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Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== TWELVE WORST MARITIME DISASTERS IN GREAT LAKE HISTORY (based on number of casualties) ------------------------------- 2. Lady Elgin: Rammed by the schooner Augusta of Oswego Location: Lake Michigan off Highwood, IL Date: September 8, 1860 Casualties: about 300 - Greatest loss of life on open water Type: Sidewheel steamship Operator: Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard & Co., Chicago, IL. Builder: Bidwell & Banta, Buffalo, N.Y. Master: Capt. John Wilson, Coldwater, Mich. Hull Type: Wooden Tonnage: 1,037.73 Gross Length: 252 feet Beam: 32.66 ft Height: 13 ft "Wreck of the Lady Elgin.- One of the greatest marine horrors on record was the loss of the steamboat Lady Elgin, on Lake Michigan, September 8, 1860. She was struck by the schooner Augusta, and sank in twenty minutes, in 300 feet of water. She had on board 300 excursionists, 50 ordinary passengers, and a crew of 35 officers and men, a total of 385. Of these only 98 were saved. Among the lost was Herbert Ingram, of the "Illustrated London News". The schooner Augusta, Capt. D. M. Mallot, reached Chicago early Saturday morning, Sept. 8, and reported that on the night previous, about midnight, she had collided with a large steamer. The Augusta had a full cargo of lumber, which had shifted in the collision. She had struck head on, suffered the loss of her headgear, and was leaking badly. The captain knew nothing of the extent of disaster to the other vessel. The steamer Lady Elgin had left Milwaukee early Friday morning September 7, for Chicago with 300 excursionists, largely members of the Independent Union Guards, and their friends. She left Chicago in the evening between 10 and 11 o'clock on her regular trip to Lake Superior, taking about 50 passengers to Mackinaw and other northern points in addition to the 300 excursionists. The evening set in with a wind moderately high. A heavy thunder storm came up about midnight, and the wind grew to a perfect gale. The sea ran high and so continued throughout the night and Saturday. At the time of the collision the Lady Elgin was steaming against the wind. The Augusta was sailing south by east under all sail except the gaff topsail. The steamer had all her lights set, the schooner had none. A half hour before the collision the second mate of the Augusta, on watch, saw the steamers lights, and for twenty minutes no orders were given. Evidence taken before the coroner's inquest showed that the captain of the Augusta, who had come forward, seemed bent on passing to the starboard of the Lady Elgin instead of the larboard side, according to the rule. Shortly before the collision he ordered his helm head up, but she came straight on the steamer's larboard side, knocking a hole in her side. It was about 2:30 o'clock on Saturday morning when the collision occurred. The Lady Elgin was about 10 miles from shore, off Winetka, 16 miles north of Chicago. The schooner struck the steamer at midships gangway on the larboard side, tearing off the wheel, cutting through the guards and tearing into the cabin and hull. The two separated instantly, and the Augusta drifted by in the darkness. At the moment of the collision there was dancing in the forward cabin, but most of the passengers had retired for the night. In an instant all was still. Captain Wilson ordered a lifeboat to be lowered on the starboard side, to be rowed around and discover the extent of the injury. It dropped astern and did not regain the steamer. The latter was headed west to reach the shore if possible. But the vessel began to fill rapidly and to list. Freight was rolled to starboard and passengers were provided with life preservers. The Elgin began to settle and reel, and many passengers threw themselves overboard. Just when the vessel took the final plunge, a sea struck her upper works and they parted from the hull and floated off in several pieces. The night was intensely dark, lighted at intervals by flashes of vivid lightening, and the wreckage was scattered about profusely. Two boats had been lowered, and in these 18 persons reached the shore. Fourteen were saved on a large raft, and many others on parts of the wreckage. It was established that 393 (another statement says 385) souls were aboard the vessel, and of these 98 were saved." A survivor named Bellman, after describing how he and others with the captain got upon a raft, says: "On this extempore raft not less than 300 persons were collected, the majority of whom clung to their places until nearly daylight. The raft was mostly under water from the weight of the living burden, and very few who clung to it were above the waist in the turbulent sea. The Captain was constantly on his feet encouraging the crowd, and seems to have been the only man who stirred from his recumbent position, which was necessary to keep a secure hold on the precarious raft. He carried a child which he found in the arms of an exhausted and submerged woman, to an elevated portion of the raft, and left it in charge of a woman, when it was soon lost. He constantly exhorted the crowd to keep silent, and not only to make no noise, but to refrain from moving in order that the frail framework might last a little longer." Bellman further states that during the time which elapsed while the raft kept together there was scarcely a sound from man, woman or child. They clung to their places in silent terror, and neither groans