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Capt. Peter Kilty. Photo from Marge Christiansen collection.
Remembering the Pere Marquette 18, Sept. 9, 1910
This Great Lakes History Log is presented by Filer Credit Union, the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum and Sable Points Media.
By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
LUDINGTON – Marge Christiansen grew up knowing that her great-grandfather, Capt. Peter Kilty (1860-1910), had died aboard one of the most famous ships in Ludington history.
But in her family, Kilty was never remembered simply as the captain whose ship sank.
“We were always very proud of the fact that he was the captain of the 18, regardless of the fact that it sank,” Christiansen said.
One hundred sixteen years ago today, on Sept. 9, 1910, Kilty stood aboard Pere Marquette 18 as the railroad carferry fought for its life about 20 miles off the Wisconsin shoreline.
Pere Marquette 18 on excursion in Chicago. Photo from Mason County Historical Society Rose Hawley Archives.
For hours, Kilty and his crew tried to save the vessel as water continued to pour into its stern. Railroad cars were pushed overboard. Pumps ran continuously. The ship changed course toward Wisconsin. Distress calls went out by wireless.
Then, shortly after 7 a.m., Pere Marquette 18 suddenly went down.
Kilty was last seen on the ship’s bridge.
The disaster claimed 29 lives, including two crewmen from Pere Marquette 17 who died during the rescue effort. It remains the worst disaster in the history of Ludington’s railroad carferry fleet.
For Christiansen, however, the story of Sept. 9, 1910, was never just a maritime disaster. It was a family story passed down through Kilty’s daughter, Mary Elizabeth (Kilty) Tripp Stram (1889-1979), Christiansen’s grandmother.
“I pretty much grew up with the stories,” Christiansen said. “Grandma never talked about it that much, but it was just always part of the family.”
Mary Elizabeth (Kilty) Tripp Stram. Photo from Marge Christiansen collection.
Christiansen said her grandmother was especially close to her father.
One of the few stories she remembered Elizabeth telling involved the days immediately before her father’s final trip.
During the summers of 1909 and 1910, Pere Marquette 18 had been chartered for excursion service between Chicago and Waukegan. The railroad tracks on its car deck were covered with flooring and the vessel was converted to carry excursion passengers.
Its 1910 excursion season ended over Labor Day weekend. The 18 returned to Ludington at 6 p.m. Sept. 7, where crews began converting it back into a railroad carferry. Contemporary newspaper reports said the vessel had been inspected while in Chicago and had been found in good condition.
Marge Christiansen
But Christiansen said the story passed down by her grandmother was different.
“The story goes from my grandmother that when it came back that year of 1910, he wasn’t happy with the condition of the ship,” she said. “He said he didn’t think that the Chicago captain took very good care of it.”
According to the family story, Kilty believed the ship needed additional attention before returning to regular service.
“I know he didn’t feel like it was ready for sailing, according to Grandmother,” Christiansen said.
Elizabeth was about 21 years old at the time. Her father had been home while the ship was being readied for service, and Christiansen said her grandmother did not want him to leave again.
Kilty reassured her.
“He told her, ‘Don’t worry,'” Christiansen recalled. “He said, ‘I’m going to take it across the lake for this one run, and then bring it back, and then they’ll be inspecting it some more. And so I’ll be home for a while.'”
Christiansen paused when recalling what happened next.
“Well, then that never happened.”
Peter Kilty, center, standing, with other officers on board the pilothouse of the Petoskey. Photo from Marge Christiansen collection.
From Beaver Island to the carferries
Peter Kilty had spent virtually his entire life on the water.
He was born in January 1860 on Beaver Island, the son of Irish immigrants Patrick Kilty (1813-1900) and Mary McCarthy Kilty (1825-1900). Christiansen said family tradition held that the Kiltys came from County Cork, Ireland, although some Beaver Island records have associated the family with County Mayo.
The family made its living in an environment dominated by fishing and farming.
“It seemed like the maritime part really took hold of the family,” Christiansen said.
Kilty began working around boats as a boy. By his teenage years he was finding work aboard schooners. He eventually moved south along the Lake Michigan shoreline, living and working around Elk Rapids, Onekama, Frankfort and Manistee.
