Chasing the Queen
By James Donahue
Captain McKenzie was perplexed. Here he was, early in the day on August 20, 1903, piloting his boat through rough seas on Lake Erie, trying to rescue people from the sinking ore carrier Queen of the West, but the ill-fated boat was running away from him at full steam. The reason McKenzie’s boat, the Codorus was there at all was because she was responding to a call of distress from the Queen’s whistle.
Any sailor knows that pulling a vessel alongside another in a gale, while both boats are rolling and moving, takes daring and a lot of skill. But as McKenzie watched the fleeing steamer through his glass, he saw something that made him attempt a rescue anyway. “When she came near I could see the crew on the deck with life preservers on. Just before we reached her a big sea washed over her decks and carried away the two little daughters of Chief Engineer (G. H.) Drouillard. They appeared to be gone, but when the water cleared away, I caught sight of them on the other side of the deck where the water had carried them.”
McKenzie was probably thinking the Queen’s master, Capt. S. B. Massey of Ogdensburg, New York, had lost his senses. “She was running away from us with full steam,” he said. As the Cordorus gained and the two racing boats drew near each other, McKenzie said it was obvious that the people on the Queen of the West needed rescuing and very soon. He said the sea had washed away the lifeboats and several people were on deck, clinging to anything they could hang onto, as the moving boat settled lower and lower in the water.
At last the Cororus was in place. When it pulled up along the Queen, everybody scrambled over the side to his steamer. It was a dangerous jump. Wheelman Patrick Maloney of Baltimore slipped and fell between the two massive hulls, then was miraculously pulled out before he was crushed to death. As it was, the boats rolled against him enough to break three ribs. He later had to be hospitalized. But in the end, fifteen sailors and the two daughters of the engineer, identified as Jennie and Mabel, were safe on the Cororus. Drouillard, who apparently stood alone in waist-deep water in the engine room to feed the fires, was the last man to leave the boat.
The Queen continued on her voyage into oblivion for a while, with the Cordorus following behind, until at last she lost steam and sank. And Captain Massey had some explaining to do. “I feared that if I did stop, we would get into the trough of the sea and sink at once,” he said. The Queen of the West was making a short trip from Cleveland to Erie on Lake Erie when it sank a few miles off the Ohio coast. She was carrying fifteen hundred tons of iron ore.
By James Donahue
Captain McKenzie was perplexed. Here he was, early in the day on August 20, 1903, piloting his boat through rough seas on Lake Erie, trying to rescue people from the sinking ore carrier Queen of the West, but the ill-fated boat was running away from him at full steam. The reason McKenzie’s boat, the Codorus was there at all was because she was responding to a call of distress from the Queen’s whistle.
Any sailor knows that pulling a vessel alongside another in a gale, while both boats are rolling and moving, takes daring and a lot of skill. But as McKenzie watched the fleeing steamer through his glass, he saw something that made him attempt a rescue anyway. “When she came near I could see the crew on the deck with life preservers on. Just before we reached her a big sea washed over her decks and carried away the two little daughters of Chief Engineer (G. H.) Drouillard. They appeared to be gone, but when the water cleared away, I caught sight of them on the other side of the deck where the water had carried them.”
McKenzie was probably thinking the Queen’s master, Capt. S. B. Massey of Ogdensburg, New York, had lost his senses. “She was running away from us with full steam,” he said. As the Cordorus gained and the two racing boats drew near each other, McKenzie said it was obvious that the people on the Queen of the West needed rescuing and very soon. He said the sea had washed away the lifeboats and several people were on deck, clinging to anything they could hang onto, as the moving boat settled lower and lower in the water.
At last the Cororus was in place. When it pulled up along the Queen, everybody scrambled over the side to his steamer. It was a dangerous jump. Wheelman Patrick Maloney of Baltimore slipped and fell between the two massive hulls, then was miraculously pulled out before he was crushed to death. As it was, the boats rolled against him enough to break three ribs. He later had to be hospitalized. But in the end, fifteen sailors and the two daughters of the engineer, identified as Jennie and Mabel, were safe on the Cororus. Drouillard, who apparently stood alone in waist-deep water in the engine room to feed the fires, was the last man to leave the boat.
The Queen continued on her voyage into oblivion for a while, with the Cordorus following behind, until at last she lost steam and sank. And Captain Massey had some explaining to do. “I feared that if I did stop, we would get into the trough of the sea and sink at once,” he said. The Queen of the West was making a short trip from Cleveland to Erie on Lake Erie when it sank a few miles off the Ohio coast. She was carrying fifteen hundred tons of iron ore.