General information about Hulett unloaders
Conneaut, the port built by Mr. Carnegie, and now belonging entirely to the Steel Trust, won the leadership in 1904 for the first time from Cleveland and Ashtabula.Less than six years ago Mr. Carnegie stuck a pin in the map of Ohio, and said:"We will build a harbour of our own here, as the point where our ore-ships and our ore-railroad meet." The spot indicated by the pin was no more than a swampy village. To-day it is the foremost harbour on the Great Lakes in point of tonnage, and in dock equipment it has no equal in any country. Half a day after an ore-steamer arrives, its cargo has been transferred into freight-cars and is trundling southward on its journey to Pittsburgh. Four miles of cars can be loaded and hauled out in one day.The unloading machines are the wonder of all visiting European engineers. Here you can see a fifty-ton car of coal picked up as if it were a box of candy and tipped sideways into a wide hopper, which conveys the coal to a vessel's hold. With the guidance of four men, two hundred cars are emptied between sunup and sundown. Here you have the largest bridge-crane ever erected, which can pick up or put down anything from a coal scuttle to a locomotive, at any spot within an area of seven and a half acres. To use a New York illustration, it could pick up an electric car at Twenty-Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue, and swing it to Thirtieth Street and Seventh Avenue in a few seconds.Here you may see the marvellous Hulett automatic unloaders, which are nothing less than gigantic steel arms that thrust themselves into a vessel's depth and grasp a ten-ton handful of ore apiece. Each arm has not only a hand, but a wrist as well. The operator, standing on the wrist like an obstinate insect, goes up and down with the powerful arm, which he can guide in any necessary direction. The towering machine weighs more than an army of five thousand men, yet it obeys the slightest touch of its human master's hand as readily as if it were a bicycle. Six workmen and one machine can do the work that formerly required ninety shovellers. When the great hand of the machine is open, it covers eighteen feet of ore, and closes with a grip that is irresistible. Several times, in the holds of ore-vessels, the writer has seen steel girders that were bent and wrenched away by the grip of this mighty giant.
Before Huletts
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| Andrew Haenish posted Unloading in progress on an unknown vessel in Conneaut, Ohio during the 1910 shipping season. Photographer is unknown. Bob Maki Wooden hatch covers set in stacks. Frank Jerome The wooden hatch covers seem scary in a storm. Wood floats. There are ten unloaders. It only took 4 Hulets. |
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| Richard Wicklund posted From a glass plate negative, the Tin Stacker Rensselaer is almost overwhelmed by the unloading machinery as it delivers its cargo of iron ore. Not sure where, but in its time, Rensselaer was a big ship. It was one of the "College Class" but not as well known as the others - like the Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell. It was also overshadowed by the Lafayette, wrecked in the 1905 storm on Lake Superior. Rensselaer was among the Tin Stackers traded for the Maritime Class ships built in 1943 for the war effort during World War II. It sailed and was managed by the Pittsburgh fleet, then turned in for scrapping after the war. It seems like it was one of the larger and newer Tin Stackers of the seven traded in. In all, a rather short life on our Great Lakes, and not one seen in many pictures, like in this old glass plate negative. [The comments indicate this image is looking towards the lake and it was Dock 4. And the comments confirm this equipment was replaced by the Huletts.] James Torgeson shared While Conneaut is still an active iron ore port, it looks very different today! Richard Allison: USS came close to building a mega steel mill at this site that the hot end was to be in Ohio outside of Conneaut and span the finishing mills in Pennsylvania on Lake Erie. The plan was to have a huge coke plant, two 11,000 ton/day blast furnaces built so close to the three vessel Q-BOP shop (one very big steelmaking shop) that was not to use torpedo cars but open transfer cars pulled by cable one by one and continuously into steelmaking. The blast furnaces were to be casting into continuous. I believe when I read the proposal, there were four casters, two on the northside and two on the southside. That means the finishing mills would have been humming continually. The proposal was axed due to environmental groups and would have threatened the Pittsburgh plants. Off the top of my head, I believe it was axed in 1975 or around that. I wished they did it. James Torgeson: Richard Allison Yes, that would have been the Speer Works. Much of the land was donated by USS and is now a preserve. Chairman Speer had to settle with an ore boat as his namesake. The Speer still calls on Conneaut with ore, although she and the port are now owned by CN, and not USS. |
With Huletts
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| Association for Great Lakes Maritime History posted The bulk freight barge Tyrone of the Tyrone Transportation Co. being unloaded by Hulett ship unloaders at Conneaut, Ohio, circa 1900 (Image Source: Cleveland State University – Cleveland Memory Project). The photograph is part of the Specials Collections of the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University. It was taken by the studio of Naef & Joslin of Conneaut. [The description continues with a history of the barge.] |
Larry Kantola posted four photos with the comment: "Conneaut Ohio."
