War raged, a group of captains, merchants, bankers and gamblers in the Pacific Northwest formed the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. The first capitalistic enterprise in the new state, they aimed to develop the richest and most powerful transportation operation in the region, dominating hundreds of miles of river traffic from the Pacific Coast to Montana. Achieving such status was anything but easy. They battled competitors, lawyers, the river herself, and defectors within their management team. In the unregulated business environment of the nineteenth century, men like John Ainsworth made their own rules, often deploying frontier justice against their enemies.

Join author Mychal Ostler as he recounts the battle for power that shaped an industry.

For more than five centuries, the waterways surrounding Long Island have profoundly shaped its history.

Familiar subjects of lighthouses, shipwrecks and whaling are found alongside oft-forgotten oddities such as Pan-American flying boats landing in Manhasset Bay in the early days of transatlantic flight. From the British blockade and skirmishes during the American Revolution to the sinking of merchant vessels by Germany in World War II, the sea brought wars to these shores. By the later part of the 20th century, Gold Coast millionaires commuted in high-speed yachts to Manhattan offices as the island’s wealth grew. Historian Bill Bleyer reveals Long Island’s nautical bonds from the Native Americans to current efforts to preserve the region’s maritime heritage.

This book chronicles the history of the HMS Gaspee, a sloop in the British Royal Navy that was sent to patrol the waters of Narragansett Bay in 1772.

The Gaspee cracked down on smugglers and enforced British customs regulation, particularly the Stamp Act. The ship and her captain, William Duddington, were quickly hated by colonists for their campaign of brutality, harassment, and arbitrary enforcement. When the Gaspee ran around in shallow waters, while in pursuit of a colonist merchant ship, they took immediate action. The colonists, led by John Brown and other local notables, burned Gaspee and wounded her captain. This act of revolt preceded the Boston Tea Party by 18 months.

Lost in the Flames

On October 21, 1836, a bustling crowd gathered at the docks in Saint John, New Brunswick, to witness an extraordinary spectacle. The steamship Royal Tar was embarking on yet another voyage from New Brunswick to Portland, Maine, laden with a cargo of peculiar passengers. For this fateful voyage, the Royal Tar had been transformed into a circus ship. Onlookers watched as cages slowly rolled past—exotic birds in one, two lionesses in another and the regal striped Bengal tiger in a third. Then the star of the show slowly made his way across the gangplank. Mogul, the mighty Asian elephant, took his spot on the upper deck of the ship as it steamed out of the port.

After four days of stormy weather, a devastating fire engulfed the ship. The ensuing chaos left thirty-two people dead, and many of the animals were pushed overboard into the frigid waters of Penobscot Bay in a last-ditch effort to save them. The rest died in their cages. Jane Parks Gardner reveals how this tragic event left an indelible mark on Maine’s maritime history.

From 1837 to 1900 the tiny borough of Stonington, Connecticut was a major transportation hub on the route between New York and Boston. Steamboats leaving Manhattan followed Long Island Sound to Stonington Harbor where passengers boarded trains for the rest of the journey to Providence or Boston.

Stonington’s Steamboat Hotel, built in 1838 near the piers and railroad yard, was home to saloons, restaurants, a pool hall, a cigar shop, a tailor and a barber shop. Merchants, hotel keepers and saloon workers passed through the building, each with their own unique story.  Many of them were immigrants or first-generation Americans, and they are a window onto a late 19th-century class of merchants and service workers.

   Join local author Stuart Vyse as he reveals a lively portrait of remarkable harmony in a small village that was far more diverse than it is today.

They Didn’t Need to be There

It was a calm, moonless night in late April 1865. Robert E. Lee had surrendered. Abraham Lincoln was dead. Assassin John Wilkes Booth and accomplice David Herold, previously hiding in the swamps of Southern Maryland, had crossed the Potomac River to safety. The barge Black Diamond was anchored with the Potomac Flotilla near Blackistone Lighthouse, hoping to prevent that crossing and catch the perpetrators. All onboard were unaware that they were too late. The steamer Massachusetts was running downriver carrying U.S. soldiers back to their regiments. By dawn, the Black Diamond was on the bottom of the river, the Massachusetts was crippled and eighty-seven men were dead. Author Karen E. Stone reveals the story of a heroic pursuit turned tragic.

Discover the Shipbuilding Dynasties that Built Philadelphia's Maritime Industry

The waterfront of Kensington and Fishtown in Philadelphia attracted a host of innovative and hardworking shipwrights from America’s earliest days. As fleets transitioned from wooden-hulled ships of sail to iron steamships, the tradesmen of Kensington’s shipwright dynasties were at the forefront of the global shipbuilding industry throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Kensington’s shipyards saw the birth of screw propulsion, revolutionizing the speed and reliability of ships forever afterward. The Industrial Revolution in Philadelphia, which earned the city its motto “Workshop of the World,” fostered innovation and invention in the local maritime industry. For this reason, Kensington shipwrights commanded worldwide respect.

