George J. Fuhrmann

George J. Fuhrmann was born in 1863 in Bucyrus, Crawford Co., Ohio, son of Thomas W. Fuhrmann, a stationary engineer, whose native land was Germany. The parents removed to Erie, Penn., in 1872.

At the age of thirteen Mr. Fuhrmann was placed in charge of an engine, and he continued to follow stationary engineering until he was eighteen years old, when he commenced sailing. His first experience on the lakes was as fireman on the steambarge Frederick McBrier. After five months service on her he became fireman of the tug Thomas Thompson, and the next year held the same berth on the propeller Wissahickon for three months, finishing the season as watchman on a dredge. The next season he was fireman and then engineer on the steamyacht T. H. Welch, since which time he has been employed as second engineer of steamboats and as tug engineer. He has been first-assistant engineer of the propellers Horace B. Tuttle, Ohio, Walter A. Avery, Sitka, Manola, Matoa, Mesaba, Italia, German, J. H. Devereux and Merida. Mr. Fuhrmann was with the last-named vessel when her engines raced to pieces on May 28, 1896, due to the propeller wheel becoming lost from the end of the shaft. The engines were of the triple-expansion type, of 3,000 horse- power, and were turning at the rate of eighty-two revolutions per minute under 168 pounds of steam, when the accident happened. In some manner the propeller wheel slipped off the shaft and the engines, under the terrific pressure and relieved of the resistance of the water to the screw, began to turn with frightful rapidity. Although one of the engineroom employees was standing at the throttle at the moment, he could not shut off the steam quickly enough, and in an instant the high pressure and the low pressure engines flew into a thousand pieces, one mass of metal weighing two tons being thrown directly over the engineer's head. Mr. Fuhrmann was not on duty at the time, but was alseep in his bunk at the side of the engine-room. The flying metal escaped him, as it did everyone else on board, no one being injured except the engineer, who fell into the hold of the vessel while running to escape the blinding steam. While the Merida was receiving a new engine Mr. Fuhrmann acted as engineer of the tug Gregory, remaining with same to the close of the season. Mr. Fuhrmann has been in two other accidents during his sailing career. While he was engineer of the Thomas Thompson, that tug was driven under the jib boom of the schooner David Vance, off Erie, and her upper works were crushed in; this occurred while the Thompson and another tug were racing to the Vance. He was also in the steamer German when she went ashore on the rocks on Big Sand Point, Lake Michigan.

Mr. Furhmann was married January 28, 1891, to Miss Emma D. Carlton, of Macomb county, Mich. They have one son, Harry Fuhrmann.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.