History of the A.C. Adams

History of the A.C. Adams

The harbor tug A.C. Adams (Official Number 105994) was built in 1881 by the Union Dry Dock Co. of Buffalo, New York. She was of typical wood construction for a harbor tug 62 ft long with a beam of 16 ft and depth of hold 9 ft. The Adams was 42 gross tons, 21 net tons and was powered by a single expansion steam engine with a 16.5 inch cylinder with a 20 inch stroke. Steam was supplied by a non-condensing high pressure steam system with a 6.5 ft x 13ft boiler. The tug was named after one of the owners Abner C. Adams. It changed owners four times during its roughly 40 year career and eventually ended up part of the Union Towing and Wrecking Co. of Duluth, MN. Records show the tug was converted to a floating machine and welding shop sometime between 1906 and 1912 and abandoned in 1923. It is not known if it was scuttled in that year or some time later.

Screw towboats or tugs appeared on the Great Lakes shortly after the first propellers (Labadie, 1988, "The Era of Wooden Shipbuilding on the Lakes"). They grew in popularity in the 1880's and 90's and their numbers reached over 1000 at the turn of the century. As steel hull tugs came into existence they were often powered by removing the machinery from their wooden predecessors. Their numbers remained fairly constant until the 1940's and 1950's when most were retired and scrapped. As bow thrusters became more prevalent on the lakes freighters through the 1950's and 1960's the need for harbor tugs dwindled. By 1970 fewer than 200 tugs remained in service and many were only occasionally used.

In her forty year career the A.C. Adams was involved in several rescues or attempted rescues among them the Reed Case near the Portage Entrance, of the Keweenaw Waterway and the Alva Bradley near Marquette. On a foggy day June 19, 1889 the Adams grounded with its schooner barge Monterey near Sandy Island northeast of Whitefish Point. The Adams was rescued but the Monterey was left badly damaged although eventually recovered. It also collided with scow in the Superior harbor, Superior, Wisconsin, on June 25, 1892, and sank. It was later raised with loss of $200.

It was undocumented what had become of the A.C. Adams until 1990 when she was discovered during the Army Corps of Engineers search for the infamous Honeywell barrels. These barrels were dumped by the corps in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Their contents were reportedly classified anti-personnel mine parts in a concrete slurry. As part of the military clean-up superfund the project was organized to locate and recover a sample of these barrels to assure they were not polluting the lake. During the search the A.C. Adams showed up on the Klien side-scan towed by my boat Heyboy. After the project I was given permission to be the first to dive the Adams. It took several dives to identify the hull lying in 118 feet of water in poor visibility. The ID came from two clues. I photographed the name barely accessible near the mud under the hull and Bill Gardner and Dan Gates found the hull number engraved on a wooden plate on one of the hatches. Both clues pointed to the same result the A. C. Adams.

Although the A.C. Adams is a reasonable example of a turn-of-the-century harbor tug, there are numerous examples of this type of vessel in existence, and therefore was not considered a prime candidate for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.