Author Geoffrey Reynolds explores the story of Holland, Michigan's unique legacy of maritime craftsmanship.

Holland's boat-building tradition took root in the 1840s, as Dutch immigrants crafted flatboats and watercraft for residents. Just a century later, the city's commercial boat-building industry flourished. The innovation of fiberglass-reinforced plastic changed the traditional structure of boats, revamped the industry and re-created the blueprint for U.S. pleasure boats following World War II.

The Roamer Boat Company's masterfully-welded sheet steel cabin cruisers led to the 1955 purchase by the Chris-Craft Corporation to create the Roamer Boat Corporation. Local craftsmen, like the Jesiek brothers, found the transition from furniture building to boat building seamless. But with the success of larger manufacturers, smaller boat shops declined.

Get a first-hand account and fascinating new details of the story behind The Finest Hours, the film portraying the harrowing rescue of the SS Pendleton in 1952.

On February 18, 1952, off the coast of Cape Cod, a fierce nor'easter snapped in half two 503-foot oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer. Human grace and grit, leadership and endurance prevail as Theresa Mitchell Barbo and Captain W. Russell Webster (Ret.) recount the historic, heroic rescue of thirty-two merchant mariners from the sinking Pendleton by four young Coast Guardsmen aboard the 36-foot motor lifeboat CG36500. A foreword by former Commandant Admiral Thad Allen (Ret.) and an essay by Master Chief John Jack Downey (Ret.), a veteran of thousands of modern-day small boat rescues, round out the special third edition of this classic work on Coast Guard history.

An estimated three thousand shipwrecks lie off the coast of New Jersey - but these icy waters hold more mysteries than sunken hulls.

Ancient arrowheads found on the shoreline of Sandy Hook reveal Native American settlement before the land was flooded by melting glaciers. In 1854, 240 passengers of the New Era clipper ship met their fate off Deal Beach. Nobody knows what happened to two hydrogen bombs the United States Air Force lost near Atlantic City in 1957. Lessons from such tragic wrecks and dangerous missteps urged the development of safer ships and the U.S. Coast Guard. Captain Stephen D. Nagiewicz uncovers curious tales of storms, heroism and oddities from New Jersey's maritime past.

Spirits of the Deep

The maritime tragedies of the Jersey Shore reveal the terror of North Atlantic hurricanes, the high price of human failure, and the dreadful consequences of mutiny and murder. But this sad and dark history also has a haunting side. Immigrants perished just miles from their destinations, their dreams of a new life dashed, and well-heeled passengers aboard posh vessels never saw land again. Yet all their cries still echo shoreward to this day. Destroyed by fire or mysterious mishaps, ocean liners still travel the waters they sank beneath many years ago.

Through numerous accounts of hauntings and unique maritime apparitions, New Jersey author Patricia Heyer introduces the ghosts of the Shore’s spine-tingling maritime folklore.

For more than 200 years, Great Lakes shipyards have bolstered America's and Canada’s commercial and naval power.

Vessels like the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Niagara, and Walk-in-the-Water are now the stuff of legend, but lesser-known ships also have their stories to tell. Cargo-carrying schooners, such as Moonlight and Minnedosa, got faster and bigger over the years, helping them hold their own against the emerging steamships, while the revolutionary design of the R.J. Hackett set the standard for lake freighters for years. Of course, the Great Lakes have often exacted a heavy toll, as demonstrated by the mysterious disappearance of the Griffon and the harrowing sinking of Pere Marquette 18.

Highlighting vessels from the colonial era down to modern times, historian Glenn A. Knoblock explores the maritime heritage of America and Canada.

On December 31, 1862, 16 men perished that stormy New Year's Eve when the USS Monitor sank off Cape Hatteras, N.C.

The United States Navy's first ironclad warship rose to glory during the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, but there's much more to know about the USS Monitor. Historian John Quarstein has painstakingly compiled bits of historical data gathered through years of research to present the first comprehensive picture of the lives of the officers and crew who served faithfully in an iron ship unlike any vessel previously known.

The Monitor Boys, a moniker the men gave themselves, is a reflection of how these hundred-odd souls were bound together through storms, battles, boredom and disaster. Just living aboard the ironclad took uncommon effort and fortitude. Their perseverance through the heat, stress and unseaworthiness that defined life on the ship makes the study of those who dared it a worthy endeavor. Many recognized that they were part of history. Moreover, the Monitor Boys were agents in the change of naval warfare.

Following Quarstein's compelling narrative is a detailed chronology as well as appendices including crew member biographies, casualties and statistics and dimensions of the ship. Readers can dive into the world of the Monitor and meet William Flye, George Geer and the rest of the men who risked everything by going to sea in the celebrated cheesebox on a raft and became the hope of a nation wracked by war.