Maritime History Blog: The Break-Bulk Freighters, predecessors to the car ferries

May 4, 2025

Pere Marquette & Flint No. 4 breakbulk ship. 

 

This Maritime History Blog is a presentation of the Mason County Historical Society’s Port of Ludington Maritime Museum, ludingtonmaritimemuseum.org, located at 217 S. Lakeshore Dr., Ludington.

By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
Construction of the Flint & Pere Marquette Railway began in Saginaw, Michigan in 1859 and terminated in Ludington December 1874. From its inception the railroad’s executives envisioned transporting freight across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin.
In 1875, the F&PM chartered the 175-foot-long side wheeler steamer John Sherman to shuttle grain, packaged freight and passengers between Ludington and Sheboygan, Wisconsin to connect with the Sheboygan & Fond du Lac Railway. The Sherman only served one year as it was too small for the railroad’s needs.Break-bulk steamers carried railway freight from shore to shore. Railcars at that time did not travel across the lake, so the contents of the cars were removed, loaded onto the break-bulk steamer, shipped across Lake Michigan, then re-loaded onto railcars waiting on the other shore.
Beginning in 1876, the railroad chartered a variety of steamers from the Goodrich Transit Company, the largest Lake Michigan passenger and package-freight carrier. The Goodrich ships operated at various Wisconsin ports, but the principal route in connection with the Flint & Pere Marquette came to be the run from Milwaukee to the Michigan ports of Ludington, Manistee and Frankfort.
The F&PM ended its relations with Goodrich transit in 1883 and purchased two steamers for its own operation out of Ludington, F&PM Nos. 1 and 2. Both were typical Great Lakes propellers at the time, with their engines aft and a single tier of cabins for 25 passengers on the spar deck. A spar deck is the upper deck of a ship that extends from stem to stern.
With an increase in traffic in the late 1880s the railroad expanded its fleet by three ships: F&PM Nos. 3, 4, and 5, built in 1887, 1888, and 1890, respectively. Nos 3 and 4 were break-bulk and passenger steamers, similar to the original pair, but larger. No. 5 was a 226-foot package freighter, built without passenger accommodations. It was intended mainly for winter flour movements across the lake.

The John Sherman sidewheeler

________________

Please Support Local News

Receive daily MCP and OCP news briefings along with email news alerts for $10 a month. Your contribution will help us to continue to provide you with free local news. 

Payment can be made monthly via credit card, bank account, PayPal or Venmo through recurring email invoicing. These payments can be set up for autopay each month.

To sign up, email editor@mediagroup31.com. In the subject line write: Subscription. Please supply your name, email address, mailing address, and phone number (indicate cell phone). We will not share your information with any outside sources. For more than one email address in a household, the cost is $15 per month per email address.

Alternative methods:

PayPal Monthly Payment. Click this link.

We can send you an invoice for a yearly payment of $120, which you can conveniently pay online or by check. If you are interested in this method, please email editor@mediagroup31.com and we can sign you up. You can also mail a yearly check for $120 to Media Group 31, PO Box 21, Scottville, MI 49454 (please include your email address).

Payment must be made in advance prior to subscription activation.

We appreciate all our readers regardless of whether they choose to continue to access our service for free or with a monthly financial support.

_____

This story and original photography are copyrighted © 2025, all rights reserved by Media Group 31, LLC, PO Box 21, Scottville, MI 49454. No portion of this story or images may be reproduced in any way, including print or broadcast, without expressed written consent.

As the services of Media Group 31, LLC are news services, the information posted within the sites are archivable for public record and historical posterity. For this reason it is the policy and practice of this company to not delete postings. It is the editor’s discretion to update or edit a story when/if new information becomes available. This may be done by editing the posted story or posting a new “follow-up” story. Media Group 31, LLC or any of its agents have the right to make any changes to this policy. Refer to Use Policy for more information.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Eats & Drinks

Eats & Drinks

Eats & Drinks