Louis Reif

Thirty years have been spent by Louis Reif, of Cleveland, on steam vessels on the Great Lakes, and all but two years as engineer. He was born in 1847 in Bavaria, Germany, his parents moving to the United States two years later, and located in New Orleans, moving from there to the primitive State of Missouri, where he lived for three years as one of its pioneers, and at the age of nineteen moved to the lake region, and spent two years as tug fireman, after which he secured engineer's papers and sailed as an engineer. Among the boats with which he has been connected are the tugs Volunteer, Alida, Levi Johnson, Abe E. Nelson, Shoo Fly, L. P. Smith, Sickerson, Maggie Sanborn, H. N. Martin, Ida Simms, Helene, R. K. Hawley, Florence N., C. R. Edson and F. E. Smith; also the river tugs Constitution, Annie Dobbins, E. N. Peck and George M. Brady; the passenger steamer Charles Hickox, the wrecking steamer Magnet, the barge Morning Star, and the yacht Herald. He is now chief engineer, as well as a member, of the firm of Crangle & Co., having charge of the machinery of all the boats belonging to the firm.

Mr. Reif married Miss Mary Normand, of Cleveland, Ohio; their living children are Eliza May, Julius Augustus, Estelle, George Albertice, James Henry, Joseph, Mary Adeline, Mary Ellen, Maud Margarite; Edith and Alice Maybell are deceased.

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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.