On November 9, 1913, as winds screamed across Lake Huron at nearly 100 miles per hour and waves piled thirty feet high, the Canadian steamer James Carruthers vanished. She was only four months old—the pride of Canada’s shipbuilding industry, a steel giant 550 feet long, designed with the latest technology and hailed as one of the safest vessels on the Great Lakes. Yet in the blinding snow and chaos of what sailors would later call the “White Hurricane,” she disappeared without a trace.
For over a century, the Carruthers remained lost, her fate one of the enduring mysteries of the Great Storm of 1913, a four-day maritime disaster that claimed more than 250 lives and at least a dozen ships. Families of the 22 men aboard were left with only fragments: wreckage washing ashore near Kincardine and Goderich, bodies in lifebelts, and rumors of distress rockets fired into the blizzard. How could a ship so new, so advanced, be lost without even a wireless message of distress?
That question lingered for 112 years—until this summer.
A Modern Quest
On May 26, 2025, sonar screens aboard the Obsession Too, skippered by veteran shipwreck hunter David Trotter, lit up with the unmistakable shape of a massive steel freighter. Trotter and his team of divers, joined by the URA (Underwater Research Associates), had finally located the wreck of the James Carruthers—upside down in 190 feet of water, nearly 80 miles south of where history had long assumed she lay.
“When we saw her dimensions, we knew right away,” recalled David Trotter. “There was only one ship it could be.”
Two months after the sonar hit, the URA divers descended into the cold darkness off Michigan’s Thumb coast. The wreck was eerily intact, resting inverted on the lakebed. The ship’s cargo of wheat—375,000 bushels—still lies entombed inside her holds, fermenting in the cold water and casting a yellow haze around the hull. A motorized workboat rests nearby, mute testimony to the crew’s desperate final hours.
For Trotter, 84, who has spent four decades locating lost ships, stated “It’s one hell of a ride,” reflecting on his history of shipwreck discoveries.
Above: The Canadian steamer James Carruthers, fresh from loading 375,000 bushels of wheat at Fort William for delivery to Midland, Ontario, steams proudly across the Great Lakes in her first season. With a crew of 22 aboard, the brand-new freighter carried both promise and peril—her maiden cargo of grain would also be her last before the fateful Great Storm of 1913. ( Click image to enlarge ) Ill. C. Bowen
The Pride of Canada
When launched at Collingwood in June 1913, the Carruthers was celebrated as a marvel of modern shipbuilding. Named for James Carruthers, president of the Richelieu & Ontario Navigation Company, she was the largest freighter ever built in Canada. She carried innovations unusual for her time: a wireless transmitter, electric telephones, and hydraulic steering gear. Her builders even sacrificed carrying capacity for extra steel bracing, convinced she was one of the safest ships afloat.
Yet she had a troubled start. Her steering system proved temperamental, and a collision damaged her stern. By November, she had only made three voyages. When she steamed out of Fort William with her record cargo of wheat on November 4, 1913, Captain William Wright himself admitted, “We’ve still to learn all her tricks.”
Within days, the Carruthers was gone.
Above: The massive anchor of the James C. Carruthers claws deep into the lake floor, straining to hold her bow steady against screaming 100-mile-per-hour winds and towering 30-foot walls of water, as the storm rages with unrelenting fury. ( Click to enlarge ) Ill. C. Bowen
Witness in the Storm
While no survivor lived to tell the Carruthers’ final story, Captain S.A. Lyons of the J.H. Sheadle gave us glimpses. He departed Fort William the same evening as the Carruthers and watched her movements through the Soo Locks and down the St. Marys River. At about 1:00 a.m. on November 9 the Sheadle was headed into Lake Huron. The last sighting of the Carruthers was in Thunder Bay. As the Sheadle approached, they saw the Carruthers at the Pickands, Mather & Co. docks finishing coaling. The Carruthers rounded to and entered Lake Huron just ahead of his vessel.
By daylight, snow squalls closed in. Lyons struggled to keep the Sheadle under control as the gale intensified. “At 5:45 p.m.,” he later wrote, “a gigantic sea mounted our stern, flooding the fantail, smashing the cabins, sweeping supper off the tables.” Torrents of water poured through skylights into the engine room; provisions were destroyed; the crew lashed themselves to stanchions to avoid being washed overboard.
Somewhere in that same blinding blizzard was the James Carruthers. But when Lyons reached the southern lake the following day, she was gone. Witnesses on shore later reported seeing distress rockets in the storm off Inverhuron. Wreckage and bodies soon washed ashore, confirming her fate.
Above: The James C. Carruthers meets her fate in the White Hurricane of 1913, battered by towering waves and blinding snow. Capsized in the chaos, the ship’s 22 crew were cast into the freezing waters of Lake Huron, with zero hope of survival. ( Click to enlarge ) Ill. C. Bowen
Rewriting the Record
The wreck’s location tells a different story than the one long accepted in history books. For decades, most believed the Carruthers had tried and failed to reach shelter in Georgian Bay, only to founder near Kincardine. But the wreck lies far to the south, on a line toward Lake Erie. Insurance records and accounts uncovered by the URA team suggest her true destination was Port Colborne. Captain Wright’s wife was even waiting for him there when word came that the ship was missing.
The condition of the wreck also offers clues. Both anchors are missing, suggesting Wright tried to turn the ship into the monstrous seas—an act of desperation when steering failed. The URA team now believe the Carruthers lost control, rolled broadside to the waves, and capsized. She may have floated inverted for a brief time before sinking. Few crewmen had time to escape.
