Independence (steamboat)

During her career, she saw service shipping passengers and supplies to the mining settlements along the south shores of the lake and often returning with copper ore or was commissioned to carry other goods.

Her eight-year career on Lake Superior ended when her boilers exploded, killing several aboard, and ultimately sending the steamboat to the bottom in pieces.

[7] In 1842, Captain James Averell, a shipbuilder from Maine, established a shipyard on Chicago's North Side, just below the Rush-street bridge, on Lake Michigan.

[8][9] In the fall of that year the Independence, commanded by Captain Averill, cruised up Lake Michigan where it arrived at Saint Mary's River at Sault Ste.

Her cargo included a large number of kegs filled with blasting powder and supplies for the mining settlements on the Keweenaw Peninsula.

[10][11] The peninsula was discovered to have the largest quantities of pure copper in the world, greatly prompting lake navigation, mining on its shores and commerce.

Arriving from Detroit, on June 11, 1848, the famous newspaper editor Horace Greeley boarded the Independence and cruised to the Keweenaw Peninsula at Eagle Harbor where he had invested in copper mining.

By the time they were able to resume their journey, the smoke stack became almost completely clogged from the rain-soaked soot, forcing the craft to move at slow pace the rest of the way to Eagle Harbor.

Captain John McKay, left the dock at the Superior-Huron Portage around 12 o'clock, with approximately three dozen passengers, and a heavy freight of winter supplies for Ontonagon and La Point.

Marie, Independence had proceeded less than a mile, when her boiler burst, reducing a large section of the craft to splinters, killing one passenger.