He married Mary Nackerman (1862-1953), whose family had lived in Marquette before settling in Elk Rapids. The couple had four children: Alfred (1881-1948), John Peter, Claude P. (1887-1948) and Mary Elizabeth (later Tripp and Stram, 1889-1979).
Kilty advanced from fishing boats into passenger steamers and eventually into the new railroad carferry industry.
The SS Petoskey about 1874. Photo from Marge Christiansen collection.
He served on the passenger steamer Adrian and later the Petoskey. In February 1896, he became captain of Ann Arbor No. 1, the first railroad ferry built specifically to carry loaded railroad cars across Lake Michigan.
On May 20, 1898, Kilty took command of the Flint & Pere Marquette Railway’s first steel carferry, the Pere Marquette (later known as the Pere Marquette 15).
By 1910, he was regarded as the senior captain of the Ludington fleet.
In November 1902, Kilty took command of the new Pere Marquette 18, one of a new generation of steel railroad ferries being added to the Ludington fleet.
The 338-foot ship could carry about 30 railroad cars and had extensive passenger accommodations. With 50 cabins and berths for as many as 250 passengers, it became known as the flagship of the Pere Marquette fleet.
Kilty’s reputation grew with the ship.
A 1904 Ludington Record Appeal article described him as a captain respected by both railroad management and the men who sailed under him.
“No man in the line is more respected, more looked up to, or more universally popular than the modest, agreeable, gentlemanly skipper of the flagship,” the newspaper wrote.
Christiansen said those old newspaper accounts helped shape the way later generations of the family viewed him.
“In reading the newspaper articles that came out at that time all over the country, it was amazing,” she said. “The local ones, he seemed to be held in the highest regard locally in the town.”
March 15, 1910. From left to right: Wheelsman Simon Burke, Second Mate Walter Brown, Capt. Peter Kilty, First Mate Joseph Brezinski. Burke survived. Photo from Mason County Historical Society collection.
The final crossing
At 11:40 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8, 1910, Pere Marquette 18 departed Ludington for Milwaukee.
It carried 29 freight cars, passengers and a crew that included several cleaners still aboard following the vessel’s conversion from excursion service.
For the first several hours, the crossing appeared normal.
About 3:30 a.m., an oiler discovered a large amount of water in an aft compartment. First Assistant Engineer C.L. Rosencrans reported the problem to First Mate Joseph Brezinski, who notified Kilty.
Kilty immediately went to the pilothouse.
A broken deadlight – a heavy cover over a porthole – was initially believed to be the source. The crew closed it and started the pumps.
But the water kept rising.
The stern began settling deeper into Lake Michigan. Strong north winds pushed whitecaps across the car deck, and Kilty changed course to the south in an effort to ease the strain on the ship.
At about 4:10 a.m., the situation worsened.
Kilty ordered the ship turned toward Wisconsin and slowed the engines. Five minutes later, he summoned all hands.
Pere Marquette 17. Photo from Mason County Historical Society Rose Hawley Archives.
Purser and wireless operator Stephen F. Sczepanek began transmitting distress calls.
“17-17-17-18 – come help, come help,” one message stated.
Kilty then ordered railroad cars pushed over the stern in an effort to lighten the ship.
Between nine and 15 cars were reportedly jettisoned before others became stuck. A forward seacock was opened in an attempt to equalize the vessel’s weight.
Chief Steward Frank Young later recalled Kilty coming aft to personally watch the effort to remove the cars.
Kilty eventually ordered the lifeboats lowered and positioned alongside the ship in case they were needed.
For a time, it appeared the effort was working.
Pere Marquette 17, responding from Milwaukee, sighted the 18 at about 6:30 a.m.
Even then, Kilty and his officers apparently believed they could save the ship and reach Sheboygan.
At 7:15 a.m., the 17 drew alongside.
Then everything changed.
Pere Marquette 18 suddenly took on a tremendous amount of water.
The order came for everyone to jump.
Within moments, the flagship disappeared beneath Lake Michigan.
The stern went down first.
Kilty was last seen on the bridge.
