Talk:SS John Sherman

Comments on article - proposed edits
When reading this article I noticed the following:
 * There is nothing in this article about where the ship came from or who owned it. Just that it was already in use in 1873.
 * The article talks about the ship (or route as it is unclear) being discontinued after a single season in 1875 but the replacement was built in 1882.
 * The first and last paragraphs in the History section are about the railroad fleets rather than the ship that was contracted for a single year.
 * The genealogy link to the C&O ferry service is a little weak.

I plan on pruning the page to address some of these issues and then submit it for a GAR. Comments or objections gladly welcomed. Gusfriend (talk) 11:05, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * It is also worth noting that the DYK hook used for this article called it the first freight ship used on Lake Michigan which is not supported in the article as all the references say is that it was the first ship chartered by Pere Marquette Railroad which eventually became C&O. Gusfriend (talk) 11:11, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I have pruned the sections that related to the PMR and C&O.Gusfriend (talk) 10:14, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * can you tell me why you reverted my edits on this article? Expanding on what I previously wrote above,
 * How are the facts about the development of the train line to Ludington relevant to the ferry given that it was only leased by the railroad for a single season and was already serving the area before the ship was contracted?
 * Isn't the information about the formation of Ludington and the railway heritage already covered at the Ludington, Michigan and Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad? If not, that is where it should be presented.
 * Given the ship was only chartered for a year in 1875 and discontinued as not suitable but the F&PM ferries were built in 1882 it would be more correct to call them the start of what became the C&O fleet?
 * The article also says that it was the first of the ferries used by PMR but the PMR was not founded until 1899.
 * The more general information about the carferry fleet, etc. would be better placed on the pages Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad, Pere Marquette Railway and possibly the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.
 * You may also wish to read the GA comments below. Gusfriend (talk) 06:57, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * To sum up all the above questions I believed they have been answered by the fact that the article was promoted to Good Article on 20 May 2020 by User:Hog Farm, so the Good Article reviewer felt they were correct the way the article was written at the time. User:Hog Farm has several Good Articles and Featured Articles. He does GA reviews on a regular basis, so would know what is correct for a Good Article and that it meets the criteria for a Good Article. A lot of your questions are answered in the news clip no. 2. Do you have a subscription to  Newspapers.com? If not, you can get one at the Wikipedia Library. A lot of your questions are also answered by the book Ludington Carferries which I got at my local library. Maybe if you can give me the sentence and reference that you don't think is correct I can get you the wording of the reference for that. I don't see in the article where I wrote that the PMR was founded in 1899 -> can you tell me where that is at? I did write that the railroad company received a land grant in 1857 to build a railroad for the United States government. By 1859 they were considering a ferry service across Lake Michigan and set up a terminus at the village of Pere Marquette. The railroad company was already in existence when it leased the SS John Sherman from the ship owners in 1874. In 1875 the railroad company initiated a public commercial package freight service across Lake Michigan. True, the SS John Sherman was already servicing the Ludington area before the railroad leased it and is the reason the railroad company considered leasing that ship to initiate a ferry service for them across Lake Michigan that they desired to do by 1859. The railroad company had received the portion of their "Pere Marquette" name from the local village by that name when they set up a terminus there. The village later in 1873 was called Ludington. Before the railroad company leased the ship it was called just the Flint Railroad. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:01, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * See Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad which you have edited which says that it was in operation between 1857 and 1899 and Pere Marquette Railway which says that it started in 1899.Gusfriend (talk) 09:14, 12 October 2022 (UTC) True. The next sentence says It was one of the three companies which merged to become the Pere Marquette Railway. "IT" in this case is Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 10:06, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The second reference says nominally at least to refer to the link between the John Sherman and the later F&PMR, PMR and C&O railroads which, given it is from 1941 leads me to think that presenting it as fact may be doing our readers a disservice especially as all of the other newspaper articles that I looked at all seem to talk of the importance of the later F&PMR #1 and #2 in terms of the future fleet and not the John Sherman.
 * All the newspaper articles I looked at about the John Sherman indicated to me it was the slow privately owned side-wheeled steamer John Sherman that initiated the C & O Lake Michigan fleet.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 10:33, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I believe that there are excellent resources for a stand alone page on all of the Pere M. ships which could include all of the information here that does not directly relate to the John Sherman. Gusfriend (talk) 09:59, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

DYK discussion

 * To answer your second part about the Did You Know - User:Cwmhiraeth found three sources in the article that verified that cargo had to be loaded and unloaded by hand onto the SS John Sherman, the first freight ship used on Lake Michigan. She then approved the DYK nomination.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 10:17, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If the ship was the first freight ship on Lake Michigan and that is supported by references then it should be added to the article.Gusfriend (talk) 10:21, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The three sources User:Cwmhiraeth found are reference numbers 3, 16, 17. She approved the DYK nomination on these. See Template for the DYK nomination.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 10:41, 12 October 2022 (UTC)