George Collin Baker of Chicago came to Detroit in January of 1892 with a detailed agenda. He checked into the Cadillac Hotel and set to work perfecting his plans to try out his wooden submarine torpedo boat in the Rouge River.
According to George Baker the submarine had a wooden hull, but it leaked only at the rate of two gallons in twenty-four hours. When the boat floated on the surface about sixteen inches of the top stuck out of the water, and the propeller wheel was driven by an engine with steam. When submerged a storage battery, one of the largest of its kind and possessing the power of fifty horses, furnished the power. The storage battery also furnished electric light under water, “a good strong light,” according to Baker. The submarine had reached a speed of eight miles per hour practically submerged.
George Baker had a visionary imagination as far as the utility of his submarine. He thought that it could be used to plant torpedoes beneath a war vessel. The Civil War navies had begun to explore this avenue of underwater warfare with the Hunley and Housatonic, but George Baker seemed to foretell the Navy Seals of the two twentieth century world wars. He thought his submarine could also be used to locate wrecks. It would assist the explorations of divers by using a powerful electric light that threw a bright light a distance of sixteen feet when the boat was under water. The light was manipulated from an iron projection from the top of the boat known as a conning tower. Baker described it further by saying, “The tower is much the size and shape of a stiff hat and is provided with peep-holes on all sides, the glass being heavy plate an inch thick.”
On Saturday, April 2, 1892, George Baker conducted an experimental run of his submarine in the River Rouge near the exposition grounds. He had counted on fifteen and a half feet of water, but heavy northeast winds had blown for at least a day before the trial and the wooden submarine scraped on the bottom when it submerged. Undaunted, Baker planned another trial for the following week. On April 29, 1892, he ran a successful trial with Goddard, his construction foreman. They submerged the Baker Boat for an hour and fifty minutes in the River Rouge.
Sources :
Kathy Warnes, “Submarine Trials in the Rouge River”, Definitely Downriver Blog, April 2012.
Kathy Warnes, “Baker’s Boat”, Michigan History, November/December 2013., pp.20-23.