The Erwin L. Fisher was built in 1910 in Toledo, Ohio, a 220' long steel hulled cargo ship designed for transporting lumber on the Great Lakes. The 1,184 ton ship was completed in June of 1910 for the Argo Steamship Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The ship sank less than a year later on May 5, 1911 after colliding with the Stephen Clement off Wyandotte, Michigan, three of her crew, including one woman, were killed.

Since she was in only 15' of water raising the ship was relatively easy and she was taken to the Buffalo Drydock Company and repaired. In 1917 she was sold to the Bay Steamship Co. and renamed Bayersher. One source indicates the ship was sunk again in 1918 off the east coast of the USA by either a mine or torpedo, however I can find no evidence to confirm this.

Either sold or chartered to the French government in 1921 as Port de Caen she returned to the USA in 1922 and reverted to Bayersher. Sold again in 1923 and renamed Claremont. The final sale, to Kelley Island Lime and Transportation Company of Sandusky, Ohio took place in 1930, the ship was again renamed, George J. Whelan.

Early in the morning of July 29, 1930 while en route from Sandusky, Ohio to Tonawanda, New York at the other end of Lake Erie just north of Buffalo, the ship encountered a storm squall off Barcelona, other ships in the area reported the same squall as just wind and lightning, no rain. She was carrying a load of limestone, but according to the crew it was not a full load and the ship was in no way overloaded.

Around one a.m. the ship began to capsize for unknown reasons, she turned turtle so quickly only six men who were awake were able to get off the ship. They all said the ship remained afloat for half an hour or more and then went under with the remaining fifteen people still trapped in the overturned hull. After she had gone the survivors faced almost certain death, the ship sank so quickly no distress signal had been sent and nobody even knew to look for them.

A short time later the steamer Amanda Stone came along and found the men in the water. A lookout heard the screams and the men in the water used flashlights to guide the ship to their location, Captain W. H. Neill lowered five lifeboats and rescue the survivors. For over an hour he stayed in the area looking for any indication that others had managed to make it off, but none were found. When he was satisfied he had done all he could, he headed for Erie, Pennsylvania where the survivors (Eichart Lange, Irving Ohlemacher, Clastes Forester, Morris Billar, Arthur Stamm and Walter Zeck) were treated for exposure.

The crew, being disoriented from the ordeal had no real idea of where they were when they sank and this kept the wreck from being found until 2005. As far as I know no clear reason for her loss has been determined.