In Brief
The SS William A. Irvin, a retired ore freighter moored in Duluth, Minnesota, carries a ghost called the Boiler Room Man. He's said to be the one seaman who ever died aboard, scalded by a burst of steam in the fireroom.
The Full Story
The SS William A. Irvin, a 610-foot ore freighter moored at Duluth Harbor in Minnesota, carries a ghost that ghost hunters call the Boiler Room Man. They say he stays down near the engine and boiler room, where the only man known to have died aboard this ship was scalded to death.
His name was William Wuori, 59, of International Falls. The ship was underway in Whitefish Bay, on what one account calls its first trip of the season, when a boiler tube broke in the fireroom. "Water from the tube sprayed on the boiler and exploded into steam which scalded the men," ran the newspaper account. Wuori died. Two others on watch, Leon Shuffitt Jr. and Stanley Pennell, were injured and taken to a hospital in Sault Ste. Marie. The year is muddy: a paper quoting the original coverage puts it in the 1940s, while later retellings say 1964. The steam, the bay, and the three men on watch stay the same in every version.
This was a proud ship before any of that. Launched in 1937, it served as the flagship of U.S. Steel's Great Lakes fleet, carrying dignitaries in ornate officers' quarters that made it as much a showpiece as a workhorse. It once unloaded 13,856 tons of iron ore in two hours and 55 minutes, a Great Lakes record it still held when it retired in 1978. Today it sits permanently moored at Minnesota Slip, a museum ship people pay to walk through.
Wuori isn't the only one said to stay. Staff and investigators report a girl named Maggie haunting a room near the bow, and a bearded apparition in a captain's coat believed to be Captain John McDonough, nicknamed Captain Kidd, lingering in his old cabin quarters. Chris Allen of the Duluth Paranormal Society has investigated the ship more than 20 times, using EMF detectors, a spirit box, and surround-sound recorders. The phenomena he and the staff describe run from phantom footsteps and unexplained shadows to objects thrown at workers during maintenance and an EVP of a young girl crying near the bow. "Be skeptical but keep an open mind," Allen says. "Because there are things that are unexplained."
The October Haunted Ship attraction grew out of one man's fear. In 1992, a manager answered a late-night intruder alarm and found himself alone in the dark, cold, creaking vessel. He turned that night into the attraction. It now draws roughly 20,000 people a year, and in 2024 it landed on a Forbes list of the world's scariest haunted houses.
