[A] According to one historian, Clifton became a "ghost ship of the Great Lakes",[2] as there were no survivors and the events immediately leading up to the disaster were not known.

The vessel's wreck was discovered on the bed of Lake Huron by technical divers in September 2016, with the discovery confirmed by further dives and research in 2017.

For the better part of the twentieth century's first two decades, the company operated the second largest shipping fleet on the Great Lakes.

She said, "All of it was additional weight above the center line of the vessel", and that it was not coincidental that three other ships outfitted with an identical self-unloading system all sank.

[21] In the opinion of an experienced skipper who had worked his way through the gale, no vessel of Clifton's size could have survived in those conditions if she was 40 miles (64 km) out to sea.

Painted sticks from the Clifton were recovered by Peter White on September 26, 1924, 24 miles (39 km) northeast of Pointe aux Barques Light,[22][23] and a life raft was found on October 1, 1924.

[24][25] On the Detour, Michigan–Goderich, Ontario course, about 70 miles (110 km) away from the latter, hatch covers, and the forward end of a pilot house (with searchlight and clock attached) were recovered by the S.S. Glencairn.

Speculation at the time, which continued to be published decades after the tragedy, was that the newly-installed self-unloading gear could have broken free and contributed to the vessel's metacentric instability.

"[3] Three of the men lost with the ship, including captain Emmett Gallagher, were from the maritime community of Beaver Island, Michigan.

The island community, which at the time was predominantly Irish-American, maintained the tradition of generating a folk-song lament for persons who were seen as having laid down their lives with heroism, and a ballad was written in honor of Captain Gallagher and the crew of Clifton.

[28] Attributed to islander Frank McCauley and collected by a folklore researcher in 1932, "The Seaman's Lament" purports to tell the story of the lost captain and crew.

Lines 23 through 26 of the lament are of particular interest, as they set forth a hypothesis that the doomed vessel was slewed by a series of waves, an action equivalent to broaching on a sailing ship.

These lines proved to be significant when the vessel was found, as they matched the physical condition of the hull on the lake bottom.

Trotter instantly told his crew that they might well have discovered Clifton, as it was the only as-yet-undiscovered whaleback to have been lost on Lake Huron.

[3][12] The 26 members of the lost crew, in rank order with home town as listed by the Progress Steamship company, Cleveland, owners of the boat: The disaster has been memorialized by Frank McCauley's poetic lament.

[4] In addition, marine historian and maritime artist Robert McGreevy[31][32] rendered a drawing of the Clifton "fighting for her life" before she sank in the storm, and another of her resting on the bottom.