SS Independence Hall
Brothers Bill and Eugene Curott both served as captains of seagoing ships
Great Lakes History Log is presented by Filer Credit Union with offices in Manistee, Ludington, East Lake, and Bear Lake and the Mason County Historical Society, which operates the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum, Historic White Pine Village and the Rose Hawley Archives in downtown Ludington.
By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
In the early- to mid-20th century, it wasn’t uncommon for young men in Mason County to get a job in the maritime industry. Afterall, Ludington was home port to a fleet of car ferries that crossed Lake Michigan year-round. The port also saw heavy freighter traffic as well. But, the freshwater seas did not call brothers Bill and Eugene Curott. Instead, they chose the life on the salties, sailing the oceans.
Bill’s sailing career spanned 45 years, including 34 years as a captain. Eugene’s career and life were cut short after he died in a shipwreck on the North Atlantic Ocean during World War II.
William “Bill” John Curott and Eugene Alphonso Curott were the sons of William Frank (1863-1938) and Elizabeth “Lizzie” (1864-1994) Curott. William Frank was born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada and came to the United States sometime between 1869 to 1871. Lizzie was born in Pentwater. William Frank was a printer for a newspaper. Census and other historical records show William Frank living in Grand Rapids and Muskegon at times and owning a farm in Summit Township, where Lizzie and the children normally lived. The Curott farm was located near the intersection of Lakeshore Drive and Meisenheimer Road.
From left: Eugene Curott, John Kistler, James Jensen, Maurice Kistler and Larry Kistler. Year unknown. Written on the back is “Ready to depart from home to Upper Peninsula for hunting trip,” written by Ruby Jensen. Photo from the Mason County Historical Society Rose Hawley Archives.
The Curotts had eight children, William John was the oldest son and Eugene was the youngest son. The family included: Estelle Marie (1884-1979), William “Bill” John (1886-1958), Frank Louis (1889-1977), Harry Guy (1890-1978), Ellen Margaret (1892-1987), Cosette (1895-1979), Eugene Alphonso (1899-1942) and Florence Elizabeth (1903-2004).
Florence would later marry Bernard “Bunny” Robertson (1906-1992), who served as the captain of the SS Badger carferry from its maiden voyage in 1952 until he retired in the late 1960s. Bunny’s father, Charles (1880-1944) was also a carferry captain and commanded several ships including the SS City of Midland 41.
The journey of Eugene Curott’s career ran parallel to the career of his brother Bill, who was 13 years older. Bill began sailing when he was 16 years old.
Eugene and Elsie Curott and their daughter Elsie.
In 1910, Bill served in the U.S. Navy onboard the ship USS Stewart. He also got married that year to Wilma Winifred Minsker (1886-1922) in Los Angeles. Bill and Wilma had two children, William Claude (1913-1984) and Phylis Clair (1916-2007). Following Wilma’s death, Bill married Genevieve Cornelissens (1903-1970) of Grand Rapids. They had two daughters, Elizabeth Mary (1928-1982) and Genevieve (1929-2019). Bill and Genevieve divorced in 1936. Bill married his third wife, Bertha, around 1938. According to his obituary, published on Feb. 1, 1958, Bertha, had been living in New York City at the time of his death, where she worked as a school teacher.
Bill’s career took him to Portland, Ore., Philadelphia, New York City, and then New Orleans. He also served on ships during World War I. Bill became a captain at the age of 41 in 1927.
Among the ships he commanded were the Moore-McCormack Line’s Mormalcark, Mormacpenn, and Mormac-york.
Eugene married Elsie Sinclair on June 12, 1906 in New Orleans. They had one daughter, Elaine, born in 1932.
While Audrey Robertson-Boals (daughter of Bill and Eugene’s sister Florence Robertson) never knew her uncle Eugene, she did know her uncle Bill. She said Uncle Bill was known as the wild one in the family and apparently Uncle Eugene had been the “saint.”
Capt. Bill Curott
When Eugene began sailing isn’t known but, based on census records, it appears he was in his late teens or early 20s. By 1920, he was living in San Francisco, then Seattle in 1923, where he served as a deck officer on the ship President Jackson, New York City in 1930, New Orleans in 1935 and Baltimore in 1940. Census records indicate that he was licensed as a captain in 1934.
An Aug. 25, 1934 Ludington Daily News article discussing a visit home from Eugene and his family discussed his new command.
“They had expected to stay a month, but after only four days Capt. Curott was summoned back to take command of a ship.
“Though the sudden termination of their visit was a disappointment, it was also gratifying, for, though, Mr. Curott had carried master’s papers for some time, he is young and this is his first ship. His appointment also means promotion for his brother, Capt. William Curott, as the latter is transferred to a larger ship and Eugene takes the one he is leaving.”
Both Curott brothers worked most of their careers for the Moore-McCormack Line, which was a series of companies, based out of New York City, that was founded in 1913. A 1938 newspaper article described Bill Curott as the company’s oldest captain and brother Eugene as its youngest.
