Capt. Con McCauley faced fire, ice and tragedy during 40 years on the Great Lakes

September 19, 2026

Capt. Con McCauley. Photo from Milwaukee Public Library Great Lakes Marine Collection. Digitally retouched.

This Great Lakes History Log is presented by Filer Credit Union, the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum and Sable Points Media.

Masters of the PM Steamers

Stories of Ludington’s cross-lake rail fleet captains and other port mariners

By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief

Editor’s Note: The Masters of the PM Steamers project began as research and writing on the captains of the Ludington cross-lake rail fleet. To date, I have gathered over 75 names and have written stories of 20 of them. What I have discovered is that many of these men, especially in the earlier years, worked for multiple shipping companies. Their names appear in previously published history articles about the carferry and the pre-carferry era. Capt. Con McCauley is one such captain whose name appeared in such articles. However, after extensive research I cannot find any evidence that he actually worked for the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad or its successor the Pere Marquette Railway. Instead, I did find that he worked for the Pere Marquette Line Steamers, which was the company that purchased the pre-carferry break-bulk freighters, known as the “black boats,” from the PMRR. The fact that there were redundant names can often make research and writing confusing. However, Capt. McCauley’s story deserves to be told. His story is an example of how this project likely will not end with the Ludington rail fleet.

Capt. Cornelius “Con” McCauley spent much of his life responsible for the lives of others. He commanded passenger steamers through storms, fog, ice and fire, and more than once his decisions helped bring people safely home.

Yet some of the hardest losses of his life came ashore.

McCauley and his wife buried several of their children. Two died within days of each other during the summer of 1905. Less than a year later, McCauley stood aboard a burning Lake Michigan steamer and remained until he was satisfied everyone who could be saved had escaped.

It was one of several maritime disasters that marked a career spanning about four decades.

Born in Ireland in June 1863, McCauley was a son of Patrick Francis “Paddy Baca” McCauley and Mary Sharkey McCauley. The family came from County Donegal and included several men who became Great Lakes mariners.

Although his formal name was Cornelius, maritime records and newspapers almost universally referred to him as Con. Earlier Beaver Island Catholic records also called him “Condy.”

McCauley was already a sailor before immigrating to the United States in 1884. In a 1909 newspaper interview, he recalled serving about 1881 aboard the ocean-going ship Lough of Glasgow. The vessel encountered a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay after leaving Sierra Leone for Rotterdam.

The storm tore away the ship’s masts and destroyed its boats. McCauley said the helpless vessel drifted for 13 days before its crew was rescued by the steamship Maggie Warrington of Liverpool.

“I have had my share of shipwrecks,” McCauley later said.

SS City of Holland. Photo from Sable Points Media Historic Photograph Collection.

Family and the Great Lakes

McCauley married Hannah “Anna” E. Gallagher, 1862-1931, on Feb. 21, 1887, on Beaver Island. His marriage record listed his occupation as sailor.

The couple had at least 10 children: Francis “Frank,” born in 1887; Mary, 1890-1962; Eugene, 1891-1951; Donald, 1893-1968; Patrick “Patsy,” 1895-1965; Stanley, 1898-1905; Catherine, 1899-1899; Clifford, 1902-1929; Alice, about 1904-1905; and Cornelius Jr., who was born and died in 1907.

Their movements followed McCauley’s career around the Great Lakes. The family lived on Beaver Island, at Escanaba, in Benzie County near Frankfort, at Manitowoc and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and eventually Chicago.

Catherine died less than a month after her birth.

By the early 1900s, McCauley was working for the Ann Arbor Railroad Company at Frankfort, home of the railroad’s Lake Michigan carferry operation. A 1903 newspaper report placed Capt. Con McCauley at Sturgeon Bay looking after Ann Arbor interests before returning to Frankfort.

By 1905, however, he had entered the service of the Goodrich Transportation Co.

He was appointed master of the passenger and package freight steamer Atlanta.

Built in Cleveland in 1891, the wooden screw steamer was about 200 feet long with a beam of 32 feet. Designed to carry passengers as well as freight, she featured richly appointed interiors, including mahogany woodwork, upholstered furnishings and a piano. She was capable of more than 14 knots and had accommodations for about 175 overnight passengers.

The McCauley family moved to Manitowoc about the same time he took command.

Then tragedy struck.

McCauley’s father died in April 1905. On July 29, McCauley’s 7-year-old son Stanley died in Manitowoc. Four days later, daughter Alice died.

Contemporary accounts attributed their deaths to cerebrospinal meningitis.

