She was the "Edmund Fitzgerald" of her day.

No plea for help was ever heard or observed, but the new, big steel steamer was somehow erased from the surface of Lake Michigan.

Some wreckage washed ashore on North Manitou Island, and the consensus of marine historians is that she went down someplace to the northwest of the island 115 years ago in 1892.

Built only two years earlier at Cleveland, the ship, like the Fitzgerald when launched in 1958, was a leviathan in her day. She was slightly over 300 feet in length with a beam of 42 feet and could carry over 3,000 tons of cargo. She was powered by a triple expansion engine and had a crew of about 20 on board at the time of her loss (accounts vary).

Somewhat curiously, it appears that no photographs were ever taken of the ship, but her appearance was that of a traditional steam-powered lakes freighter – not unlike the two ships that appeared with the Enterprise’s logo, on the top of Page One until just a few years ago.

On Oct. 28, 1892, the W.H. Gilcher steamed west from the Straits of Mackinac into a very tempestuous Lake Michigan, bound for Milwaukee with 3,200 tons of coal.

She was never seen again.

“The storm raged for several days. When at last it subsided, the more fortunate ships that were in shelter began to nose their way into the open lake,” marine historian Dana Thomas Bowen wrote. “On Tuesday, the first of November, the steamer Paunee docked at Chicago and reported seeing wreckage north of North Manitou Island.”

The wreckage included things such as “furniture, bedding and stanchions,” but was not identifiable with any specific vessel.

“The Gilcher insurance loss of $180,000 was the heaviest single loss incurred by underwriters on the lakes up to that time,” Glen Arbor author George Weeks wrote in Sleeping Bear, Yesterday and Today.

Lost, with its entire crew of eight, in the same storm that claimed the Gilcher was the old wooden schooner Ostrich. This vessel was found, floating upside down, just south of South Manitou Island.

There was some speculation that the two vessels might have collided but there was no evidence to support such a theory.

There was, however, speculation that the Gilcher had broken up because of “brittle steel.” Just a few months earlier, a near-sister ship, the Western Reserve, broke in two near Grand Marias, Mich., on Lake Superior.

Only one crewman survived the sinking. Lost with the ship was Capt. Peter Minch, his wife, and two of their children.

In the 19th century, the Minch family was very involved in Great Lakes Shipping. In the 20th century, the mantle was taken up by Kinsman Transit, whose ships sported a white “S” on a green background as a funnel marking. The “S” stood for Steinbrenner and the original unit of the fleet was the S.S. Henry Steinbrenner, built in 1901 and named for the late Capt. Peter Minch’s brother-in-law.

The ship sank in a severe May storm on Lake Superior in 1953. Fourteen crewmen, including the captain, were rescued by other vessels, but 17 other crewmen were lost.

By the 1960s, the CEO for the Kinsman fleet was George Steinbrenner, who is best known today for his ownership of the New York Yankees.

The W.H. Gilcher, built when steel shipbuilding in the region was in its infancy, was, nevertheless, the largest ship ever built in Cleveland.

Later, just before the turn of the century, the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company became the nucleus for what would one day be the largest shipbuilding concern on the Great Lakes – the American Shipbuilding Company.

Although other yards would be acquired in places such as Toledo and Chicago, Cleveland was headquarters for far the greatest part of that company’s history.

In the company’s final years, corporate headquarters were shifted to Tampa. Some said this was so that the chairman of the board, George Steinbrenner, would be closer to his horse ranch at Ocala, Fla.

Before the 20th century closed, American Shipbuilding went bankrupt and a domestic industry that had cranked out about 200 steel vessels on the Great Lakes between 1900-10 is today but a shadow of itself.

A remaining important company is Bay Shipbuilding Company, located opposite Leelanau County at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., on the other side of Lake Michigan.

In 1892, however, all this activity lay ahead, and the future of steel shipbuilding was shaky, following the loss of both the Western Reserve and the Gilcher in a single shipping season.

It was determined that the Bessemer steel used in the ships was not suitable for marine construction, as the Great Lakes, with their often large, but relatively “short” length waves subjected vessels to a terrific battering.

Steel ships would continue to be built, and, within 15 years of the Gilcher’s loss they were twice the length of that hapless vessel.

The issue of “brittle steel” contributing to shipwreck was thus addressed, although, it would seem, the issue was not 100 percent resolved.

In November 1966, the bulk carrier Daniel J. Morell, built 60 years earlier, broke in two on Lake Huron and all but one of her crew drowned. A sister ship, the Edward Townsend, was found to have cracks in its hull and was immediately taken out of service and later scrapped.

“Are Lake Vessels Too Old for Safety?” one newspaper headline asked after the sinking of the Morrell. The question posed, however, became a moot one in a few years, when most of the oldest lake vessels were scrapped on a wholesale basis for economic reasons.

“I was really surprised to learn of the Morrell’s sinking,” said John Gilbert of Traverse City a few years later. “I sailed on her in the 1930s and figured she had been scrapped long ago.”

Gilbert’s father was a commercial fisherman from Onekama and a brother also sailed the lakes, but Gilbert was very reluctant to talk much about shipwrecks.

“My brother was lost with the car ferry Milwaukee,” he explained.

The Milwaukee, originally built to operate between Northport and Manistique, Mich. (1903-08), was lost in heavy weather on Lake Michigan in 1929.

Like the Gilcher, it was lost in late October. And, like the Gilcher, and, later, the Fitzgerald, with all on board.