The Sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald

On the 35th Anniversary of that sad day when 29 sailors lost their lives, new developments shed light on the sinking of the "Mighty Fitz."

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The ill-fated S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald

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Six Fitzgerald Brothers
    The story of the Fitzgerald shipping clan begins in the early 19th century, when William and Julianna Fitzgerald left Ireland.
Edmund’s great-grandparents “were immigrants from Ireland and settled first in China Township, St. Clair County, in 1837, on a farm near Marine City, Michigan,” local historian Dick Wicklund wrote in a 2006 edition of The Lightship, the newsletter of the Lake Huron Lore Marine Society.
    Six of the Fitzgerald boys eventually became captains on the Great Lakes later in the 19th century, including the oldest, Edmond (spelled with an ‘o’) and the youngest, John, who relocated to Milwaukee. John’s own son William eventually took control of a family shipyard, which had been established in Milwaukee. Sadly, William Fitzgerald died when his youngest son, Edmund, (with a ‘u’) was just six years old.
    A fellow Irish-American veteran of the sea, Captain Dennis Sullivan, sought to honor the memory of Edmund’s father by naming a ship after him, christening the W.E. Fitzgerald in 1906.  This was known as “Little Fitz” when, five decades later, in 1958, the “big” or “Mighty” Fitz” took to the waters: The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, named in honor of William’s son Edmund.  Edmund did not enter the family business, but was instead promoted to the office of president of the company that owned the ship — the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee. But even if Edmund Fitzgerald was not a man of the sea, his family’s link to the waters was well known.
    Edmund’s daughter Elizabeth Cutler eventually wrote a family history entitled Six Fitzgerald Brothers: Lake Captains All.  The book was published in 1983. Three years later, her own father passed away, “still deeply saddened by the wreck of the ship named for him,” as local historian Dick Wicklund wrote.

That Awful Day
    When it hit the waters in 1958, the “Mighty Fitz” was the largest freighter sailing the Great Lakes, at over 700 feet long and 75 feet wide, with a 7,500-horsepower engine.
    By November 9, 1975, Ernest McSorley had been the ship’s captain for three years, with some four decades of shipping experience under his belt.
    At around 8:30 that morning, the ship was loaded with over 26,000 tons of iron ore, to be transported over Lake Superior.   That afternoon, not long after the Fitzgerald set sail, the National Weather Service issued a warning for gale-force winds.  Just after midnight on November 10, Captain McSorley and the Fitzgerald crew were facing waves ten feet high.
    Still, the Fitzgerald ably battled the elements well into the afternoon of November 10. Another ship, the S.S. Arthur Anderson, captained by Jesse Cooper, eventually made radio contact with Captain McSorley.
    It is believed that at around 7 p.m. the ship was pummeled by two massive waves, possibly as high as 35 feet. Winds, by this time, were said to be gusting close to 100 miles an hour.
And yet, at 7:10 p.m., Captain McSorley said of the ship:  “We are holding our own.”
    Captain Cooper still believed he could help guide the Fitzgerald safely to nearby Whitefish Bay — under 10 miles away — even after the ship’s radar signal disappeared behind a snow squall, which was not uncommon.
    The Mighty Fitz, however, never returned to the radar screen.
When the sun rose on November 10, as families were beginning to be notified, and the awful reality began to sink in, Rev. Richard Ingalls rang the bell at Detroit’s Mariner’s Church 29 times – one time for each crew member aboard the vanished S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald.

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