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The Wreck in Milford Harbor |
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Written by Richard Platt
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Many Milford residents, particularly those who have sailed in and out of the harbor, are aware of the rusted hulk visible at half tide, sunk near the mouth of Beard’s Creek. If you know where to look, you can also see the wreck from Rogers Avenue. What is heard most often when this wreck comes up for discussion is, “That’s one of Simon Lake’s submarines.” Although it is indeed a submersible, it is technically not a submarine. It was named the Lakesco, and was intended for undersea salvage operations. The famed Milford engineer and inventor, Simon Lake had always dreamed of using his submersibles for peaceful, commercial purposes. His undersea craft would be used to recover sunken cargoes; to harvest the bounty of the sea, such as clams, oysters, pearls, or sponges; or for mining, or oil drilling.  At the same time that Lake was working on this type of commercial vessel, he was also building submarines for military purposes. He is credited today with developing the modern submarine, with diving planes and a periscope for looking out across the water without surfacing. He had moderate success in selling his military submarines to foreign nations, but never attained much success with the United States government. The naval arms limitation treaties of the 1920s caused the military application of Lake’s submersibles to come to an end, and as a result, his Lake Torpedo Boat Company went out of business. The inventor then turned his full attention to the commercial use of his submersibles. His salvage vessels were of three types: free sailing; those tethered to a mother ship for power and air supply; and those attached to a mother ship with a hinged access tube. The Lakesco was of this third type. It was built in 1930 by the Lake Submarine Salvage Corporation. The mother ship was the Lillian, and it was attached to the Lakesco by an access tube, referred to by Lake as “a stairway to the sea.” Men could descend to the Lakesco via this passage, pass through an air lock, and enter the submersible which, like a diving bell, was open to the sea floor at the bottom. Why does the sunken Lakesco rest in Milford Harbor? There aren’t any records indicating that it was ever put to use, and Lake's great grandson Jeffrey Lake, who operates the website www.simonlake.com, does not have any specific knowledge of the event. We can only guess what happened. By the 1930s, around the time of the Great Depression, Lake was already having financial difficulties. According to longtime Milford resident Winthrop Smith, Sr., Lake made and lost several fortunes in his lifetime. Money did not mean much to him; it was his work that was important. If a venture failed, Lake paid investors back out of his own pocket. Consequent to his debts, he lost his house on North Broad Street, and George J. Smith purchased it from the bank around 1935, converting it into what is now the Smith-Sefcik Funeral Home. We may conclude, therefore, that Lake simply abandoned the Lakesco because of the expense involved in raising it. Lake continued with his work, building the Explorer (the submarine now residing at Lisman Landing), which was completed in 1936. The Explorer was tethered to a mother ship for air and power. Perhaps Lake felt that this type of submersible had better commercial possibilities. The Explorer was put in dry dock at the end of the 1930s as Lake turned again, with the coming of the Second World War, to military applications for his submarines. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful in interesting the U. S. Navy in any of his proposals. Simon Lake died in 1945 yet his legacy lives on. This eccentric figure from Milford’s past will always be remembered through the remains of his creations, which dot the Milford landscape.
—Richard Platt |
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