The wooden three masted schooner Frank W. Gifford was built in 1868 at the Quayle Shipyard on the Stones Levee in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1874 the vessel was valued at $27,000 and rated A2.

November 1869: Damaged by collision near Chicago, Illinois.

May 1877: Ashore on rocks at Georgian Bay , Ontario.

May 1884: Ashore at Death's Door, Door County, Lake Michigan with a load of iron ore. Was released with $1,500 damage.

April, 1895: Remeasured at Chicago - 160 X 31.16 X 11.16; 397.80 gross/ 377.91 net.

Last Document Of Enrollment Surrendered: Chicago: 10/26/1897: "Vessel Lost 10/21/1897".
On the night of October 21, 1897, the schooner Frank W. Gifford,twenty-five miles off Ahnapee (near Algoma) "running before a heavy northeast wind" was found by her crew of eight to be leaking. The crew escaped in the Gifford's yawl after securing most of their personal effects and equipping the small boat with a torch, compass and foghorn. After three hours in the Gifford's yawl, the crew was picked up by the schooner City of Sheboygan and taken to Chicago.
A week later the steamer R.A. Seymour passed through a large quantity of wreckage about thirty miles from Two Rivers Point. Apparently, the Gifford which had been enroute from Escanaba to Fruitport, Mich., sank in about 860 feet of water about mid way between Point Betsey, Michigan and Ahnapee, Wisconsin in Lake Michigan. The schooner had been loaded with about $4,000 worth of iron ore.