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Submitted by Linda Talbott
for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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    VESSEL NAME:   Titan
    OTHER NAME(s): -
    OFFICIAL NO:   24149
    DATE OF LOSS:  5 November 1869
    REASON:        Storm
    LOCATION:      Lake Michigan, near Pentwater
    RIG TYPE:      Schooner
    HULL TYPE:     Wood
    BUILDER:       Gobel & Crockett, Oswego, N.Y., - 1856
    OWNER(S):      R. C. Rounsawell, Chicago
    MASTER:        Samuel Holford, Port Dalhousie
    TONNAGE:       361 gt
    DIMENSIONS:    131.9 x 25.8 x 12
    CASUALTIES:    8
    SURVIVORS:     1

                   Left Chicago on Thursday, November 3rd, with 17,643
                bushels of wheat for Buffalo. The following night she was
                struck by a squall which left her foresail and jibs in
                strips.  When about six miles south of Pentwater she cast
                both her anchors but began to drag about an hour later and
                was blown ashore where she went to pieces very quickly.
                The only survivor, John Purshaw, of Conneaut, Ohio, had
                shipped just before the TITAN left Chicago.
                   In June, 1871, W. B. Putney, the light-keeper at Pent-
                water, discovered a note in a bottle buried in the sand.
                The note was signed by Byron Bensen, Williamston, Mich.,
                who claimed to be aboard the TITAN and that she was
                sinking.

            Victims (partial list)
            Samuel Holford, captain
            Henry Bunce, mate, Kingsville, Ohio


 ========================================================================
Sources: Misc. Documents of the House of Reprentatives, Vol. 1431,
            1869-1870, Disasters on the Lakes
         East Shore News (Pentwater, MI), 9th June 1871
         Oceana Times (Oceana county, MI), 12th November 1869
         Finn "Old Shipping Days In Oswego", p. 190
         Inland Seas, Vol 47 (1991), p. 18 & 23

Last upated 15 July 2014