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University Place Presents. >> Norman Gilliland: Welcome to
What's so fascinating about a used boat on the bottom of
a lake? Well, it may have to do with a
glimpse into the past that it provides, or it may have to do
with the prospect of lost treasure to be recovered.
It may have to do with curiosity
being able to dive down and or perhapstouch it.sfaction of
One of the most fascinating wrecks of all is the so-called
Christmas Tree Ship, and we'll
fascinating about it from my hear about it and what's so
Meverden and Tamara Thomsen, guests today, and they're Keith
the State Historical Society. uWelcome to University Placeh
Presents. >> Keith Meverden: Thank you.
Tamara Thomsen: Thank you.
how many shipwrecks >> Noin the Great Lakes?re are
Meverden: Well, in the Great
there's probably over 2,000 shipwrecks total in the Great
Lakes, but just within the
Lakes, within Lake Michigan, Wisconsin waters of the Great
historical records we've Lake Superior, according to
ships that have gone down in the documented a little over 700
But of those over 700 vessels, Great Lakes waters of Wisconsin.
discovered 150 of them, so so far today we've only
of waiting to be discovered. there's still a large number out
a lot of ships. >What is so fascinating aboutl
this particular one, the
looking at now? >> The Rouse Simmons is probably
one of the, after the Edmund
most recognized and most Fitzgerald, probably one of the
Great Lakes. celebrated shipwrecks on the
in 1912, the story and the And it's really, since it sank
the Rouse Simmons and as the legend that has evolved around
kind of grown in proportion each Christmas Tree Ship has just
During the holiday season, you year.
examples of the Rouse Simmons, can see examples or you can find
over the place. There's now a play that appears
all throughout Wisconsin and the
it in Europe and in Texas now, Midwest, and actually I've seen
Thomsen: The Christmas the Christmas Tree Ship.
Meverden: The Christmas Schooner, yeah.
There's been a number of books
It's a great story, it's a written about it.
really kind of embodies the tspirit of Christmas and justt
kind of endures and becomes a little more widespread each
year. >> There's also reenactments in
a lot of the coastal communities
So they'll bring Christmas trees around Wisconsin.
fishing ships and I think the Coast Guard participates as
well, bringing Christmas trees
the trees away to different infamilies and organizations.ng
So the Christmas Tree Ship
that went back, I guess, long wabefore this particular ship.on
It's kind of a genre, in a way. >> The Rouse Simmons wasn't the
only Christmas tree ship. That's forgotten a lot today.
There's actually, according to
approximately 61 different historian Fred Neuschel there's
captained by 25 different Christmas tpeople.ps that were
So the Rouse Simmons is one of
But there were a number of many vessels at the time.
Christmas tree ship. vessels that did sail as a
another one we have here, >Tamara, another Christmas tree
ship? >> Yeah, these are actually
examples of one of the Christmas
by Captain Herman Schuenemann. ships that was previously owned
was the ship that was owned by Actually, the outbound vessel
And this is sort of an example him before the Rouse Simmons.
These were actually floating of what they would do.
So instead of going down to a paved area and having...
A parking lot.
trees there for you to select, >> A parking lot and having
and you would see the ships with you would go down for the harbor
up. tThe women would come down andd
string garland and put those up into the rigging, and then they
would also have, they would make
would be strung up too. So it was a very festive event
for you to go down and pick a Christmas off one of the ships.
For what? A dollar or two?
I don't know the exact price
A lot of them were given they were sold for.
reasons that Herman Schuenemann became known as Captain Santa
was that he was a very
So a good portion of the trees benevolent man.
his own ships were given away to that he brought to Chicago on
the community. the poor and to churches within
He and his brother's family had a Christmas tree farm up in?
Thompson, Michigan. And they would hire lumberjack
men, to go out into the woods and cut the trees down, and then
on the last sail of the year
vessel they owned with Christmas they would load up which ever
stacked up sometimes up to eight trees, and they were said to be
very, very little free board. And then they would sail south
for Chicago, and it was always
to arrive, but when they arrived very late in the year for them
to the people of Chicago. it>> That sounds like a riskyme
business, now that you mention
going to be harvesting Christmas it, because obviously you're not
late November, and we've all trees until at least middle or
and if you have eight feet of Christmas trees iced over on top
of your vessel there with, as you say, Tamara, little free
board and maybe five foot waves.
You're asking for trouble. >> Yes.
