The ''Metamora'' was a wooden tug commissioned in 1864 and used predominantly for ferrying passengers and goods in the

Georgian Bay Georgian Bay (french: Baie Georgienne) is a large bay of Lake Huron, in the Laurentia bioregion. It is located entirely within the borders of Ontario, Canada. The main body of the bay lies east of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. To ...

area of

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. It ran onto a shallow shoal near Turning Island in Georgian Bay on July 30, 1907, caught fire and sank in six feet of water. She was constructed at the Peck & Masters shipyard in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

in 1864. The ship was 121 feet long, and 21 feet wide, and displaced about 300 tons. The ''Metamora'' was originally fitted out with armour-plating and a cannon, and was tasked with patrolling the waters of what was then

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the ...

for

Fenian The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...

raiders. These were removed in the 1870s, when the Fenian threat had diminished, and the ''Metamora'' then plied the waters of

as a freighter and passenger vessel. It was being used primarily as a logging tug boat, by the Burton Bros. of Collingwood in 1895, Midland lumbermen James Playfair & Company purchased the Metamora along with three barges and a large quantity of boom logs, for use in connection with their lumbering business.

Sinking and wreck

On September 29, 1907 the ''Metamora'' was towing a boom, bound for the mill town of Byng Inlet, when she struck a shallow shoal just west of Turning Island, relatively near Pointe au Baril. She caught fire and sank in shallow water, with all of her crew and passengers surviving by swimming the relatively short distance to shore. The Metamora was owned by the Midland Towing and Wrecking Co.The Railway And Marine World magazine, May 1907 For many years afterward a portion of the upper deck that did not burn was visible above the water. Currently the ''Metamora''s boiler is the only portion of the ship that can still be seen above the surface. It is known locally as "The Wreck". The boiler has been painted white and a channel marker has been attached to it as a hazard warning for the boats that travel in this area. The shallow waters have also made the ship a favourite haunt for scuba divers. The wreck is located at .

Notes

External links

Bowling Green State University, Historical Collections of the Great Lakes: Vessel Images, MetamoraLost Magazine October 2008: Maritime History-Growing up with a shipwreckPanoramio: Aerial photograph of the wreck site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Metamora (Shipwreck) 1864 ships Maritime incidents in 1907 Shipwrecks of Lake Huron Ships built in Cleveland Tugboats on the Great Lakes Tugboats of Canada