Perseverance
Water Depth:218 feet
Date and Cause of Loss:October 8th, 1868, Fire
Loss of Life: 14
History
The Perseverance was a wooden hull single screw propeller ship built for grain transportation in 18641. She had a keel of 177 feet, an overall length of 180 feet, a beam of 31 feet, a 750-ton capacity, and two boilers2. At the time, she was the largest propeller built on the Welland Canal, built by Mr. Louis Shickluna for the Welland Railway Company. She launched in July 1864 and was set to make runs between Oswego and Port Dalhousie.
Her builder, Louis Shickluna, was a highly regarded marine architect in Upper Canada (Ontario) at the time. He was in the business for 58 years and built ships of all kinds, including barques, schooners, and steamboats3. Shickluna was born in Malta and moved to North America at the age of 17, where he started his career in shipbuilding. At the time the Perseverance was built, Shickluna was well into his successful career and was reported to have been turning out five vessels a year from his shipyard in the Welland Canal4.
On her first journey out from the Welland Canal, a reporter on board stated that “her engine is a powerful and substantial one and worked beautifully”. Mr. Cyrus Dean, a locomotive superintendent from the Welland Railway, designed this engine5. Her first route was carrying grain from St. Catherine’s to Kingston, captained by Captain Fitzgibbons. He would be the captain who went down with her four years later in Lake Ontario.
The Perseverance had a short life on the Lakes for four years until her sinking in 1868. There are no reported major incidents in her history.
Sinking
On October 6, 1868, the Perseverance was bound for Oswego, carrying 20,147 bushels of corn, when she caught on fire at 2 am. The fire was discovered by the engineer, and by the time he had alerted the first mate, the whole boat was in flames. Only one lifeboat had not caught on fire, and it was dispatched with the two mates, two men, and a boy6. These were the only five survivors of the 19-person crew. The ship had burned down to the waterline before sinking to the bottom of the lake. The men who survived were picked up by the Enterprise. She stayed near the Perseverance until daylight7. The five survivors were Morris Fitzgibbons, first mate and the captain’s son; William Thorp, second mate; Peter Leglio, wheelsman; an unknown deckhand; and Patrick Lynch, the porter.8
The fourteen people who lost their lives on the Perseverance were Captain John Fitzgibbons; Michael Fitzgibbons, steward and son of the captain; Alexander McArthur, first engineer; Andrew and James Patrick and Henry Scott, firemen; Dolf Blanet, wheelsman; four unknown French deckhands; and Mrs. Susan Davis and her daughter Adeline9.
Search
The wreck of the Perseverancewas first discovered in 2003 by Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville. They had been searching for the wreck of the Homer Warren, a vessel which sank in the area 40 years after the Perseverance. The Perseverance was mistakenly identified as the Homer Warren up until 2013, when a local amateur historian wrote a piece stating that he believed the wreck to be the Perseverance.In the summer of 2025, this theory was further backed by a discovery made by the crew at Exploring Our Deep World. A long-deck wooden-hulled ship matching the description of the Homer Warren only a few miles away from the wreck of the Perseverance.
More about the history and search for the Homer Warren can be found here.