It was a treacherous trade >> Much more that than.
brother, August Schuenemann, was because Captain Schuenemann's
the Thal, the S Thal, in 1898 as actually lost in a wreck aboard
load of Christmas trees to he was actually bringing his
Just north of Chicago he Chicago.
ran ashore and everybody aboard encounteredwas lost.nd actually
And actually, Herman
that year because his daughters Schhad been born in November.him
He had twin daughters and so he stayed home with his wife for
the birth.
only years that he didn't sail And that was really one of the
his brother. aboard the Christmas ship with
Yeah. >> The>> 1912. year.
Yeah. >> I think we have an image of
at least one of the Schuenemanns
Yeah, this was a picture of Captain Herman Schuenemann.
He's in the center. >> He's in the center, yes.
And it was taken in 1910. And this was the year before he
bought the Rouse Simmons. Or actually 1909 and this was
the year before he bought the Rouse Simmons.
He bought a share of the Rouse
So you mentioned that it was Simmons in 1910.
old, what kind of condition was rit in by the time we get toow
1912, the year in question? >> The Rouse Simmons was built
in 1868 at the McClellan
Wisconsin. shipyard in Milwaukee,
by the time Herman Schuenemann So it was already 42 years old
And a 42-year-old schooner on the Great Lakes is actually
pretty ripe in age, and it may
condition when he bought it. not have been in the best of
three-masted sailing vessel or a Especially, after 1900 having a
Lakes, this was long past the self-pgolden age of sail.e Great
In fact, a self-propelled schooner, at this time most of
the schooners had been turned into barges.
Their masts were cut down; they were toed behind steamers.
So if there was a self-propelled
actually was so noteworthy where schooner out on the lakes, it
newspapers or a steamer would come into port and they would
mention that they saw a full
sail on the lake. So it was actually an anomaly by
this time.
well worn, very decrepit. ASince there wasn't a lot ofy
trade to support them, they were
not in the best shape especially actually neglected and probably
So it was actually kind of a to be sailing in November.
Yeah. By the time Captain Schuenemann
purchased this vessel it was
actual viable trade to bring more of a sales pitch than an
bringing trees down to Chicago these down because he wasn't
was shipping many trees by rail, only via the schooners, he also
built such an aura around but it wCaptain Santa.e he had
Christmas didn't arrive in
arrived on the Christmas Chicago until Captain Santa
of compelled to do that and schoomaintain that persona. kind
And actually he only owned
one-eighth share of the Rouse Simmons at the time when she
sunk. So he didn't sail her actively,
and really the only time that he
the vessel was when he went to went out during his ownership of
bring them south. >> And I think we have an image
here of the ship as it, what is it, the last look of it,
actually. >> The last known image of the
Christmas schooner. It was Rouse Simmons.
This was published in the Marine
You can tell a little bit about what you see here.
This is obviously as the
You can't really see it in the Christmas Tree Ship.
look on kind of the left side of image too closely but if you
board Rouse Simmons and there's tomorrow Christmas trees aboard.
And it's obviously a very different image than we saw of
the first picture of the Rouse
It's looking pretty trim Simmons.
Here it's looking a little there.
Yeah, it could definitely use a coat of paint.
And one of the unusual things was the large deck cabin that
Captain Schuenemann had installed aboard the boat.
It was kind of a deck house where they could build wreaths.
They could also carry more
And we need to do a little more historic research into it, but
from what can he can tell that
the boat and didn't remove it for the sail north to Thompson,
Michigan, and the return trip back.
So as far as we know, it was
as they were sailing. s>> So now we have, in addition
to maybe eight-foot stacks of Christmas trees, we also have
this cabin to make the ship even
And also more difficult to more top heavy.
all your deck space. handle because you're blocking
your booms further up the mast You have to move all your mast,
makes working the vessel much to conmore difficult. and it
What do we know about that
We know that they departed last trip, Tamara?
22nd, and they began their trip Thompson, Msouthward.n November
There really wasn't any concern.
are out there, if you start Thehearing the legend of thethat
Christmas tree ship story that
ship before... they spotted rats leaving the
Exactly, to indicate that there might be something wrong.
And there were some people who
They just had a feeling that left the ship early.
But they departed and because Captain Schuenemann was so
welcoming and so caring, he actually invited some of the
lumberjacks to take a ride
So the best that we understand, there were about 16 aboard when
they departed.
usual? >> Would that be more than
typically three to eight. So it depends on what the load
was when they were sailing. >> How long a ship?
How long a trip?
long did they remain on the >> How long aship? was it or how
How long did they make it?
under good circumstance? >> How long would it have been
short as three days, two to >>three days depending on the as
wind. So they departed that evening
and they began their trip south and as they were departing there
was a fresh breeze. And so it was a good wind and
good to be able to get them south and the wind was from the
northwest.
they found themselves hugging the coast of Door County, thed
wind started picking up and she rose to just below a gale.
