Ernest M. McSorley (September 29, 1912 – November 10, 1975) was the last captain of the lake freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

Captain McSorley perished along with the other 28 members of his crew when the ship sank in the Canadian side of Lake Superior on November 10, 1975.

He began working with freshwater freighters as a wheelsman, and achieved the title of Third and Second Mate before becoming the youngest Captain on the Great Lakes.

Captain McSorley turned 63 a month and a half before the Fitzgerald incident and intended to retire at the end of the 1975 shipping season.

Captain McSorley resided in the Toledo suburb of Ottawa Hills, Ohio,[1][5] and was married to the former Nellie L. Pollock, a Chicago, Illinois native on March 19, 1949.