Ashtabula Maritime Museum, Ashtabula, Ohio

The building which now houses the museum was built in 1871 as a lighthouse-keeper's home, and now houses exhibits on the local area. They did not allow many photographs to be taken because some of them are proprietary and at one time someone came in with a tripod wanting to take pictures and then resell them. Well, that is a no-no, so now they don't allow pictures. But I got a few pictures inside and some outside.

Ahstabula Lighthouse

Fresnel Lens

This is the original Ashtabula Lighthouse Fourth Order Fresnel Lens.

Tug Boat on Display

They had a display on the Titanic and Anna Sophia Turja Lundi, as she survived the sinking of the Titanic and lived the rest of her life in Ashtabula.

Captain Smith with Crew of the Titanic

Anna Sophia Lundi was born on June 20, 1893 and grew up in Finland. Her half-sister lived in Ashtabula and she wanted to come to America. She boarded a boat out of Finland and connected with the Titanic in Southampton. She was in her room when the Titanic struck the iceberg; was woke by the collision and described it as a shudder. She thought something was wrong with the engines. She got up, got dressed and was told something was wrong and to put on her life jacket. She went out and made her way to the deck where a seaman tried to bar her way but she refused to obey. He did not stop her but the doors were closed from behind to prevent others from coming up. It was pure chance that she made it to the boat deck. She could hear the band still playing. She was rescued and made it into a lifeboat. As they pulled away from the ship she heard loud explosions and saw the lights, which had been burning bright, go out. 

She ended up on the Carpathia which ended up in New York City. She lost everything she owned except her clothes, and the White Star Line paid her train ticket to Ashtabula where she met up with her brother and sister. Soon after arriving in Ashtabula she met her future husband, Emil Lundi, and they had seven children. Anna died in Long Beach, California in 1982 at age 89. She is buried in Edgewood Cemetery, Ashtabula, Ohio.

This is just a synopsis of her experience. If you want to read the whole story, here is what they had on the wall in the museum:

The other interesting thing they had was the largest piece of beach glass ever found. It was found in 2017 on Lake Erie just east of Ashtabula Harbor.

The hole the beach glass was sitting in

Beach glass lit up

275 pound beach glass

What is beach glass? On the Great Lakes, it's called beach glass; on the ocean it's called sea glass. No matter where you collect it ~~ it is a piece of history. Glass from another time that has been deposited into a body of water in a much different form. Bottles, glassware, flatware, stoneware. All of this gets broken down in the surf into smaller pieces. This can take an average of 10-15 years of being in the water. After decades of being tumbled and polished by the natural forces of the waves, the glass will develop a frosty patina look. 

These pieces have seen a minimum of 20-30 years action in the waves, sand and air. Some dismiss it as just old beer bottles, but they are really little treasures from another time.

Outside there is the Ashtabula Harbor Weather Station:

Ship Air Funnel

A ship's air funnel is used to send cool air from the ship's upper deck to the lower levels of the ship. Cool air is forced through metal duct work to the lower levels where the air can be hot and stagnant because the port holes cannot be opened. 

A run away Lake Erie buoy:

In the summer of 2006, this buoy washed up onto Walnut Beach is Ashtabula not far from the museum. Over the next two years the local U.S. Coast Guard, the Canadian Coast Guard, the Canadian Well Drillers and the State of Ohio ODNR and many others were contacted trying to determine its original builders, owners and colors. None of these folks could identify it. A Canadian company built it, but no other questions could be answered. They are happy that while it floated in Lake Erie, a Great Lakes Freighter, power boat, sail boat or Jet Ski did not hit it while it floating on the lake. 

American Merchant Marine Veterans Memorial

The area next to the museum was made into a small park called Point Park. It overlooks Ashtabula Harbor, and is one of a very few found along the Great Lakes. While there we were able to see the Bascale Lift Bridge in action:

Hulett Iron Ore Unloader

In 1898, George Hulett patented his first machine for unloading iron ore from lake freighters. It is one of the largest and most cumbersome machines ever built. It was 88 feet high, 36 feet wide and weighed 950 tons. The operator sat in a small booth just above the bucket inside the digging leg. He controlled the digging device going in and out of the vessel's hold. Once out of the hold he would trolley the entire Hulett back from the vessel by moving back along the main girder so he could dump his loaded bucket into a hopper. The Hulett era ended in the early 1980s when lake boats began using self-unloaders. Most of the Huletts were scrapped, but part of one machine made it to the museum. This hunk of metal is only 18 feet of the original machine.