And at that point, something
the time she had made it south started to go wrong because by
was off of Kewaunee by about, to Kewwas it three miles?nd she
Three miles off, and she was
It was actually in -- which is sited flying a distress signal.
down in her rigging. an American flag flown upside
wireless. This is 1912, the Titanic had it
but not on this vessel. >> Not on all vessels, yeah.
And so as they passed the Kewaunee Life Saving Station,
they had this distressed signal flying.
It was notice and so the
this was at 3:00 in the Kafternoon, and the Kewauneend
station only had a rowed life boat.
And so they telephoned down to
telephoned the gentlemen down the there and said there's athey
distressed schooner which is
intercept it. And so they got underway shortly
after 3:00 and began heading
Point, which is now called north to come around Two Rivers
they made the point it was Rawley Point, and by the time
They could see almost all the 3:30-4way to Kewaunee.noon.
They had eight miles of visibility.
And so they could see nearly all
couldn't spot the vessel. t>> They said the lake wasey
completely empty. Nothing at all.
Yeah, and so just to make certain, they sailed north for
an hour.
they still did not see anything so they decided to turn out into
the lake, and they sailed for an
And by this time it had increased to a gale, and the
temperature had started to drop.
in the 40s. ASo there was no snow as theen
legend says there was parting snow and they saw this schooner
that was just through a glimpse in the snow storm and people
were yelling help, help.
And so they sailed out into the lake, and they couldn't find it
after an hour of searching in the lake, and so they headed
back into Two Rivers not having found the schooner.
Well, you have to admire, this is an image, I believe, of
the life saving station personnel that we have here.
Yeah, you'll see in this
picture would have gone out to image that everyone in this
Rouse Simmons except for little Henry who's Captain Sogee's sone
who's posing in this picture, and then one of the gentlemen
would have stayed behind to stand watch on the life saving
station.
what they were out there in, in >> This giva gale.some idea of
Yeah, they actually the advantage over the Kewaunee Life
Saving Station because, as
station just had a rowed life boat, so manually propelled.
But Two Rivers was actually fortunate to have a gas powered
life boat, 30 feet in length. And this is an image that would
be very similar.
similar to the vessel that they would have been out in the lakey
in. >> So at this point, November
22nd or so. >> 23rd.
The following day.
Rouse has gone. >> 1912, nobo>> No.ws where the
And there were quite a few calls
ports around the lake. that were put out to all the
Chicago, they asked for everyone When she didn't turn up in
They really thought that she to keep a watch out.
It wasn't unusual for a vessel to be delayed and ride
out on anchor in some shore or
So it wasn't unusual that it somewhere.
And for a while, there were notes and messages that would
show up, fakes, that people would send or reports that ended
up being erroneous that said
Michigan or had been driven tashore and was behind some
islands.
give up hope that the vessel had And for a long time they didn't
So part of the aura of this particular ship really was with
it from the beginning because it
was riding, Captain Santa Claus, had this wave of nostalgia that
arrival of Christmas and it's this missing in action.icial
Yeah, and also for many, many years it was said right after,
too, the storm, there were many captains who had been out on the
lakes for many years and they would come in and say that was
the worst storm I have ever been
dry land. It's lucky if they'll survive.
And that may have been true that
storm had actually picked up it was a bad storm, but the
the bottom. aSo we truly believe that then
Rouse Simmons, had she been afloat, that the life saving
station, the crew from the Two
have seen her and would be been Rivable to perform a rescue.ould
But probably by 4:00 in the afternoon she was already on the
bottom. >> And it's quite the wreck
site, I gather. What we have here is a composite
of how many pictures, Tamara? >> This is a photo mosaic I put
together of 242 images that are stitched together that show you
what the wreck site looks like
And in 2006, the Wisconsin today.
our volunteer divers went out Hisand conducted a two-weekth
archaeological survey of the
For many years there have been Rouse Simmons.
divers who have visited this hundreds if not thousands of
systematically looked at it to shipwreck, but no one has
So we wanted to go out and look at what was still there, any
evidence that was still there,
determine what caused her to and try to see if we could
Well, when you say what was still there, what was still
there after how many years? First, it had to be, I guess
let's back up just a little bit.
place? How was it found in the first
1972 by a diver from the >> It was actually discovered in
Kent Bellrichard, but it was Milwaukee area by the name of
Simmons was in this area to aquite some time because soon
after it went down, a lot of the
area would be pulled up with a commercial fishing nets in the
And actually, in 1923, one of the commercial nets was brought
aboard the fishing boat and one of the crew of the fishing boat
found a little object that was
in the nets, and when they kind of wrapped in a wax paper
and they actually discovered it was Captain Schuenemann's wallet
and it still had his calling
And newspaper articles that talked about him as Captain
Santa.
paper. And he had them preserved in wax
in the bottles that were found >> So unlike a lot of the notes
confirm this that the wallet was to be hoaxes, we actually did
to the family. pulled up in 1923 and returned
to the family, yeah. >> And the wallet was returned
from the Christmas Tree Ship? >>> Not that we've been able to
confirm.
showed up in the newspapers, but There ere two of them that
be hoaxes. both of them were determined to
by Sheboygan a few weeks later One of them washed ashore down
Sturgeon Bay in Door County. and another one showed up off
tragedy that people feel they >have to somehow contribute toa
it. >> Yeah, and that's part of the
reason that the Rouse Simmons,
Simmons just because it was in the legend grew around the Rouse
You had these fantastic stories about the notes and the bottles,
and nobody knew exactly where the Rouse Simmons was in trying
to locate it. It literally just sailed into a
hole in the lake and they couldn't find it.
So was it finally discovered
really actively looking for it. >> Mr. Bellrichard, he was an
avid shipwreck hunter.
lot of major shipwreck He's actually credited with a
And at the time, he was out looking for another vessel, the
steamer Vernon which sank in the
the Rouse Simmons lies today. laBut he actually found it.re
He was out there on, I believe, a cold, foggy October day and he
found it on the sonar.
himself. He was out on the lake by
wreck. He did a quick dive down to the
He couldn't spend a lot of time down there, and he saw that he
had discovered a wooden schooner, but they didn't
actually confirm it by finding
subsequent dive after that. But it was discovered in 1972.
He goes down there and what?
visibility either was or got bad You're saying that the
kind of do this by touch and pretty quickly and he had to
In 1972 the visibility was feel?
So we would be lucky to be able reallto see each other.igan.
And the wreck lies at 165 feet of water so at that depth
with poor visibility there would
So literally, the visibility was be no ambient light.
You could literally see a few feet and that was it.
And plus you have a lot of
which is caused by the thickness nitrogen narcosis at that depth
and the amount of nitrogen of the air that you're breathing
So to be able to stay that long and to be able to spend time
researching and determining which ship it is really...
For 1972, this is a very
diver. advanced dive for a recreational
staying a maximum of six minutes And at the time, they were
have to return to the surface. on the bottom before they would
six minutes. >> You can't discover a lot in
But today, with zebra mussels, the lake is really
clearing up.
that invasive species, we get Avery, very clear water clarity
conditions. And so I think by some of the
pictures you'll see...
see 80 to 100 feet on the wreck. >> On an average day you can
light because there's so much You ambient light on that.ry a
Thanks to the zebra mussels?
lot. >> They clean the water up a
recommend them, anyway. >> We've had friends who
reported being down on the wreck
see their boat on the surface. and being able to look up and
at 165 feet. >> That's certainly remarkable
I guess. We're looking at the stern here,
we took during our survey of the >> Yeah, this is an image that
And here you can actually see where the transom has blown out
on the wreck, and this actually helped us determine that the
wreck did sink, the Rouse Simmons did sink bow first.
So an air pocket was built up inside the hull as she was
sinking and that blew out as she
transom. left the bottom and caused the
good condition. OtherwiIt's very intact.n pretty
There's very few boards that are
amazing place to go diving. >> The Great Lakes, in general,
are wonderful places for
Are they because they're fairly deep, they're fairly cold and
they're fresh water?
A lot of the wrecks on the >> All of those, yeah.
very well preserved. bottom of the Great Lakes are
zebra mussels and quagga mussels Prior to the infestation of
still see, like in one vessel, on the Great Lakes, you could
and it's in 180 feet off in particular, it sank in 1868
When we first started diving Milwaukee, the Grace Shannon.
in zebra mussels, you could thastill see the name, Graceered
Shannon, painted on the stern.
years. It had been down for over 100
wooden vessels in the Great Lakes are very well preserved.
Especially in Wisconsin and all of the Great Lakes have one of
the best collections of 19th
of the world because the fresh century wooden shipwrecks in all
the wood eating organisms like water, we don't have a lot of
Of course, fresh water is much they do in saltwater.
iron. And just because it's so cold.
At this depth, typically it's 38
there. to 42 degrees year-round down
them in a refrigerator and And it's literally like putting
Pretty good museum preserving it.
Fantastic. conditions.
but it sounds as if, Keith, you're saying there is a problem
there with zebra mussels
There is now. The one advantage of zebra
mussels is they've improved the water clarity so you're able to
see much further and it's a much
But the down side to that is safer, more pleasant dive.
wrecks. And on the outside of the wreck
the Rouse Simmons is now covered
inches by a layer of zebra anywhere from one to three
which has its own problems. mIt adds weight to the wreck.
