L.R. Doty
Wooden Bulk Freighter · Lost 1898 · Chicago & Southern Lake Michigan
One of the largest wooden steamers on the lakes vanished with all 17 crew in an 1898 Lake Michigan gale.
Become Captain of Record
The Vessel and Her Loss
F.W. Wheeler and Company built the 291-foot wooden steamer L.R. Doty at West Bay City, Michigan, in 1893. On October 25, 1898, carrying corn from Chicago for Midland and towing the schooner Olive Jeanette, she met a gale north of Milwaukee. The towline parted at 5 p.m. and the Doty and her 17 crew were never seen again. The next day the tug Prodigy found a debris field about 25 miles off Kenosha.
Vessel
- 1893
- US registry no. 141272
- F.W. Wheeler and Company
- West Bay City, Michigan
- Wood
- 291 ft
- 41 ft
- 2,056.34 gross tons
- Steam, screw
- Not established
Loss
- October 25, 1898
- Storm
- Lake Michigan, debris field about 25 miles off Kenosha, Wisconsin
- Lake Michigan
- South Chicago, Illinois → Midland, Ontario
- 107,000 bushels of corn
- 17
- 17
- Not established
The Wreck Today
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
Position
- Not established
- Position not established
- Kenosha, Wisconsin
Institutional inventory position not used; surveyed provenance not established.
Evidence
Overall confidence: Documented (84/100)
Exact sinking position, depth and condition are not established in the source reviewed.
Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Sea Grant — Wisconsin Shipwrecks: L.R. Doty
Construction table and complete Final Voyage narrative read; underlying newspapers not independently inspected.
