The Hesper was a wooden-hulled, freight-carrying steamship which towed schooner-barges with its approximately 825 horsepower steam engine and a 12-foot diameter propeller. The steamer was one of several near-identical ships built for the large Bradley Transportation Company fleet of Cleveland, Ohio, in the early 1890s. It was launched at the Ship Owners Dry Dock Company at the Radcliffe Yard in Cleveland on June 28, 1890. The double-decked bulk freighter measured 250 feet in length and was rated for about 2,700 tons capacity. The Hesper was issued its first certificate of enrollment at the Cuyahoga District Customs Office in Cleveland on June 30, 1890, by George A. McKay, deputy collector. That document listed the ship as a “propeller” with a plain head and round stern. 

At the time of Hesper‘s construction, the vessel’s owners were undecided as to whether it should be called the Hesper or Hesperus (the latter having bad connotations relative to Longfellow’s poem “The Wreck of the Hesperus.”) When it was found that the name Hesper had been cut on its capstan, they kept the name. However, there is no difference in the meaning of the two words. Hesper is the evening star, and in Greek mythology was a brother of Atlas, the father of the seven sisters known as the Hesperides, “who guarded the golden apples that Hercules obtained after a long fight.” 

The Hesper was always well cared-for and was considered an efficient ship, but had a reasonably uneventful career and was operated by the Bradley Fleet until it tragically sank.

The Hesper was lost when it was caught in a late spring snowstorm in 1905 while the ship was running light, meaning it was pretty much empty. The 60-mile-an-hour northeastern gale drove it well off its intended course and hurled the vessel on a reef, which now marks the southwest edge of Silver Bay Harbor. The Hesper was lifted over the reef by a giant wave that lifted the whole deck right off from the ship as a lot of the ships at the time were merely clamped together, and thus would just float out in pieces after their structural integrity was sufficiently compromised. After enduring a pounding for some time, the Hesper floundered and broke up in 42 feet of water. The 15-man crew, along with Captain E.H. Heaton, remained aboard as long as there was any hope of saving their vessel until the ship’s inevitable end became certain, at which point they launched two lifeboats and pulled away moments before it broke up at the western end of Lake Superior, oftentimes referred to as the “Head of the Lakes.”

Stephen B. Daniel, author of Shipwrecks Along Lake Superior’s North Shore: A Diver’s Guide, active scuba diver and former president of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society (GLSPS), and U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, coordinated the “Put it Back” program where he arranges for people who have collected things from the ship over their years of diving to donate them for display and showcasing in the lobby of the Silver Bay Marina. There, anyone can see artifacts from the actual shipwreck without needing to put on a wetsuit or drysuit and brave the cold waters. 

“I had an opportunity to talk to the diver who recovered the Hesper capstan cover with the ship’s name on it, and I tried to get him to put it in the showcase but he didn’t want to part with it,” Stephen recalled. “Through the Put it Back program, we are just trying to put artifacts on display for others. As long as they are in public view, we don’t care really who owns them.”

The GLSPS Put it Back program is all about teaching divers to leave things where they are instead of taking things off of the shipwreck. This way, the next divers that come along to the Hesper and the other Great Lakes shipwrecks can also see them and all share the same experience with one another across multiple generations.