Post card depicting a painting of the sinking of the PM 18. From the Mason County Historical Society Rose Hawley Archives.
“I can’t imagine what he would have been thinking”
More than a century later, Christiansen said she found herself thinking less about the mechanical mystery of the sinking and more about the man standing on the bridge as his ship disappeared beneath him.
“I can’t imagine what he would have been thinking standing there as that ship that he loved so much, and that he was the main captain of it since the beginning,” she said.
“How could this possibly be happening?”
The cause of the sinking was never conclusively determined.
Federal inspectors could not explain how enough water entered the vessel to overwhelm it. The broken deadlight first discovered by the crew was not large enough to account for the flooding.
Investigators considered several possibilities, including an open seacock or water entering through openings on the car deck. Another theory held that a hull plate may have loosened during the summer excursion season and opened further once the vessel was heavily loaded with freight cars.
Christiansen said she has also read later suggestions that Kilty’s decision to dump freight cars overboard indicated that he was more concerned about saving railroad property than protecting the people aboard.
She rejected that interpretation.
“I just can’t imagine what he would have been thinking,” she said. “Naturally I’m biased in that area.”
For her, the decisions made aboard the 18 could not be separated from Kilty’s decades of experience or the fact that, until the final moments, the officers believed they could save the vessel.
“As you get older, you think more about that,” Christiansen said. “You don’t think of it as a kid so much.”
Kilty family gravesite at Mt. Carmel Cemetery. Rob Alway photo.
Died at his post
Kilty’s body was recovered several days after the sinking and returned to Ludington.
The loss stunned the community.
The Ludington Record Appeal devoted extensive coverage to the veteran captain, publishing a tribute under the headline “Died at His Post.”
Years before the disaster, the same newspaper had described Kilty as one of the most respected captains in the fleet.
Now his career had ended aboard the flagship he had commanded for nearly eight years.
“The captain has made his last trip,” the newspaper wrote. “He has made the harbor of final destiny.”
Kilty was buried at Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery in Filer Township, Manistee County.
For his descendants, however, the story did not end there.
Christiansen’s father, George H. Tripp (1913-1979), was born aboard another Lake Michigan steamer in 1913, only three years after his grandfather was lost aboard the 18.
He later told his daughter that he would have liked to work on the carferries.
His mother would not allow it.
“Grandma didn’t want him to have anything to do with it,” Christiansen said.
The lake remained part of the family nevertheless.
Years later, Christiansen’s own son worked aboard the Ludington carferries while attending college.
And Christiansen continued researching the Kilty family and the maritime history that surrounded it.
She said genealogy became important to her partly because it allowed her to understand why her ancestors moved from place to place and how their lives fit into the larger history of Ludington and Lake Michigan.
The story of Peter Kilty was always at the center of that history.
“We never looked on it with disdain at all,” Christiansen said of the sinking. “It was always a matter of pride.”
On Sept. 9, 1910, Ludington lost its flagship and many of the men and women who sailed aboard it.
The Kilty family lost a father and grandfather.
And Lake Michigan lost one of the most experienced captains of the early railroad carferry era.
For Marge Christiansen, 116 years later, he remained something more personal.
He was the great-grandfather whose story she had heard since childhood – a Beaver Island fisherman who worked his way into the pilothouse of Ludington’s flagship and remained there to the end.
Masters of the PM Steamers series to date:
- Capt. John Stewart was first skipper of the Ludington fleet 150 years ago
- Capt. Muir commanded first Ludington ‘black boat’ until his death
- Ludington fleet captain Duddleson skippered the famed L.C. Waldo during the 1913 storm
- The remarkable career of Capt. Joseph Russell
- Capt. John Doyle, first master of the PM 19
- Capt. Dority commanded several PM ships, the Ann Arbor 2 and the notorious Eastland
- Three generations of Robertsons commanded carferries
- Searching for the masters of Lake Michigan’s railroad steamers
- From ship enthusiast to carferry captain, Gregg Andersen lived a Lake Michigan dream
- Peter Kilty: From Beaver Island fisherman to captain of a Great Lakes legend
- Following the captains: Wisconsin trip adds to Ludington maritime research
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.
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