SS William C. Moreland

47°25.047′N 88°19.421′W / 47.417450°N 88.323683°W / 47.417450; -88.323683

SS William C. Moreland was a steel–hulled American lake freighter in service for less than two months in late–1910. She was built between May and July 1910, by the American Ship Building Company of Lorain, Ohio, for the Interstate Steamship Company, a subsidiary of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company. She entered service on September 1, 1910, upon undertaking her maiden voyage for Superior, Wisconsin. She usually carried coal on upbound voyages, and iron ore when downbound.

At 03:55 on October 18, 1910, William C. Moreland departed Superior amid clement weather, laden with 10,700 long tons (10,872 t) of iron ore destined for Ashtabula, Ohio. With her crew's visibility obscured by several forest fires on the Keweenaw Peninsula, William C. Moreland struck Sawtooth Reef near Eagle River, Michigan, shortly before 21:00, while running at full speed. Due to her extreme speed and the momentum generated by the immense mass of her cargo, William C. Moreland ran over the first ridges of the reef, coming to a halt over the rocks of the second; all efforts by the crew to free her proved fruitless.

The following day, a storm beset her wreck, moving it further onto the reef and preventing any salvage work. On the morning of October 20, William C. Moreland's hull broke in half between the 10th and 11th hatches, followed by a further split in the hull between the 22nd and 23rd hatches a few hours later. Salvage efforts, which were plagued by several mishaps, ended on September 1, 1911, with the recovery of only William C. Moreland's stern, which was later repurposed in the construction of the freighter Sir Trevor Dawson. William C. Moreland's bow section eventually slipped off the reef into 25–40 feet (7.6–12.2 m) of water, where it has since been flattened by ice and waves, eventually ecoming a prominent feature of the Keweenaw Underwater Preserve.