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Great Lakes Maritime Antiquity of the
Week
2/19/2026
Beeson’s Marine Directory (1888 –
1921)
Beeson’s Marine Directory is one of the most interesting,
historically important and highly sought Great Lakes maritime antiquities. The
publication was produced yearly between 1888 and 1921 by marine reporter Harvey
C. Beeson, first out of Detroit, and later out of Chicago. Beeson’s is notable
for its lavishly illustrated period advertisements for vessel provisioners,
hard hat divers and shipyards as well as images of many long gone Lake vessels.
Beeson’s is also notable for its seasonal list of vessels lost on the Lakes as
well as a full directory of every commercial steam and sailing vessel on the
Lakes, complete with owners. Beeson’s provides an unusually detailed window
into the long-vanished Great Lakes maritime culture of the 1890s and early
1900s and includes interesting biographical details for many small Lake
communities and ports. Although many editions of Beeson’s have now been
digitized and can be accessed online, the original volumes have become
exceedingly rare and fetch high prices on the infrequent occasions when they are
offered for sale. My collection includes originals for every year after 1890
and facsimiles for those earlier, as the first three years were really only
short run booklets, few of which survive. Beeson’s directories are seldom found
in good condition due to notoriously weak bindings and heavy covers. Most
maritime museums and collections around the Lakes have a few editions, but they
are generally in extremely poor condition due to years of rough handling by
researchers. About half of my copies came from the private collection of the
maritime historian and author Dana Thomas Bowen and they bear his signature or
plate. They have all been restored and conserved using acid free archival
materials, and I’ve had to re-fasten some bindings and tip in loose pages. The
pages of some of my early editions have started to become brittle with foxing
due to acidification from handling. As such, I’ve started to use cloth gloves
and I handle them infrequently. I now use digital copies for research and I use
the originals only for high resolution images of advertisements and photos for
publication. I make them available to researchers upon request.
2/12/2026
Rogers Marine Telegraphic List of US
Merchant Vessels – 1855
The Great Lakes maritime antiquity for this week is an authentic 1855 leather bound copy of Rogers' Marine Telegraphic List of Merchant Vessels of 150 Tons and Upward, Employed in the Commerce of the United States. This book is noteworthy for being the predecessor to the Annual List of US Merchant Vessels, which the US government wouldn’t begin publishing for another twelve years.
The Rogers list includes all US merchant vessels over 150 tons on the Lakes and Oceans enumerated by customs district. Each vessel over 150 tons was awarded a three letter telegraphic code, which could be flown on a burgee atop the main mast to clearly identify the vessel at a distance or the code could be signaled with hand flags. The main purpose of the Rogers list was to provide a reference to the telegraphic code for every US vessel.
The list is particularly interesting for Great Lakes vessels, as it denotes which customs houses were active on the Lakes in 1855 and it also lists hundreds of early Lake steamers, barks, brigs and schooners. All major Lake ports are represented and to my knowledge, this is the only source for knowing the telegraphic codes of these very early Lake vessels.
This copy is in a very ornate embossed leather binding and is in decent condition. I did need to re-attach the front board with archival PVA glue which I dyed to match, but it was otherwise extremely sound. Very few copies of Rogers have survived and I’m not aware of any other copies in the Great Lakes area.
2/7/2026
Imperial Sized Stereoview – Steamer
Nyack - 1878
This grainy stereoview arrived today. It shows an early arch-sided steamer with no nameboard and no markings on the card. The card is imperial sized with two separate panels, dating it to the late 1870s or early 1880s. Unfortunately, it has no maker info or writing. The only easily discernable identification on the vessel is a large name "The Union Steamboat Company." I am quite familiar with the Union company but they had a lot of vessels.
After putting the card under my dissecting scope, I was able to make out the name Nyack just under the right window of the pilothouse. This is a very early and previously unknown view of the 231 ft. wooden passenger and package freight steamer Nyack, probably at Duluth. She was built in 1878 at Buffalo, NY for the Union Steamboat Company. She had a very long career, running first to Lake Superior and later on Lake Michigan. She was rebuilt a number of times, finally being cut down to a barge in 1918.
She was abandoned in 1931 at Sturgeon Bay and in 1932 was towed to Summer Island along with the derelict hull of the steamer Georgia where they joined the hull of the Mattie C. Bell to make a breakwall for the Northwest Sand and Gravel Company's quarry dock.
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