Robert Wires I was a operator on those thing in 70’s and 80’s.
I repeat the above photo because this one is of higher resolution.
My current (Dec 2020) assumption is that Conneaut was the only dock that had five Huletts.
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In addition to the above four photos, Larry Kantola also posted this photo.
Dale Pohto Designer George Hulett was from Conneaut where the first machines were operated by steam. They were eventually replaced by a battery of five heavier (17-ton capacity) electric machines.
Dale Pohto Designer George Hulett was from Conneaut where the first machines were operated by steam. They were eventually replaced by a battery of five heavier (17-ton capacity) electric machines.
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| Keith Brady commented on Larry's post |
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| Al Miller posted William J. Olcott under the Huletts at Conneaut. This looks like a mix of two steam-powered and three electric unloaders. |
Richard Wicklund posted two photos with the comment: "On July 31, 1973 I made a quick stop at Conneaut, Ohio, and took this slide photo of a rather busy scene with the Richard Trimble being unloaded. I cropped the same picture for a closer look. Not the greatest, but it does show the other end of the iron ore cargo, loaded at Duluth."
Jim Pabody: At that time, a very regular event at Conneaut’s P & C Dock!
[This view catches all five Huletts.]
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| Marine Historical Society of Detroit posted U.S. Steel's Richard Trimble being unloaded in Conneaut July 31, 1973. The steam-powered crane barge and tug are not identified. The tug is possibly the USACE's Buffalo District tug Stanley. Richard (Dick) Wicklund photo/MHSD Thanks to several viewers for pointing out the correct location. The file name assigned while scanning included Ashtabula, but the number Hulett unloaders, the high vantage point and the numerous power lines are all clues that the correct location is Conneaut. We will correct the file name and our database. William Lafferty: Those are the Tonawanda and Stanley. The Buffalo District had only one ST (ST 709, the Stanley) and the other two district derrick boats, BD 6634 and MacCauley, looked quite different. James Torgeson shared US Steel's 600' Richard Trimble (1913) is under the Huletts at Conneaut, with an ore cargo for one of the USS mills in the Pittsburgh area. The Trimble was scrapped in 1978, but this dock remains active handling ore for the Edgar Thomson Plant. Needless to say, the Huletts are long gone. Kyle McGrogan: Architecturally, the tug is an ex U.S. Army WWII diesel ST that found a new home! |
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| Al Miller posted The B.F. Affleck was featured in Pride of the Silver Stackers in the April 1957 edition of Pittsburgh Sidelights. Jim Luke: Loved the original stacks on these late 20's USS 600 footers. Massive!: |
Richard Wicklund posted two photos with the comment:
The Rensselaer, one of the lesser known of the College Class, was involved in a collision on August 7, 1912. Down bound with iron ore on foggy Lake Superior, the 474 foot Tinstacker struck the 436 foot James Gayley on the starboard side. The Gayley, up bound with coal, sank quickly. Fortunately the crew was able to escape to the Rensselaer and safety.For a ship loss, it occurred I think in one of remotest places on Lake Superior, 43 miles east of Manitou Island, which is off shore of the eastern tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. The Gayley sank some 25 miles northeast of Stannard Rock Lighthouse, which itself is considered the most remote lighthouse on the Great Lakes. Then the deep water it went down in, not that far from Lakes Superior's deepest sounding of over 1300 feet! The crew was fortunate to have been rescued!The James Gayley was only ten years old, a modern ship for the time, of a very common and popular size of which hundreds were built in this period. The Rensselaer is not the most well known Pittsburgh boat, and less so the Gayley in Great Lakes history because of its early demise. When one researches, every once in a while, a ship like this one is found, even in an old post card I bought, seen here, and wonder "What is that boat?" But, to find out, that is when the passion begins!
