Photo's
Michigan Steel Boat Company was a second company with the same name, along with another in Kalamazoo. Michigan Steel Boat Company was organized in 1900 and incorporated on December 27, 1901, in Detroit, Wayne County. Principals of the firm in 1903 were Hugo Scherer as president and Frederick E. Wadsworth as secretary and treasurer. Wadsworth was associated with the Detroit Boat Company. The company was located initially at two different locations in Detroit, at 280-284 Jefferson Ave. and 1256 Jefferson Ave. in 1903, and later at 1252-1270 Jefferson Ave. in 1905. It appears that it shared the plant and management with Detroit Boat Company and several marine engine manufacturers such as Detroit Engine Works, Thrall Motor Company, Columbia Engine Company and others. A portion of the plant was acquired from the Olds Motor Works, the first plant built specifically for automobile manufacturing. A 1905 description of the property called it “the largest steel boat building establishment in the state.” The plant covered a space of 1,200 X 100 feet with seven separate buildings. The main factory and office building was a two-story high cement block structure, complete with show rooms. All buildings had automatic fire extinguishers and a private telephone system. Motive power for the plant was electricity, furnished by the company’s own private generating plant. The company in its new location appears to have gotten off to a good start as it reported that 1,200 boats were built in 1905.
Michigan Steel Boat Company may have been the manufacturer of the “White Flyer” rowboats for Sears, Roebuck & Company in 1908. The boat was shipped direct from “our factory at Detroit, Mich.” and retailed at $27.50, including one pair of oars and oarlocks. A rudder cost an extra $1.75. The “White Flyer” was a 14-foot square stern steel clinker rowboat of “Apollo” steel construction, with horizontal plates. Sears advertised that the “bow, stern and seats of this boat are made of cypress, the gunwales are of oak, all finely finished in natural oak.” The boat came equipped with patented steel airtight chambers at either end for additional buoyancy. The hull was painted with white pegamoid, and imported waterproof paint, the same as that used by the United States Navy. The catalogue No. 6K8700 “White Flyer” was 14 feet in length; 43-1/2" beam amidship, and 14" in depth amidship, with the height of the bow being 22" and the height of the stern being 24". The boat weighed about 150 pounds and when crated weighed about 200 pounds.
1908 Michigan Steel Boat 18ft, Owner of the Boat is unknown.
Photo taken by Miro Forest at a local boat show.
Michigan Steel Boat Co. tagged the engines in their boats as shown below. The patent number (681,363) on the tag is to the design of the boat not the engine. No mention of horse power or any other engine information is given although serial numbers were stamped on their tags. You cannot see the serial number in this photo but it is lightly stamped in the lower left corner. Here are some more patents from inventors-engineers that worked for Michigan Steel Boat Co. 730874, 963098, 711469. Michigan Steel Boat Co. was a company that designed and built boats and they used Detroit Engine Works engines for their power source. The advertisement above talks about the fact that their boats are equipped with the wonderful Detroit engine, guaranteed for five years, any horse power 2 to 50. Fewest moving parts of any engine made. Anyone can run it.
By 1915 the firm had grown to include these managers and officers: Hugo Scherer, President; Frederick E. Wadsworth, Secretary and Treasurer; H. E.
Cronenweth, General Manager; W. C. Rowling, Purchasing Agent; and A. M.
Ratigan, Advertising Manager. The company manufactured “Boats, Motor
Boats, Row Boats, Canoes” The address and phone were listed as 1526 Jefferson Ave.,
Tels. East 406-407-408.
By 1919, Michigan Steel Boat Company had moved its office and factory to the corner of Kercheval Avenue and Conners Creek, and was
still associated with The Wadsworth Manufacturing Company, manufacturers of auto bodies, auto tops and auto parts. Frederick E. Wadsworth was president of the firm, Mary M. Wadsworth, vice-president and H. E.
Cronenweth, treasurer.
Michigan Steel Boat Company of Detroit, Michigan, filed its notice of
dissolution on December 8, 1920.
Sources:
Polk, R. L. & Co. Michigan State
Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1903-1904 (Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk
& Co., 1903.) pp. 674, 1810.
Polk, R. L. & Co. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory,
1905-1906 (Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk & Co., 1905.) pp. 842, 1973.
State of Michigan. Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics.
Twenty-third Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial
Statistics (Lansing, MI: Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics,
1906.) pp. 373, 375.
Penton Publishing Co. The American Boating Directory--1906 (Cleveland,
OH: Penton Publishing Co., 1906.) pp. 10, 351.
Polk, R. L. & Co. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory,
1907-1908 (Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk & Co., 1907.) pp. 783, 2330.
Polk, R. L. & Co. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory,
1909-1910 (Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk & Co., 1909.) pp. 669, 2318.
Polk, R. L. & Co. Detroit City Directory, 1909 (Detroit, MI: R. L.
Polk & Co., 1909.) pp. 1548, 2825.
Polk, R. L. & Co. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory,
1911-1912 (Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk & Co., 1911.) pp. 662, 2167.
Polk, R. L. & Co. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory,
1913-1914 (Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk & Co., 1913.) pp. 575, 1839.
Polk, R. L. & Co. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory,
1915 (Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk & Co., 1915.) pp. 575, 1852.
Polk, R. L. & Co. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory,
1919-1920 (Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk & Co., 1919.) pp. 578, 685, 1941.
Rudder Publishing Co., The. The Rudder Marine Directory (New York: The
Rudder Publishing Co., 1920.) p. 216.
Earley, Helen Jones and James R. Walkinshaw. Setting the Pace:
Oldsmobile=s First Hundred Years (Lansing, MI: Oldsmobile Division of
General Motors, 1996.) p. 51.
Schroeder, Joseph J., Jr. Sears, Roebuck & Co. 1908 Catalogue No.
117 The Great Price Maker (Northfield, IL: DBI Books, Inc., 1971.) p.
756.
Michigan State Archives, RG 61-11, Abstracts of Reports of Corporations,
Lot 3, Vol. 4 (1903-1909). p. 340.
Michigan State Archives, RG 61-11, Abstracts of Reports of Corporations,
Lot 3, Vol. 5 (1910-1914.) p. 378.
Fisher, Robert D. (ed.) Marvyn Scudder Manual of Extinct or Obsolete
Companies, Vol. III, 1930 (New York: Marvyn Scudder Manual of Extinct or
Obsolete Companies, Inc., 1930.) p. 944.
Michigan Steel Boat photos
donated by Miro
Forest from the Old Marine
engine website.
Research for Michigan Steel Boat
Co. done by:
Scott M. Peters, Collections
Historian Michigan Historical Museum.
John C. Davis, Davis
Antiques & Scale Models.