The company was founded by Albert V. Moore (1880-1953) and Emmet J. McCormack and began with one ship, the SS Montara, which operated from the United States to Brazil.
Moore-McCormack grew significantly after World War I when it acquired several surplus vessels from the U.S. government. Its ships called on ports in the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and were the first American-flagged ships to go to the Soviet Union. In 1928, the company’s vice president, Robert C. Lee, negotiated for Mooremack, as the company was often called, to become shipping agents for the USSR, using the American Scantic Line, which it bought from the U.S. government. He also later negotiated with the government of Poland for the shipping company to be part of the establishment of the city of Gdynia as Poland’s seaport, which led to establishment of trade from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Austria through Gydnia. The establishment of Gydnia as a port was one of the factors in the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland in the beginning of World War II. In 1938, following a consolidation, Moore-McCormack contracted to operate 10 cargo ships and three ocean liners belonging to the U.S. Maritime Commission between the U.S. and South America, known as the Good Neighbor Fleet.
In the spring of 1942, Bill Curott was master of a former German ocean liner that had been interned by the Mexican government following the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The ship was turned over to the U.S. government and rechristened as the Pueblo and used as a convoy and troop transport ship.
During that same time, Eugene was the captain of the SS Independence Hall, one of 122 vessels known as “Hog Islanders” that were built at a shipyard on Hog Island, Penn., west of Philadelphia on the Delaware River near the end of World War I. The ship was completed in 1920 and named after Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
On Dec. 4, 1939, the ship’s crew rescued 300 civilians, including women and children, from two British merchant ships, the SS City of Mandalay and the SS Yorkshire, that were torpedoed and sank by a German submarine U-37 in the Bay of Biscay. See a news reel video covering the news of the rescue here.
The Independence Hall ran regularly between South America and the United States. Assigned to war convoy duty, it was on its first convoy trip, to Murmansk, Russia, USSR, via the North Atlantic Ocean.
The Independence Hall sailed from Philadelphia for Murmansk on March 1, 1942, carrying a full load of cargo below and above deck, including several tons of explosives.
Large tanks lashed with chains to steel cradles, welded to the decks, were stacked alongside the hatches. Four hatch covers were loaded with army truck chassis in huge wooden crates, lashed with chains. No. 3 hatch was covered with 5-gallon carboys.
Hogg Island Shipyards
The ship loaded in Philadelphia for eight days. Three days were apparently spent in indecision while shipping and stevedore officials decided whether the lashings were secure and whether the ship could safely depart.
The Independence Hall sailed from Philadelphia in convoy SC-73. She stopped at Halifax for some hours on March 6. The voyage up was uneventful and calm. One hour out of Halifax, the ship ran into heavy weather. Waves began breaking over the deck. The ship took a terrific battering throughout the night.
During World War II, 111 sailors and soldiers from Mason County died as a result of the war. While the majority of those who lost their lives were part of the U.S. Armed Forces, another group of unsung heroes is often forgotten, the U.S. Merchant Marine. Among those who died was Capt. Eugene Curott, who grew up in Summit Township.
On the morning of Saturday, March 7, 1942, the carboys broke loose. About 11 a.m. the bosun, an able body seaman, and a deck cadet were sent on deck to see if the lashing was secure.
The AB was washed overboard. The bosun was washed up against a bulkhead by a wave and his head was cut open badly.
The ship was turned around to pick up the AB. The bosun was carried aft to the focsle, the crew’s living quarters. The third mate, Mr. Lee, came back to the focsle to stop the flow of blood.
Two hours were spent in fruitless search for the AB. The ship then went on its way. About an hour later, an AB who was sent on deck, noticed that the ship had broken in two in the middle of No. 3 hatch. There was no forewarning. The forward half was then about 30 fathoms away. When the engineer noted that the ship had cracked in the middle, he set the engines full speed astern. The engines were in the aft half of the ship.
Most of the crew who were in the galley and those in the focsle did not know the ship had cracked in half.
The third mate, Mr. Lee, took command. Capt. Curott, three other mates, two ABs were in the forward half of the ship that drifted away, lost to the ocean. Eugene Curott was 42 years old.
The carboys piled on No. 3 hatch that had previously broken loose. Under the pounding of the waves, the wooden crates which held the truck chassis on the other four hatches, were broken and the cargo began to shift over the deck.
The waves were 40 to 50 feet high at times.
The third mate decided to try to lower a boat. After 20 minutes’ effort, the effort was given up.
Several hours after it broke in two, the ship grounded about two miles off of Sable Island. The ship was sending out a continuous SOS. Sable Island is a long low sand bar lying about 200 miles off the coast of Canada on the Newfoundland Grand Banks.
About 9:35 p.m. Saturday, March 6, a plane flew over the ship. About an hour later, three more planes flew over and signaled that help was coming. Later, three Canadian destroyers drew up about two miles from the grounded Independence Hall.
