![]() If people find something, they should report it to our office, and we do our best to go out and evaluate them every year.” It certainly will help everyone to learn a little bit more about the maritime history of the state. “Fish finders or bottom sonar are better with each round of technology that comes out. “We have a number of ships that are reported discovered each year,” Thomsen said. It was considered to be the largest remaining undiscovered shipwreck on Lake Michigan, she said. 10, 1910, when 27 lives were lost near Sheboygan. 18, another railroad car ferry that sank Sept. In September, a crew from Minnesota found the Pere Marquette No. “Out of 750 losses in Wisconsin waters, we only know a little better than where 200 of them are,” Thomsen said.Įach year, two or three wrecks are discovered on Lake Michigan, she said. The state classifies shipwrecks as any body of a boat found underwater, and there are many left undiscovered. She said Captain Phillip Klumb attempted to swim to shore, near Dyckesville, as the boat was taking on water, but drowned.Ī second crewman died of exposure and a third died when a rescue boat capsized, Thomsen said. The ship was 69 feet long and hauling hay when caught in a gale that led to the surf overtaking the schooner, Thomsen said. The most lives lost in a wreck on the Bay of Green Bay came when the Three Sisters sank within a week of the Rouse Simmons going under. There was little concern until she was past 36 hours due and the following day sailors spotted debris, rubble and bodies by Racine. “The legend of this is Captain Robert ‘Heavy Weather’ McCay kept to a strict timetable, went out in a storm that was too much for him and was never heard from again,” Thomsen said. Milwaukee was ferrying train cars across Lake Michigan to Michigan when it entered a historically tempestuous Northeaster gale.Ībout 3 miles east of Milwaukee was the last time she was seen as the lives of 46 sailors were lost. Nowadays, she said a tugboat delivers Christmas trees in Manitowoc, and ceremonial Christmas tree deliveries are made in Chicago and Milwaukee. Eventually in the ’70s, a diver named Kent Bellrichard was looking for the ship and he discovered it.” There were Christmas trees on the beaches around Rawley Point. “There were Christmas trees pulled up in nets around the region. ![]() “It became a ghost ship for many years,” Thomsen said. When the lifeboat motored onto the lake, however, the Rouse Simmons had vanished. The station immediately launched a lifeboat to intercept the distressed vessel and bring her crew to safety. With no chance of catching the fleeing vessel, the Kewaunee station’s captain telephoned the Two Rivers’ Life-Saving Station, 25 miles to the south. ![]() Last seen by the Kewaunee Life-Saving Station, the Rouse Simmons was flying a distress flag 5 miles offshore while being driven southward by a northwest gale. The Rouse Simmons tied up at the dock is pictured in this undated photo. The wreck, near Manitowoc, is the final resting place of 16 souls who perished when the ship containing Christmas trees from the UP was en route to Chicago and hit a storm Nov. The Rouse Simmons, a 205-ton, three-masted schooner that had disappeared beneath the waves of Lake Michigan in a gale in November 1912, doesn’t have a song. Though Lightfoot sang of the November gales coming early, Thomsen said studies show September and October can be just as rough as November and December on the Great Lakes. “We knew there’s over 750 historic losses in Wisconsin waters,” said Tamara Thomsen, maritime archaeologist with the State of Wisconsin State Historic Preservation Office. However, that doesn’t mean Lake Michigan has been forgiving to sailors. Though Gordon Lightfoot etched the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald into consciousness with his famous song, the wreck has no ties to Wisconsin, other than leaving from Superior. On that day 45 years ago in 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew of 29 were lost in the icy waters of Lake Superior. 10, the bell from the most famous shipwreck on the Great Lakes will ring in remembrance in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |