The crew was rescued by the Coast Guard and taken to Mackinac City, but the story doesn't stop there.
With the ship abandoned, some folks from nearby Beaver Island used a wooden steamer, the Rambler, to take some free gasoline. They sold it fast for pennies on the gallon.
At the time, the total dollar value aboard the ship was $184,000. Today it’d be worth $3.7 million dollars.
The Rambler made two dozen trips to the J. Oswald before icy conditions on Lake Michigan made it impossible.
So salvagers decided to use a larger ferry, the Marold II, for bigger hauls of gas.
Its first trip was a success, hauling 17,000 gallons of gasoline. But on its second run, on New Year's Day 1937, the Marold II exploded.
The J. Oswald Boyd, the surface of Lake Michigan and the Marold II burned for hours. Debris from the Marold was found all over the deck of the J. Oswald.
The five man crew from Beaver Island did not survive. Their names: brothers Everett and Raymond Cole; Bruce McDonough; Captain L.L. Hill; and his son, Leon Hill.
It’s unclear what caused the explosion, but the Coast Guard theorized that gasoline had seeped into the engine room mixing with air to form a highly explosive mixture.
The incident is memorialized at the Beaver Island Historical Society. The name of the men who died can be found on the island’s Whiskey Point, with the names of others who perished at sea.