The ships put out lifeboats which were swept past the ship by the waves and ended up capsizing.
HMS Witch
A British destroyer, the HMS Witch, under the command of Lt. Cmdr. Cecil Hamilton Holmes, put a sailboat overboard to make soundings on how close it could approach the wrecked half of the Independence Hall. That boat capsized as well.
On Sunday, March 8, the British sent a lifeboat which made it to the wrecked ship, taking 15 men off. A second trip was made and nine more were rescued.
The sea was so rough and the work so dangerous that there was some debate on the British destroyer as to whether any more risks should be taken to rescue the other 14 men on the ship.
Two more trips were made and all the men were eventually taken off with the exception of Dick Nathan, a wiper, Savaria, the cook, and an oiler who had died.
The last man to leave the ship was the third mate.
“If it wasn’t for the third mate using his head and doing everything possible to keep up the morale of the crew, the results would have been much different,” crew member Dan McDonald said. “In our honest opinion there wouldn’t have been more than one or two saved.”
One of the British boat crew was lost in making the rescue.
McDonald was in the unenviable position for two and a half hours of being along in the flocked focsle aft and never knowing whether he would get out.
One doorway was blocked by cargo. The other was shut tight by the mountainous seas. McDonald was unable to get through the emergency escape, because of the steam pipes running through which blocked his rather large bulk. He had the choice of being burnt by the steam pipes or staying in the focsle. McDonald managed to escape when suddenly the door leading out of the focsle that had been blocked by the high seas, flew open. He dashed across the well deck to safety.
Most historical records state that 10 crew members, including Capt. Eugene Curott of Ludington, died while 37 were rescued. However, only seven deceased crew members are listed in multiple accounts.
A book published in 1943 titled “Sabotage, the Secret War Against America,” by Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn, claimed that the Independent Hall was actually sabotaged. According to a Sept. 22, 1943 article in the Ludington Daily News, the book claims that in an eight-week period in early 1942, eight American merchant ships bound for the Soviet Union and heavily loaded with war supplies vital to the Red Army each suffered strange and similar fates. Three of the ships, including the Independence Hall, foundered while four others were able to return to port including one that had been torpedoed as it struggled to return.
Thousands of tons of munitions, airplane parts, tanks, guns and other war materials went down with the ships that sank. In addition to Capt. Eugene Curott, 16 seamen lost their lives. In each case, “shifting cargo” was to blame for the wreckage.
On March 26, 1942, Joseph Curran, president of the National Maritime Union, which had undertaken an investigation, appeared before a special hearing of the House of Representatives on the merchant marine in Washington, D.C. He presented to the committee the findings of the investigation and began by pointing out that shifting cargo was a danger that for some time past had rarely been encountered by seamen.
“For many years,” Curran told the congressmen, “we as seamen have been sailing ships that carried deck loads and we never lost any of that cargo. It was properly lashed and secured to stay snug in the worst type of ocean weather. In this particular case, since this was has begun, something has happened to each of these eight ships, one after the other.”
Curran presented supporting affidavits of the men who were on the ships stating that the ships were all loaded by one stevedoring company.
“I understand that the owner of the stevedoring company was supposed to have been interned in the last war as a dangerous alien,” Curran testified.
Capt. Bill Curott’s grave at Lakeview Cemetery in Ludington.
List of the known dead from the SS Independence Hall
Eugene A. Curott, master
Frederick L. Edwards, chief mate
Edward Ginivan, oiler
Oliver M. Jones, second mate
Paul McCray, able body seaman
Richard Nathan, wiper
Vibencio Sarabia, chief cook
In 1936, Bill Curott purchased his parents’ farm in Summit Township. After he retired in 1948, he returned to Mason County and operated a Christmas tree farm on the property. He also produced maple syrup as well. Bill died at home at the age of 71 in January 1958. Remnants of the farm, including the house, are still on the property.
In addition to his sister, Florence Robertson, his other sister, Cosette Kistler (married to Larry Kistler), had remained in Mason County. The other siblings had moved to other locations.
Eugene Alphonso Curott is one of 111 sailors and soldiers from Mason County who died during World War II. As a member of the U.S. Merchant Marine, his sacrifice is recognized on equal standing as those who served in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Sources:
Mason County Historical Society Rose Hawley Archives
Ancestry.com
Newspapers.com
Ludington Daily News
Muskegon Chronicle
V&W Destroyer Association
Audrey Robertson Boals
The Mason County Historical Society is a non-profit charitable organization that was founded in 1937 that does not receive any governmental funding. It owns and operates the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum in Ludington, Historic White Pine Village in Pere Marquette Township, and The Rose Hawley Archives and the Mason County Emporium and Sweet Shop in downtown Ludington.
For more information about donating to and/or joining the Mason County Historical Society, visit masoncountymihistory.org.
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