The Last Mystery of the Storm
The discovery of the Carruthers closes a chapter in Great Lakes history. She was the final missing freighter of the 1913 storm, a disaster as devastating to inland shipping as the Titanic was to ocean liners.
Yet even in discovery, mystery lingers. Why did her steering fail? What were those final moments like for the crew? Unless entry into the wreck becomes possible—a risky and perhaps impossible task based on Great Lakes laws and permit requirements—those answers will remain locked beneath the steel hull and the rotting wheat.
For now, the Great Lakes have yielded another of their secrets. And for the families of the lost crew, and for the divers who touched her hull for the first time in more than a century, the James Carruthers is no longer a ghost. She has been found.
Above: Cindy Lynch, one of eight divers that went 190 feet to the bottom of Lake Huron to explore the James Carruthers as she swims around the propeller of the steel-hulled freighter James Carruthers.
Provided by Michael Lynch
Above: Diver Keith Columbo inspecting a navigation light resting in the debris field around the James Carruthers.
Provided by Chad Brunner
Above: Closeup view of the navigation light from the James Carruthers.
Provided by Keith Columbo
Above: Diver Michael Lynch lighting up the motorized workboat just off the stern of the James Carruthers on the floor of Lake Huron.
Provided by Cindy Lynch
Above: Pencil drawing by Maritime Artist Robert McGreevy of the James Carruthers on the bottom of Lake Huron.
Provided by Robert McGreevy
Above: Pencil drawing by maritime artist Robert McGreevy of the James Carruthers heading downbound with heavy seas crashing on the stern.
Provided by Robert McGreevy
At long last, the SS James Carruthers is found in Lake Huron
by the Detroit Free Press
The URA discovery team: From left, Bob Martelli, Keith Colombo, Chad Brunner, Mike and Cindy Lynch, David Trotter, Jason Shaw, Jared Daniel, Chris Roth, Marty Lutz and not pictured Rick Heineman. ( Click to Enlarge )
Provided by Eric Seals, Detroit Free Press
Build & specs (1913)
Builder: Collingwood Shipbuilding Co. (Collingwood, Ontario); owner: St. Lawrence & Chicago Steam Navigation Co. (Toronto). Official number: C-131090.
Dimensions/tonnage: contemporary sources list ~550 ft x 58 ft x 27 ft; 7,862 GRT / 5,606 NRT.
Power: triple-expansion steam; yard no.: 38. A near-twin, SS J.H.G. Hagarty, followed in 1914.
Launch:22 May 1913; at the time, among the largest Canadian bulkers on the lakes.
Namesake
Named for James Carruthers, a prominent Canadian grain magnate and early first president of newly formed Canada Steamship Lines (1913); he also held major banking and industrial posts.
Service (summer–autumn 1913)
The ship saw only her maiden season. In early November she loaded ~375,000 bushels of wheat at Fort William (Lake Superior) for Midland, Ontario (Georgian Bay). Capt. William H. Wright took her downbound in company with the U.S. freighter J.H. Sheadle, coaling at De Tour, Michigan just after midnight 9 Nov 1913 before entering Lake Huron. She was last seen turning to pass south of Great Duck Island—then vanished.
Loss in the Great Lakes Storm of 1913
During the “White Hurricane” (Nov 7–11), wreckage from Carruthers came ashore chiefly near Kincardine/Point Clark, with multiple crew recovered; witnesses ashore reported distress rockets off Inverhuron. All 22 aboard were lost.
For more than forty-five years, David Trotter has been on a singular mission: to uncover the hidden stories of the Great Lakes. Searching, discovering, diving, exploring, and documenting shipwrecks, his career has been a relentless pursuit of “history’s mysteries.” His contributions have reshaped our understanding of Great Lakes maritime history while opening doors for both sport and technical divers to experience long-lost wrecks firsthand.
Trotter’s passion has taken him across all of the Great Lakes—with the lone exception of Ontario—on expeditions that blend technology, endurance, and intuition. Nowhere is his dedication more evident than in Lake Huron, where he has personally surveyed over 2,000 square miles of lakebed. This one-of-a-kind odyssey has yielded dozens of shipwrecks and even downed aircraft, each discovery adding new detail to the vast tapestry of Great Lakes history.
For Trotter, these waters are not just a resource, but a shared inheritance. “The Great Lakes are Our Treasure,” he often says—a phrase that has become both mantra and mission statement. It is the shipwreck hunter’s search and the diver’s descent that allow us to travel back in time, whether in twenty feet of water or three hundred. Each dive is an invitation to step into history, to see firsthand what was once thought lost.
Beyond the discoveries themselves, Trotter has become an ambassador of exploration through his long-running lecture series, Great Lakes Adventures. These presentations, filled with images, stories, and personal reflections, have captivated thousands. Audiences are drawn not only to the wrecks but to the explorer’s spirit—the willingness to go where no one has gone before, and the patience to bring those stories back for others to share.
David Trotter’s work stands as a reminder that beneath the surface of our “Inland Seas” lies a world waiting to be discovered, preserved, and celebrated. Through decades of dedication, he has given divers, historians, and everyday adventurers the chance to glimpse that world—and in doing so, has secured his place among the most significant explorers of the Great Lakes.
For over a century, the Carruthers remained lost, her fate one of the enduring mysteries of the Great Storm of 1913, a four-day maritime disaster that claimed more than 250 lives and at least a dozen ships. Families of the 22 men aboard were left with only fragments: wreckage washing ashore near Kincardine and Goderich, bodies in lifebelts, and rumors of distress rockets fired into the blizzard. How could a ship so new, so advanced, be lost without even a wireless message of distress?
