President of Grand Trunk Railroad was among those who perished on the Titanic

Charles Hays

This Great Lakes History Log is presented by Filer Credit Union and the Mason County Historical Society

By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief

Charles Melville Hays, one of North America’s most powerful railroad executives, spent his final days moving confidently through the polished corridors of the RMS Titanic, a ship that symbolized the very industrial progress he helped build — and one that would ultimately claim his life.

Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR), boarded Titanic at Southampton on April 12, 1912, returning to North America with his wife, Clara, their 27-year-old daughter Orian Davidson and her husband Thornton Davidson (1880-1912), and members of his household staff. He occupied a first-class suite, befitting a man whose career had reshaped rail transportation across Canada and the United States.

Hays was born on May 16, 1856 in Rock Island, Ill., along the Mississippi River, the son of Samuel (1836-1902) Hays and Sarah (Linsey) Hays (1838-1919). His family moved to St. Louis, Mo. when he was a child.

Clara Jennings Hays

On Oct. 13, 1881, he married Clara Jennings Gregg (1859-1955). They had five daughters, Marjorie (1882-1978), Orian (1884-1979), Louise (1885-1976), Clara (1887-1979) and Margaret (1887-1956).

In 1873, at the age of 17, he began his career in the railroad business working for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in St. Louis. He served as secretary to Jay Gould, general manager of the Missouri Pacific Railroad from 1877 to 1884. In 1884, he held the same position with the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway and then became the company’s general manager in 1886. In 1889, he became vice president of the Wabash Railroad and remained in that position until 1896 when he became general manager of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.

Hays left the Grand Trunk in 1901 and became president of the Southern Pacific Railway Company but returned in January 1902 to serve as Grand Trunk’s vice president and general manager. In October 1909, he was appointed president. This position included oversight of the railroad’s subsidiary railroad and steamship companies which included the Grand Trunk Western Railway, the Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway, the Detroit and Toledo Shoreline Railroad, the Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon Railway and several others.

When Hays became general manager of GTR in 1896, it was near bankruptcy and under-performing its rival, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).  On the advice of American financier J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), the GTR board selected Hays as general manager to bring more aggressive, American business practices to the company. He reorganized the management of the company and successfully negotiated running rights with CPR. He also brought more efficiency to the handling of accounts, built new track and ordered more powerful locomotives. These changes produced an era of greater success for the railroad.

JP Morgan

Morgan’s influence extended beyond railroads. He was the founder of the International Mercantile Marine Company, the powerful shipping conglomerate that controlled the White Star Line — owner of Titanic. In many ways, the ship itself represented the same integrated transportation vision that both Morgan and Hays pursued: a seamless network linking ocean liners with continental rail systems.

Under Hays’ leadership, Grand Trunk embraced that model, expanding beyond rails into steamship operations and railcar ferries. That system placed him in the same professional orbit as Edward G. Crosby, a maritime pioneer who founded the Grand Trunk car ferry service in 1903. Crosby’s work established a vital rail–marine link across Lake Michigan, mirroring Hays’ broader strategy of uniting land and water transportation into a single network.

That system placed him in the same professional orbit as Capt. Edward G. Crosby (1842-1912), a Great Lakes maritime pioneer who founded the Grand Trunk car ferry service in 1903. Crosby’s work helped establish the rail–marine link between Michigan and Wisconsin, a concept that mirrored Hays’ broader strategy of uniting land and water transportation into a single network. Though the two men came from different sectors — one rail, the other maritime — their work was intertwined through the Grand Trunk system.

Read MCP’s history story on Crosby here.

Capt. E.G. Crosby

In April 1912, that connection became more than professional. Both men were passengers aboard Titanic.

During the voyage, Hays reportedly spoke candidly about the fierce competition among transatlantic steamship lines. According to accounts later recorded, he warned that the race for speed and prestige could lead to disaster — that one day, a great liner would push too far and tragedy would follow. It was a chilling observation, delivered just days before Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

On the night of April 14, the great ship shuddered to a stop after the collision. In the confusion that followed, Hays acted with urgency but composure. He ensured that the women in his party were escorted to lifeboats. Clara Hays and Orian Davidson survived; Charles did not.

As lifeboats were lowered and the scale of the disaster became clear, the leaders of an industrial age — financiers, engineers and transportation executives — faced the same fate as hundreds of others aboard the ship. Among them were both Hays and Crosby, two men whose careers had helped define the interconnected world of railroads and steamships.

Titanic sank in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912.

RMS Titanic

Hays’ body was later recovered by a cable ship and returned to Montreal, where he was buried at Mount Royal Cemetery. His death sent shockwaves through the railroad industry. The Grand Trunk Railway lost not only its president, but the driving force behind its ambitious expansion, including the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway — a project intended to span Canada from coast to coast.

Hays’ son-in-law, Thornton, also died in the sinking. His body was never recovered.

Crosby’s loss was felt closer to the Great Lakes, where his vision for railcar ferries had helped transform regional commerce. The service he helped establish would continue to evolve, eventually becoming a defining feature of Lake Michigan transportation, including the cross-lake operations that would later be centered in Ludington.

The deaths of Hays and Crosby aboard Titanic underscored the fragility of an era defined by confidence in technology and progress. Both men believed in the power of transportation to connect markets and people. Both helped build systems that linked rail and water into a unified whole.

And both, in the end, were passengers on a ship that represented the height of that ambition — and its limits.

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Filer Credit Union with offices in Manistee, Ludington, East Lake, and Bear Lake; filercu.com; 800.595.6630

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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