United States. Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation

Certificate of award of number to an undocumented vessel for a small 26 ft. gas screw pleasure craft, operating out of Port Clinton, Ohio.

The collection contains transcripts, exhibits, and supplementary items from the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation convened on November 18, 1975, eight days after the EDMUND FITZGERALD sank in Lake Superior with her entire crew of twenty-nine men. The purpose of the inquiry was to determine the causes of the tragedy and to examine safety procedures. Indexes are available for exhibits and testimony in addition to an index for each of the seven volumes of the transcript.

Commercial traffic can be examined from the vessel, cargo and crew data compiled in the abstracts to form a view of the Great lakes regional economy around the middle of the nineteenth century. The information in each abstract generally contains dates of arrivals and departures, name and rig of vessel, clearance and departure ports, tonnage and crew data.

This collection contains ceritifcations and other materials obtained by sailor Richard D. Timbers while serving on the Great Lakes in 1943-1944. Included are pay stubs, identification documents, postcards written to Timbers' brother(?) Dwight, and federal seaman's certificates. Also present are membership books for the National Maritime Union of America and the International Association of Machinists.

Annual reports of accidents and maritime law cases on the Great Lakes which were investigated by the Steamboat Inspection service and its successor, the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation.