Initially built as the A.C. Tuxbury at the F.W. Wheeler Shipyard in West Bay City, Michigan, the three-masted schooner-barge was launched March 18th, 1890. The A.C. Tuxbury was towed as a consort to the steam W.H. Sawyer alongside sistership C.E. Redfern. The trio carried bulk cargoes on the Great Lakes for the W.H. Sawyer Lumber Company of Wheatfield, New York, usually transporting coal, lumber, and grains. On April 19,1893, the A.C. Tuxbury temporarily was swamped and sank as the trio were grounded near Turtle Island of Lake Erie by a strong gale. This incident was one of many that lead to an unsuccessful petition to put a life-saving station on Turtle Island. In October 1905, Edward Hines, president of the Edward Hines Lumber Company, became the sole owner of the A.C. Tuxbury and its peer ships, it also had had a mast removed by this time, to reduce cost and maintenenance. On November 8, 1914, while in tow of the steamer Oscoda, a strong gale caused the steamer to ground, and while the A.C. Tuxbury was attempting to lighten its load, the steamer suddenly heeled over and struck the schooner-barge. The crew of the Oscoda abandoned ship onto the A.C. Tuxbury and were stuck on the ship for a few days (which had taken on water due to damage), finally escaping on makeship rafts and a yawl on November 10th. Little of note, aside from being lost in a nighttime storm briefly in 1915, happened to the A.C. Tuxbury until its sale to the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company on July 1, 1923. This sale led to its conversion into then-novel self-unloading barge, the changing of its name to E.M.B.A., and its work being restricted to Lake Milwaukee as a coal mover.
On October 30, 1932 the Milwaukee Journal announced that after 42 years of service (nine of which were with the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company), the E.M.B.A. was to be retired from service. The E.M.B.A was stripped of its unloading boom and some belt conveyors, and on December 15, 1932, the self-unloading barge was taken to Lake Michigan one last time and scuttled.
Today the schooner-barge E.M.B.A. rests upright in 170 feet of water near the wreck of the St. Albans five miles east of Milwaukee's North Point in Lake Michigan. The vessel lies mostly intact, broken by the force of hitting the bottom. Although the vessel was stripped (apparently including the anchors) when it was scuttled in 1932, the hull and much of its self-unloading gear remain along with a vertical steam pump. The top of the unloading tower rises to a depth of 136 feet.