VINTAGE SMOKE
A 1947 US MOTORS DIESEL GENERATOR ON A HISTORIC SHIP
Diesel generators have many uses aboard a ship. Usually they have a fairly central role, with devices of many types being powered by the electricity produced. When you go back in time to when steam ruled, diesel generators were less central and sometimes used only for a single purpose. Case in point; the SS Col. James M. Schoonmaker, a Great Lakes ore boat that was built in 1911 and operational through 1980.
Ok, right now some of you ex-mariners are screaming, “A 617 foot long vessel is not a boat, you dufus!” First,
the guy writing this is a former U.S. Army mariner, so he knows the difference between a ship and a boat, but he had to learn that mariners on the Great Lakes use different terminology... and now you do. One; vessels on the lakes are called boats, regardless of size. Two; they measure speed and distance on the lakes in statute miles, not nautical miles. Go figure.
The Schoonmaker was steam powered and electrified from the start using steam generators, which can work only when steam is up. At some point, internal combustion engines entered the scene for Schoonmaker but the history of that is not clear. She got a big 150 KW unit in 1952, when the main propulsion was updated from the original reciprocating engine to turbines. The generator was mainly used to power the ship while the boilers were being fired up, or in an emergency. The museum historians only know about one internal combustion generator she had before 1952, the one featured here.
Over many years of service, a ship will undergo modifications to improve it’s performance and utility. Such a thing happened in 1947-48 during the winter layup, when the main cargo hatches were modified from 35 small telescoping hatches to 18 larger hatches with removable covers. This allowed the ship to be loaded faster and with less crew than the telescoping hatches. Part of that conversion included a 6.5-ton Northern Engineering Works hatch crane powered by a DC electric motor. As part of the installation, a diesel generator was installed and it may have been Schoonmaker’s first diesel engine. It was a generator set from United States Motors Corporation powered by a Hercules diesel.
It’s known the generator’s main task was to run the deck crane. It’s difficult to understand the logic for that, but at the time it was installed, it’s likely the ship didn’t have
an independent generator to run it without the boilers being lit and the costs of keeping boilers stoked while the ship was being loaded and unloaded was prohibitive. Plus, the ship was AC and the crane motor was DC. The generator was just big enough to also run some limited shipboard circuits, perhaps just for lights. Saying it actually did involves a certain amount of speculation, but museum records do not show any other diesel generators prior to 1948 so it’s logical to assume the generator did more than run the crane until the bigger generator was installed in 1952. The 1947 set remained in service until the boat retired in December of 1980.
US MOTORS
The 1947 generator came from a company that was once a power player in the field of generator sets, United States Motors Corporation, also known as US Motors and sometimes US Diesel. US Motors had it’s roots in the
Union Iron Works, founded by Herman C. Doman (18581938) and Herman Manuel in 1886, operating out of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. They mainly manufactured steam engines and parts. Doman bought Manuel out in 1891 and renamed the firm H.C. Doman Company. Doman introduced gasoline engines in about 1902 and developed a very well-regarded line of gas marine engines. Doman retired in 1910 and sold out to P. Sawyer & Son, a company run by Edgar P. Sawyer of the Oshkosh Sawyers, a family that became millionaires in the Wisconsin timber industry but diversified into other businesses in the area.
As far as we could learn, the Sawyers let the company run as H.C. Doman until the latter part of 1920, when it was sold to Universal Products Company of Sandusky, Ohio. Universal manufactured generator sets and related products. After buying Doman, they moved their operation to Oshkosh right away and expanded their manufacturing footprint by combining the two businesses. Universal Products should not be confused with Universal Motor Company, also of Oshkosh, and nearly a legend in marine propulsion. In addition to their generating plants, Universal Products continued to manufacture the Doman line of “Falcon” marine engines. In 1927, they changed their name to United States Motors Corporation (commonly known as US Motors), continuing and expanding in the power generating field. They mostly purchased outside engines and generators heads, putting them together into sets.
US Motors was a big player in power generation from the ‘20s into at least the ‘70s, and probably the ‘80s, but little other than entries in catalogs and adverting remains to document their history. We could not find the date they closed up shop, but in the ‘60s they were still hitting the standby power market hard with units from 500 watts to 750 kilowatts.
HERCULES MOTOR CORPORATION
Founded in 1915 as Hercules Motor Manufacturing
Company, the firm was based in Canton, Ohio. Hercules established a strong reputation and grew through the ‘20s and ‘30s, pioneering diesel engines in the early ‘30s with cutting-edge swirl-chamber indirect injection. When World War II came along, they built more than 750,000 engines of many types, many of them powering legendary military vehicles such as the 4-ton Diamond-t 6x6, 45-ton M-20 tank transporter, M-8 and M-20 armored cars and the full line of Studebaker 2-1/2-ton 6x6 trucks. They also had a big wartime presence in marine applications, as well as stationary power.
After the war, Hercules struggled in the civilian market against a bevy of competition but thrived in military contracts. They built the engines for the M-151 MUTT jeeps and the multifuel diesels for the 2-1/2 and 5-ton 6x6s. Eventually, they devoted most of their resources to that market and that narrow focus became part of their undoing when contracts dried up in the ‘80s. They were bought several times and merged with other companies as separate divisions. With each acquisition, their financial situation became more precarious and the Canton plant finally closed in 1999. Hercules Manufacturing took over most of their assets, blueprints, tooling and now supplies parts for many Hercules engines.