St. Albans
Steam Screw · Lost 1881 · Chicago & Southern Lake Michigan
The propeller St. Albans was holed by ice and foundered off Milwaukee in January 1881; all 26 aboard reached safety.
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The Vessel and Her Loss
Built in 1868, the wooden propeller St. Albans left Milwaukee on a January morning in 1881 bound for Ludington with flour and livestock, working through fields of lake ice. Her pumps found her dry until mid-morning, when the engineer reported she was making water fast. A foot-long hole in her port bow, probably cut by ice, flooded her and put out her fires within half an hour. Her 20 crew and 6 passengers abandoned ship and reached Milwaukee; fishermen later snagged their nets on the wreck.
Vessel
- 1868
- Not established
- Not established
- Wood
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Steam (screw)
- Not established
Loss
- January 30, 1881
- Ice
- About 15 miles northeast of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Lake Michigan
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin → Ludington, Michigan
- Flour and livestock
- Not established
- 0
- Not established
The Wreck Today
- Not established
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- Not established
- Not established
Position
- Not established
- Position not established
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin
No pin: Wisconsin Shipwrecks inventory positions are not used as wreck pins.
Evidence
Overall confidence: Documented (75/100)
Original newspaper accounts are quoted by the source and were not independently inspected.
Wisconsin Shipwrecks (Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Sea Grant) — St. Albans
Specification table and final-voyage text read; quoted newspapers not independently inspected.
