Drake was a wooden steam barge that towed consorts loaded with coal and iron ore on the Great Lakes.

[3][4] During her nine-year career, she came to the rescue of distressed vessels and she had several mishaps of her own, including stranding on a reef in 1882, running ashore in 1888 near Cheboygan, Michigan, and striking a bar and sinking at the dock in Duluth, Minnesota in 1889.

In 1889, Drake picked up 3 passengers and the 15-man crew from the wooden steam barge Smith Moore that had been sideswiped by James Pickands in heavy fog.

In 1900, Drake rescued the eight-man crew from the leaking schooner-barge R. Hallaran that foundered off Keweenaw Point near Stannard Rock Light.

As Drake labored through frigid rain and 55 miles per hour (89 km/h) wind, by 2 October 1901, the seams of Michigan's planking began to leak at a rate that overwhelmed her pumps.

[1] Captain John McArthur Jr., of Michigan, ordered the thick towing hawser pulled in within hailing distance of Drake to communicate their status by shouts amplified with a megaphone.

[1] When Northern Wave, a two-year-old steel package freighter, headed upbound out of Whitefish Bay shortly after 6:00 that morning, she spotted the struggling Drake flying a distress signal from one her masts and the crew frantically swarming the cabins with fire axes and bare hands.

Heavy seas prevented the steel Northern Wave from staying alongside for a rescue of Drake's crew without risking her wooden hull.

Michigan's cook, Harry Brown, leaped toward Crescent City before the two vessels were close enough and was swallowed by Lake Superior.

[1] The wreck of Drake was first discovered by Captain Campbell of Liberty just four days after she sank on 6 October 1901, when he was downbound for the Soo Locks.

[10] Oleszewski reported that decades of winter ice and spring and fall storms smashed the remains of her upright keel leaving only the boiler standing.

Divers who visit the wreck sites are expected to observe preservation laws and "take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but bubbles".