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| Al Miller posted The Time Machine dumps us out at Conneaut in the late teens or early '20s to see James J. Hill being unloaded by the new electric Huletts. Another Pittsburgh boat that I can't identify is astern being worked by the old steam Huletts, |
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| William Lafferty posted In 1902 the four wealthy Smith brothers of the L. C. Smith & Brothers Typewriter Company of Syracuse invested heavily in the United States Transportation Company of Cleveland, organized by shipping wunderkind Captain W. W. Brown. The Smiths were joined by other upstate New York capitalists including Dr. A. G. Brower, Horace S. Wilkinson, and William Nottingham in the venture, the investors (and Captain Brown) rewarded with the firm’s new vessels named in their honor, including four named for the Smith brothers. In late 1904 the New York State investors formed their own firm, the L. C. Smith Transit Company, and placed a contract with the Detroit Ship Building Company to build for it a duplicate of the Amasa Stone. Eight year old Flora Bernice Smith christened the new vessel in honor of her father, Lyman C. Smith, eldest of the Smith boys, on 27 May 1905. The new vessel was a beast, second largest on the lakes when it entered service 19 June 1905 leaving Detroit for Duluth: 525’ x 55.2’ x 31,’ 6200 gross and 4916 net tons, powered by a triple expansion steam engine, 23.5”-38”-63” x 42,” supplied by two induced draft Scotch boilers, 14’6” x 11’6,” 1800-ihp, all built by Detroit Shipbuilding. The Smith Thompson and Harry Coulby would eventually join the Smith in the LCSTCo fleet. This is a large, unmarked cabinet photograph in my collection (can anyone identify the location?) that shows off that firm’s excellent livery. The black funnel had a large red “T” with “LCS” in script along the top of the “T” and “CO” on the upright part of the “T,” all in white. The firm’s vessels carried a monogram on the bow which is obvious here, the same logo in white but on a circular red background edged in white. In 1911 Horace Wilkinson of Syracuse combined all the fleets he, the Smiths, and others controlled by the partners in the USTCo into the Great Lakes Steamship Company on 9 June 1911, the Smith joining the new operator and later the Wilson Marine Transit Company when it absorbed the GLSSCo in 1957. Rebuilt in 1951 the Smith entered Canadian registry in 1966 as Martha Hindman for Hindman Transportation Co., Ltd., Owen Sound, and Lac des Iles in 1979 for Quebec & Ontario Transportation Co., Ltd., Thorold. After grounding on the Detroit River on 8 October 1980, repairs were judged uneconomical. Sold for use as a grain storage hull at Tampico, Mexico, the vessel sank along with the Q&OTCo laker Marlhill about sixty miles off Virginia Beach, Virginia, in tow of the Canadian tug Irving Birch on 1 June 1981. | Paul LaMarre: Conneaut for sure. Gorgeous photo [The comments contain additional photos of this ship.] |
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| Al Miller posted The Hulett unloaders at Conneaut work over the James A. Farrell on a warm day sometime in the late '20s or '30s. |
Al Miller posted three images with the comment: "Winter was time for more than just work on idle boats. It also was time to make improvements to loading and unloading docks, such as U. S. Steel's Pittsburgh and Conneaut Dock Company facility in Conneaut, Ohio. This article about improvements at Conneaut appeared in the April 1949 issue of U. S,. Steel News magazine."
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I debated in my mind about which Ohio port city to add this information to. I decided on this one since it explains that this port is sending its ore to Edgar Thomson.
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| safe_image for Conneaut receives $19.5 million grant for port [pay count] "The grant will help pay for a road to access the east side of Conneaut’s port and rail spurs to connect the city’s East Side Industrial Park to the Bessemer and Lake Erie railway, Hockaday said. The project would improve Thompson Road between the Norfolk Southern and CSX tracks and create a new section of road leading down into the east side of the port, Hockaday said. The new section of road will eliminate a round-about route trucks currently have to take, according to the city’s grant application." |
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| AltoonaWorks posted Tuesday Travels 2/2023 - Conneaut, OH...the north end of the CN Bessemer Sub. Out of frame to the left there's a loop where trains are loaded with taconite pellets for the ride on the rails to North Bessemer where the Union Railroad takes over the haul. February is too early in the year to see the CN train at the dock in daylight with their current operating plan. Check out more photos of the dock area at the bottom of the page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lrmyers/albums/72157682311538054 James Torgeson shared The former US Steel Great Lakes Fleet flagship, the 858' Roger Blough (1972), awaits her fate in Conneaut, Ohio. She was severely damaged in a Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin shipyard fire on February 1, 2021 and faces an uncertain future. Her namesake served as the USS chairman from 1955-1969. [The only mill left that is fed from this dock is Edgar Thomson.] |
(new window) At 2:02, note the man walking down the top of the upper arm of unit 3. At 2:32, you can see the operator leaning out an opening in the unloader's arm. The Colonell E.M.Young at 4:52 has an unloading boom mounted at the center of the boat. I wonder how that worked. Near the end is some footage from 1925.
Update: so where was this coal loading dock located?
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| Association for Great Lakes Maritime History posted The steamer Alice Richards at the coal dumping plant in Conneaut, Ohio, circa 1900 (Image Source: Library of Congress – Detroit Publishing Co. Collection). The name of the photographer is not included in the notes for the image, which was created from a dry plate negative. [The description continues with a history of the freighter.] |
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