Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2015 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Ludington Daily News 27 November 1954 Recalls Lake Tragedy of Christmas Tree Ship (by A. C. Frederickson) FRANKFORT - If you've ever looked out over the tumbled waters of Lake Michigan swept by a November blizzard, with each icy wave sending a frosty chill down your spine and you've wondered what it must be like to fight for your life out there, then consider the bleakness with which death approached the crew of the schooner ROUSE SIMMONS - the storied Christmas tree ship - which foundered southeast of Kewaunee many years ago. To this day, the fishermen who set their nets off Two Rivers Point lift evergree branches in their nets - although the same bright ever- greens were swept off the sinking ROUSE SIMMONS' decks 42 long years ago. Some have since called the staunch schooner the Ghost Ship of Lake Michigan for that's the way she seemed to the few who saw her on that last fateful voyage, her sails tattered and torn, her hull covered with ice and her deck piled high with snow-covered Christmas trees, cut from a Northern Michigan forest. No one knows the exact place where her hull now rests.(*1) Down there with her are the bodies of 16 people who were aboard - the beautiful wife of the captain(*2), all the members of the crew and a group of woodcutters. And the Christmas trees which are meant to bring brightness into Chicago homes on that yuletide of 1912. The tragic saga of the ROUSE SIMMONS was The Christmas Story up and down Lake Michigan for many years. That story began at St. James, Beaver Island, in northern Lake Michigan, where the Mormon colony of the notorious King Strang had prospered and declined for St. James was the home port of the ROUSE SIMMONS and from there she sailed under charter to Hermann Schuenemann to carry Christmas trees from the Manistique area to Chicago. Her com- mander was Capt. Oscar Nelson(*3), who had taken his wife along for that last trip. Herman Schuenemann was a well known and beloved dealer in the yuletide evergreens, and each year he had brought his cargo of trees from the forests around Manistique to a dock at the Clark street bridge in Chicago. He had started that business with his brother August, who was lost with his ship in 1898, and after that Herman carried on alone. Many Chicago people waited for his ship to arrive at the Clark street bridge each year to buy a Christmas tree. With her cargo of trees secured on deck, the ROUSE SIMMONS sailed from the upper Lake Michigan port of Thompson Nov. 22, 1912, in the teeth of a northeast gale. Temperatures were below freezing. Why did the schooner sail out into the fury of such weather? No one knows. Perhaps that cargo of Christmas trees had to get to Chicago for the early market or be sold at a loss. Off Point Aux Barque the crew of the tug BURGER, which was also battling the gale and towing the schooner DUTCH BOY, sighted the ROUSE SIMMONS. They gazed with astonishment while the Christmas Tree ship steered for the open lake while they were doing their utmost to reach port safely. They looked at her high deckload of Christmas trees and the gale brought to them the tange of the spruce and balsam. The next person to set eyes on the doomed schooner was an unidenti- fied lookout at the Kewaunee lifesaving station. That was on Saturday afternoon, Nov. 23, the date after she had sailed. The Kewaunee Enter- prise files of that date tell us: "The lookout at the Kewaunee lifesaving station sighted a schooner several miles out, being driven before a heavy north gale, flying distress signals. "The schooner was too far away and the sea too rough to make an attempt toward manning the lifeboat and putting out for the craft, so Capt. Nelson Craite made efforts to secure the services of a tug, but none were available. Shortly after snow began falling and the distressed boat was lost sight of. Capt. Craite then telephoned Sogge of the Two Rivers station and the crew from that city started out in the lake in their power boat in search of the craft. They returned about 5:30 without sighting it." And with the failure of that search the doom of the ROUSE SIMMONS was sealed. There was no other help at hand. The revenue cutter TUSCARORA put out from Milwaukee to aid in the search, but mis- information from a passing ship sent her on a wild goose chase to Racine. By the time the TUSACARORA headed north for the Kewaunee area, the Christmas Tree ship and her human cargo had disappeared beneath the snow-waters of the lake. There were those who criticized Capt. Craite for the failure of the Kewaunee crew to go out to the crippled schooner when it passed by, vainly flying its distress signals in the hope of help from shore. Perhaps there was no chance of the lifeboat at Kewaunee being able to go out in such a seas; but someone recalled the motto of the service: "Our orders say we have to go out - but they don't say we have to come back." The Enterprise of the following week reported that "scores of Christmas trees were found floating on Lake Michigan by the crew of the Two Rivers lifesaving station, leading to the belief that the vessel foundered." The ROUSE SIMMONS had gone. Herman Schuenemann's family waited in vain for him at the Clark street bridge in Chicago. Buyers of Christ- mas trees turned elsewhere. How and at what spot the Christmas Tree ship met the end wasn't known, and for years the only trace of the lost schooner was occas- sional branches of evergreens found in the nets of the fishermen. Three messages however came from the lost schooner. Only one was ever proved authentic. One was a note written on a page of a ship's log, corked in a bottle and picked up on the beach. It read; "Friday. Everybody good- bye. I guess we are all through. Sea washed over our deckload Thurs- day. During the night the small boat was washed over. Ingvald and Steve fell overboard Thursday. God help us. Herman Schuenemann." (*4) On April 3, 1924, Capt. N. Allie of the Two Rivers fishing tug REINDEER found a water-soaked wallet. It belonged to Herman Schuene- mann and it contained a receipt on which his signature was legible. In 1927 another bottle was cast up on the shore. The note inside (its authenticity in doubt) read: "These lines are written at 10:30 p.m. Schooner R. S. ready to go down about 20 miles off Two Rivers point. All hands lashed to one line. Goodbye. Charles Nelson." Lost with the Christmas Tree ship with Mr. Schuenemann were Capt. and Mrs. Oscar Nelson (*2)(*3), Alex Johnson, first mate; Edward Minoque, second mate; George Watson, Ray Davis, Gruly Peterson, Edward Hogan, and Conrad Griffin, all sailors; George Quinn, Edward Murphy, John Morawauski, "Stump" Morris, Frank Paul and Phillip Bauswein, who had been engaged in cutting trees in the forests (*5). But that wasn't the end of the Christmas tree shipping by the Schuenemann family for the following year another Schuenemann schooner lowered sail and docked at the Chicago bridge with a load of freshly cut evergreens. Aboard were the widow and two daughters of Herman (Schuenemann) and for 22 more years they carried on the Christmas tree trade, bearing those glad tidings of the yuletide to Chicago homes. In February, 1952, one of Herman Schuenemann's daughters, Mrs. Elsie Schuenemann Roberts, died at Chicago. She was known as Elsie, the Christmas wreath girl because she supervised the making of holly wreaths. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES: (1) Wreck located in 1971 (2) Originally reported that Mrs. Nelson had been aboard but, in fact, Mrs. Nelson had died before 1912. (3) Capt. CHARLES Nelson - not Oscar - was 1/8 owner. (4) There was doubt regarding how authentic this note was. (5) List upon list of the persons aboard were published but constantly changed. Names on this list, with the exception of Capt. Herman Schuenemann and Capt. Charles Nelson should not be taken as fact.