Some newspaper reports exaggerated the epidemic, including one that incorrectly claimed McCauley’s wife and four children had died. Family and cemetery records establish that Anna survived and that Stanley and Alice were the two children who died within days of each other.

Less than eight months later, McCauley faced another crisis.

SS Atlanta

The burning of the Atlanta

On March 18, 1906, the Atlanta was southbound from Sheboygan toward Milwaukee when fire broke out in the vessel’s hold.

The ship carried 65 passengers along with combustible cargo. McCauley turned toward shore while the crew fought the flames, but the fire spread into the engineering spaces. As steam was lost, the vessel’s pumps became ineffective.

McCauley ordered the ship abandoned.

The fishing tug Tessler, commanded by Capt. Delos Smith, came alongside and assisted in removing passengers and crew. Seaman Michael Hickey died after falling into the lake while attempting to enter a lifeboat.

A cook trapped aboard was rescued after a fisherman boarded the burning steamer and enlarged a porthole so he could escape.

McCauley remained aboard until he was satisfied the evacuation was complete.

The Atlanta burned to the waterline and was declared a total loss.

An investigation determined McCauley and his crew had done everything reasonably possible. Goodrich later presented him with a gold watch for his conduct.

SS Carolina. Photo from Sable Points Media Historic Photo Collection.

The Carolina

Goodrich quickly replaced the Atlanta by purchasing another passenger steamer with deep ties to Muskegon.

The vessel had been built in Philadelphia in 1892 as the Hartford. After later serving the U.S. Army as Terry, she was purchased for Lake Michigan service and renamed Charles H. Hackley in 1901.

The name honored Muskegon lumberman Charles H. Hackley, 1837-1905, whose lumber interests made him one of the city’s leading industrialists and philanthropists.

After the Atlanta fire, Goodrich purchased the Charles H. Hackley for $80,000, eliminating a competitor while replacing its lost ship.

The vessel was rebuilt at Manitowoc and renamed Carolina. McCauley became her first Goodrich master when she entered service in June 1906.

He remained closely associated with the Carolina for nearly eight years.

One of his best-known rescues came in June 1908 when three Milwaukee yachtsmen were left clinging to the overturned yacht Vandura after a storm.

While the Carolina was passing through fog, McCauley believed he heard a faint cry. He stopped the steamer and ordered a lifeboat lowered.

The crew found the three exhausted men still clinging to the capsized yacht.

They were rescued shortly before their strength gave out.

Pere Marquette No. 5, formerly the Flint & Pere Marquette No. 5. Mason County Historical Society Rose Hawley Archives.

The Pere Marquette Line Steamers

In 1914 McCauley left the Carolina and took command of Pere Marquette No. 5, operating between Milwaukee and Ludington.

Despite the name, the ship was no longer owned by the Pere Marquette Railway.

The railroad had disposed of much of its older passenger and package freight fleet after developing railroad carferries. By 1914, Pere Marquette No. 5 belonged to the privately operated Pere Marquette Line Steamers.

Marine directories later place McCauley aboard Pere Marquette No. 4 and Pere Marquette No. 3.

The latter was already an aging ship with a troubled reputation.

Built at Gibraltar, Michigan, in 1887 as Flint & Pere Marquette No. 3, the wooden vessel had been designed by noted naval architect Frank E. Kirby. She was about 203 feet long and carried both passengers and package freight.

The railroad sold the vessel in 1903, after which she continued operating as part of Pere Marquette Line Steamers.

She had already survived repeated groundings and ice entrapments by the time McCauley took command.

Her luck finally ended off Ludington.

Pere Marquette 3 stuck in the ice.

Crushed by the ice

On March 7, 1920, McCauley departed Milwaukee aboard Pere Marquette No. 3 with 10 passengers, 33 crew members and a cargo that included automobile parts, food and motorcycles.

Because Lake Michigan was heavily iced over, the wooden steamer traveled with the much larger steel railroad carferry Pere Marquette 18 (II).

The original Pere Marquette 18 had sunk in 1910. Its replacement entered service in 1911.

The two ships reached Ludington about 4 p.m. and became trapped in ice roughly one-half mile from the harbor.

That evening the ice shifted.

Pressure began crushing the wooden hull of Pere Marquette No. 3. A bulkhead between the engine and boiler rooms failed, and water flooded the ship.

McCauley ordered life preservers distributed.

At 11:45 p.m., realizing the ship could not be saved, he ordered everyone off.

The passengers and crew walked across the ice to Pere Marquette 18 (II).

All 43 survived.

The wreck became a spectacle for Ludington. Hundreds walked across the frozen lake to see the partially submerged vessel. Some returned carrying cargo, including bacon, sausage and beef.

On March 9, Pere Marquette No. 3 disappeared beneath the ice.

The ship was raised that summer and taken to Manitowoc, but its hull was too badly damaged to repair. Its machinery was removed, and the stripped hull was eventually grounded and burned.

Back to Goodrich

McCauley returned to passenger steamers.

Bowling Green State University maritime records list him as master of the City of Holland from 1922 through 1926, the Carolina from 1927 through 1928 and the City of Holland again in 1929.

In July 1923, while commanding the City of Holland, McCauley encountered another near tragedy.

In dense fog at the mouth of the Chicago River, the power launch Longfellow collided with the steamer. Fifteen people were injured or shaken.

McCauley said he sounded warnings and ordered full speed astern as the launch approached.

“When we were hit the Holland was at a standstill,” he told reporters.

By 1930 he was master of the City of Benton Harbor. Records continue that assignment through 1932.

A life beyond the ships

More loss followed McCauley ashore.

His son Clifford died in Chicago in 1929 at age 26. Anna died two years later after more than four decades of marriage.

McCauley died Oct. 30, 1933, at the Marine Hospital in Chicago following a cerebral hemorrhage.

He was 70 years old.

He was buried at Saint Joseph Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois.

Contemporary accounts credited him with about 40 years as a Great Lakes master.

The ships provide one measure of that career: the Atlanta burned beneath him. The Carolina carried him to the rescue of stranded yachtsmen. Pere Marquette No. 3 was crushed in the ice off Ludington. The City of Holland survived a collision in the fog.

But McCauley’s life cannot be measured only through the vessels he commanded.

Behind the captain in the pilothouse was a father who buried Catherine, Stanley, Alice, Cornelius Jr. and Clifford.

At sea, McCauley learned when a ship could still be saved and when the only responsibility that mattered was getting people safely away from it.

At home, he learned that some tragedies offered no such choice.

Masters of the PM Steamers series to date:

In search of information

Editor’s Note: I am seeking historical artifacts and stories from people whose family members worked as ship captains or in Ludington’s maritime industry. While this project focuses on the Ludington carferry fleet, I am also interested in items related to anyone from Mason County who worked on the Great Lakes or oceans.

This series has three goals:

To share Ludington’s rich maritime history with readers of the Mason County Press.
To publish a biographical book about the Ludington fleet captains.
To create an interactive kiosk exhibit at the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum for historical research.

I am looking for artifacts such as photographs, written documents, or digitized materials. Items will be placed in the Mason County Historical Society archives, and donors will receive documentation of their contribution.

If you have items or stories to share, please email editor@mediagroup31.com or call/text 231-757-3202.

Note: I am also interested in collections related to the Mason County railroad industry.

If you would like to financially contribute to the book project, please click here for more information.

_______________________

Please Support Local News Coverage

For generations, local newspapers were supported by subscriptions. Today, while Mason County Press and Oceana County Press remain free to everyone, the cost of producing quality local journalism continues to rise.

If you value independent local news coverage, we invite you to help sustain it by subscribing to the MCP/OCP Daily Briefing for $12 a month — about 40 cents a day — or $120 a year.

Your subscription helps support the reporters, photographers and editors who cover local government, schools, community events, sports, breaking news and the stories that matter most to Mason and Oceana counties. In return, you’ll receive the MCP/OCP Daily Briefing each morning with the day’s headlines, along with occasional breaking news and special email editions.

Monthly subscriptions are available for $12 per month.
Click here to subscribe monthly.

Annual subscriptions are available for $120 per year.
Click here to subscribe annually.

If you prefer to pay by check, mail your $120 annual payment to:

Media Group 31, LLC
P.O. Box 21
Scottville, MI 49454

Please include your name, mailing address, email address and telephone number so we can activate your subscription.

Subscription payments must be received before service is activated.

Whether you choose to subscribe or continue enjoying our free content, thank you for reading Mason County Press and Oceana County Press. Your readership—and your support—helps ensure that independent local journalism remains available to everyone in our communities.

This story and original photography are copyrighted © 2026 by Media Group 31, LLC, P.O. Box 21, Scottville, MI 49454. All rights reserved. No portion of this story or its images may be reproduced in any form, including print, broadcast or electronic media, without the express written permission of Media Group 31, LLC.

As a news organization, Media Group 31 maintains published content as part of the public and historical record. Accordingly, stories are not removed after publication. At the editor’s discretion, stories may be updated or corrected as new information becomes available. Updates may be made by revising the original story or by publishing a follow-up story. Media Group 31, LLC reserves the right to modify this policy at any time. Please refer to our Use Policy for additional information.