Warship Wednesday, May 1 The Michigan Wolverine
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.
– Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, May 1
Here we see the US Navy’s first iron warship, the gunboat USS Michigan as she appeared around 1905. In the image above, she was already sixty years young.
In 1841 Congress authorized the construction of a side-wheel steam man-of-war for use on the Upper Lakes, to match the British naval strength in those waters. This craft, launched in 1843 was the made using iron as a substitute since in the Lake Erie region at the time quality shipbuilding timber was at a premium.
In the 1860s, she carried a standard dark scheme until the 1890s when she was repainted white
From a 1940s USNI article:
“Practically nothing was known at that time in this country about designing an iron ship, or the technique of fabricating the unfamiliar material. Nor were other than the most primitive construction facilities available at Erie. As a result, the lines adopted for the Michigan were those of the sailing ship of the period, and the frame was designed to afford the requisite structural strength without recourse to the strength available in the hull plating, providing a hull so strong that, despite years of abuse, it is structurally sound today. [100 years later]
I-beams being unknown at the time, the ribs were made from T-bars, and the longitudinals were built-up box structures about 12 inches by 24 inches in cross-section. In all there were five longitudinals, the keel being the only one projecting beyond the skin of the ship. Three of the longitudinals ran the full length of the ship and two were beneath the machinery spaces. The hull plates were all shaped by hand, and the rivet holes were punched by the same means.
The hull material was wrought iron made by the charcoal process in Pittsburgh and carted to Erie. The purity of this material is attested by the fact that the metal is still in excellent condition…The original two-cylinder direct-acting condensing engine, which develops 170 horsepower, still remains in the ship. It has a bedplate that is a cast iron slab 22 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 inches thick which carries the two 36-inch by 8-feet cylinders. The engine is secured to 14-inch timbers that are inclined at an angle of 22 ½ degrees. Transporting the heavy bedplate 130 miles from Pittsburgh over the roads of that day must have presented a problem to the teamsters.”
When commissioned she was a steamer whose giant paddle-wheel turned enough to give her a speed of 8-knots with an auxiliary sail rig. Planned with twelve 32-pound carronades and two Paixham 8-inch pivot guns, she was to be the most heavily armed craft on the Great Lakes. This brought a protest from Great Britain and instead she was completed with a single (1) 18-pounder.
The Michigan steamed the Great Lakes for 68-years conducting patrols that included intercepting would be crooks, revolutionaries and assassins in the Timber Rebellion, the Beaver-Macinack War, Civil War draft riots in Detroit and Buffalo, the Fenian Raids, the Niagra Raids and the Philo Parsons Affair. She was up-armed during the Civil War with a 30-pounder Parrott rifle, five 20-pounder Parrott rifles, six 24-pounder smoothbores, and two 12-pounder boat howitzers– mainly due to the potential of British intervention in the Civil War, but she did not have to fire a shot in anger. After the war ended her armament was changed to 6 3-pounders, which were more than sufficient for her freshwater duties.
In 1905 the familiar ship was stripped of her name, the Michigan moniker going to a new battleship, and dubbed USS Wolverine (IX-31). In 1912 she stricken from the active Navy List and transferred (still armed) to the Pennsylvania Naval Militia. These naval reservists used her for another 11 years before her engineering plant, then more than 70-years old, gave out. She was kept by the City of Erie, PA as a floating museum and gathering place until her poor condition won over and by the 1940s she was a derelict, settled on the harbor bottom. In January, 1943, the ship was left nameless through transference of its name to an aircraft carrier.
In 1949 she was scrapped, her keel some 107 years old. Of that time she spent 68 years on active duty and another 11 as a reserve training ship. She was the only armed US Navy ship to regularly patrol the Great Lakes.
Today her foremast remains in Fairport Harbor, Ohio, made into a flagpole and erected in 1950. Her cutaway iron prow, showing impressive construction techniques, is at the Erie Maritime Museum and her anchor is on public display at a park
Specs:
Displacement: 685 tons
Length: 163 ft (50 m)
Beam: 27 ft (8.2 m)
Draft: 9 ft (2.7 m)
Propulsion: 2 × 330 ihp (250 kW) steam engines
Speed: 10.5 kn (12.1 mph; 19.4 km/h)
Capacity: 115 tons of coal
Complement: 88 officers and men
Armament:
As Michigan:
Original: 1 × 18-pounder
American Civil War: 1 × 30-pounder Parrott rifle, 5 × 20-pounder Parrott rifles, 6 × 24-pounder smoothbores, 2 × 12-pounder boat howitzers
As Wolverine: 6 × 3-pounders (47 mm (1.9 in)), 2 one-pounder rapid fire
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO) They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
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