nor prayers were audible; no voice save that of the captain raised aloud in encouragement and good cheer, being heard amidst the roar of the wind and the ceaseless splash of the combing waves. Finally the constant action of the water broke up the raft, and large parties floated off on detached pieces, and gradually the multitude melted away by couples and solitary individuals until but a tithe of the whole number remained. The swell tumbled the light raft about like feather-weights, and a weary struggle the hopeless survivors had during the long drift of ten miles intervening to the shore. Bellman was 10 hours on his raft, and said he was capsized and thrown into the sea, with his two companions, every third minute. When they reached the shore they were dashed about hopelessly in the surf, and, more fortunate than their companions, were lifted upon the beach by the breakers and rescued. The heroic captain was among the lost. The Lady Elgin was rated a first class steamer, and had been a favorite with the traveling public. She was built at Buffalo in 1851 by Bidwell and Banta at a cost of $96,000. For several years she ran between Buffalo and Chicago, then between Chicago and Collingwood, but for many seasons had constituted the line between Chicago and other Lake Michigan ports and Lake Superior. The Augusta was owned by Capt. G. W. Bissell, of Detroit, who not long after had her name changed to Col. Cook. She was the second vessel of that name, the first Col. Cook having been wrecked in the St. Lawrence. - History of the Great Lakes, J. H. Beers & Co., 1899 Pages 683-684 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1860 the steamboat Lady Elgin, in command of Capt. John Wilson, was running between the ports of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. At Milwaukee she gave an evening excursion to the firemen of that city. The boat was crowded with men, women and children. The night was dark and misty, and the water was rough; without warning a sailing vessel crashed into the steamer, then glanced off and was seen no more, while the boat, loaded with humanity, sank beneath the waters. When the boat sunk the hurricane deck floated in two sections, upon which officers of the sunken steamer placed many passengers. The shore was distant a mile or more, with the wind blowing on, towards which the rafts drifted. The one carrying Captain Wilson reached the shore intact, but the other broke up in the breakers. To assist the women and children struggling in the angry surf, Captain Wilson rushed in, but the frantic sufferers seized hold of him in numbers, and he was drowned with them. Thus heroically perished Captain Jack Wilson, a brave and poplular lake sailor. Three days later the steamboat North Star, Capt. Ben Sweet, arrived at the Soo, bringing the sad news of the loss of the Lady Elgin. The veteran Captain Lundy was standing on the wharf. Captain Sweet locked arms with him, and the two elderly men walked slowly in the direction of the hotel, where boarded the wife of Capt. Jack Wilson. Arm in arm they ascended the hotel stairs. At the top Captain Lundy halted, while Captain Sweet proceeded to the door of Mrs. Wilson's apartment. The old sailor raised his arm to knock at the door, hesitated, and then withdrew, and said, "Lundy, I can't!" Then the other sailor essayed to perform the mournful errand, but also returned and said, "Sweet, I can't!" Then the veterans of many battles with the elements slowly descended the stairs, while brushing aside watery particles, drops which would not have appeared in their eyes had they met grim Death face to face. These sturdy men could face a tempest of wind, hail and snow without wincing, but yielded when encountering a storm of misery about to engulf the wife of a brother sailor. The could brave the majestic power of the Great Lakes, but shrank from a contest with human sorrow. Cherished by old friends are memories of Captains Wilson, Lundy and Sweet--their contemporaries who linger often recall their sterling character But the mystery remained: What vessel collided with the Lady Elgin? After a time it was discovered that the schooner Augusta had disappeared from the lakes, no one knew where. After a further time, some six years there-after, came from the sea-board a strange vessel named Col. Cook, and engaged in carrying iron ore from Marquette to Cleveland. On one occassion, at Cleveland, the Col. Cook was at Lafrinier's ship-yard for repairs. While undergoing such repairs the foreman of the yard discovered that the construction of the supposed foreign-built vessel was his own work; and, further- more, that she was no other than the missing schooner Augusta, which ran down the steamboat Lady Elgin. But her inhuman absconding crew were not accounted for. The Col. Cook had made six voyages across the Atlantic in the lumber trade. Her hulk is now a tow-barge on the Great Lakes in the lumber trade. During the vigils of the night out on the waters, let her crew keep a sharp lookout for the ghostly specters, some two hundred in number, that hover over the craft of ghastly memory. "Modern Antiquities..." Pages 86-88 ======================================================================= Sources: "Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes" , Dana Thomas Bowen, 1952 Wikipedia PS Lady Elgin "History of the Great Lakes", J. H. Beers & Co., 1899 "Modern Antiquities, comprising sketches of early Buffalo and the Great Lakes", by Barton Atkins, Buffalo, N.Y., - 1898