Marquette and Bessemer No. 2. Original post on Facebook

The accompanying advertisement for the Marquette & Bessemer Dock & Navigation Company appeared in the July 1923 edition of “The Official Guide of the Railways & Steam Navigation Lines” to promote its Lake Erie car Ferry service from Conneaut, Ohio to Port Stanley and Erieau, Ontario with the car Ferry Marquette & Bessemer No. 2. The M&B was organized in April 1903 and was jointly owned by the Pere Marquette and Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroads. The company was formed mainly to carry American coal to southern Ontario and Michigan markets although it also formed a through line for traffic to and from Pittsburgh via Erieau from the Northwest by way of the Pere Marquette’s Lake Michigan and St. Clair River car Ferry services. Originally, coal was shipped from Conneaut to Erieau in bulk in the company’s Marquette & Bessemer No. 1, a 1903 built collier of a most unusual and unique design, with rail car traffic being carried by the car Ferry Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 and her predecessors. Connections were made with the PM directly at Erieau or via the PM leased London & Port Stanley Railway at Port Stanley. When the PM did not renew its lease of the L&PS in 1914 it appears that the PM was starting to lose interest in the M&B operation.

Around 1915 the M&B No. 1 was leased to another PM subsidiary, the Lake Erie Navigation Co., which was controlled by yet another PM subsidiary, the Lake Erie Coal Co. This arrangement enabled the M&B No. 1 to carry coal from ports other than Conneaut to the Lake Erie Coal Co. yard at Erieau. This lease arrangement lasted until 1930 when she was returned to the M&B and permanently laid up. By then the whole M&B operation was incurring financial losses. Car Ferry service to Erieau had ended in November 1927 when a storm damaged the car Ferry dock which was not repaired. As a result the M&B embargoed car Ferry traffic to Erieau and restricted itself to the Port Stanley run whose traffic was also declining. Service to Port Stanley ended in August 1932 when the Interstate Commerce Commission approved the abandonment of the whole operation. Following abandonment, both the M&B No. 1 and the M&B No. 2 were subsequently sold.

Author’s Note: The Lake Erie Navigation Company also purchased the bulk freighter, H.A. Rock in 1927 and renamed her Alexander Leslie, a prominent Ontario railway official in the Pere Marquette Railway’s Marquette & Bessemer Dock & Navigation Co., Lake Erie Coal Co. and Lake Erie Navigation Co. subsidiary companies. The Alexander Leslie hauled coal to the Lake Erie Coal Co. yard at Erieau until the early 1960’s when she was replaced with various smaller leased bulk carriers to better serve the diminishing coal trade. By the late 1960’s the whole operation was Abandoned.