It's not well documented how
shipwrecks and what kind of damage they are causing, but
they certainly aren't helping the matters at all.
What's the significance that
Well, when we did the archaeological survey, one of
our goals was to kind of figure out why the Rouse Simmons went
down, and if we wouldn't be able
perhaps we could discover what to determine why it went down,
What were the crew doing in the was gofinal moments.ship.
And one of the things we first
dove on the wreck is usually noticed when we dived or when we
turns beam to the sea or turns when a vessel sinks it kind of
getting blown along. sideways to the wind as it's
about the Rouse Simmons, it was pointing directly back into the
storm that sank her.
facing back in towards the So she's on a northwest heading
So we thought that was a bit shore.
around the wreck to see why was unushe in that orientation.ing
We expected her to be completely
on a southerly heading. opAnd that's not who we found.r
So we started searching around
examining the machinery and a lot of the things that are still
there, and we found a few unusual things around the
windlass area.
and pushed forward. And actually, if we go to one of
the slides on the screen here,
taken where the foremast would this photograph is actually
So we're actually inside the have stood.
You can see some of the deck ship looking forward.
But if you actually look really bclosely on the bottom of the
ship here you can still see the cargo of Christmas trees that
are still stacked in their hold.
bottom you can still see one In fact, in the center on the
it. So they're very well preserved.n
It's better than the one I
[LAUGHTER] got this year.
to dive because just the >> So it's a great wreck
But when we started looking around the wreck, we started
noticing that a lot of the
used to raise and lower the manchors, the crew was actuallys
working to set one of the anchors or preparing to set an
anchor right when the ship went down.
And that would set the ship right into the wind which would
diminish the force against the
Yes it would. It would help steady the vessel
because any vessel that loses power or gets caught beamed in
the sea and starts wallowing in the wave trough is pretty much
doomed. It's going to be swamped.
It's pretty much a goner. So one of the ways to help that
is to set an anchor or keep the bow into the waves and into the
sea and help steady the ship and
But one of the things that we mcouldn't understand is no.
captain in his right mind on a
anchored in 165 feet of water where the Rouse Simmons is.
So that was one of the questions
But when we started looking around the boat, it was obvious
that they were working to set the anchors because in the image
that we saw before all the
and are in a pile on the deck. anchor chains had been pulled up
the windlass and we found some And we started looking around
they were getting ready to set of the features of the windlass
Because in this image, this is the port anchor.
behind the windlass of the Rouse actually a picture of me right
lower left hand side of the Simscreen, you can see on thehe
windlass there's a large iron staple type of appendage
sticking out of the windlass. This is actually called
a norman pin. We didn't actually quite
understand exactly how one of these windlasses worked at the
time but we actually found a
gentleman by the name of Ludden manWilson around 1900 that hey a
documented this way of life that
time. And he documented very carefully
how these sailors would work the
And he documents the norman pin and how everything was used, and
we actually confirmed that the
to set the port anchor at the crew watime it went down. ready
How does it look in terms of
of the ship? the decking, the actual surface
things about the Rouse Simmons >> That is one of the unusual
missing which is kind of unusual is that a lot of the decking is
similar vessels, similar because there are a couple other
the same area that do have all schooners, at a similar depth in
And this kind of leads the of their decking.
that we saw in the last known photograph of the Rouse Simmons
is one of the remaining questions is whether or not they
actually used some of the deck
One of the advantages for doing plso is you'd be able to get an.
little more cargo on the boat which would actually make it a
more profitable run, but
problems about sea worthiness. obviously there would be some
survey, we weren't able to find any evidence of that deck cabin
at all and actually very little evidence of the deck planks.
So if they would have had the deck cabin installed on the boat
while they were underway, if
sea, any boarding waves would thhave quickly dismantled thate
deck cabin, and if they didn't
them to build the cabin, the have any deck planks and used
filled with water and sank. bSo it's one of the remainingt
questions that we still need to do a little more historic
research in to. >> But we're not aware of any
other ships that had this kind
deck planks just to get more of practice, are we, of removing
It seems like a pretty desperate cargo?
Cargoes were actually quite common, but actually in the
Christmas tree ships, and specifically with Captain
Schuenemann, he's the only
document that had installed and built deck cabins like this for
the Christmas tree trade. Because we haven't been able to
find any other evidence of any
captains using deck cabins like other trathis. any other
So you mentioned the anchor and the anchor chain, at least,
what do we have, anchors seem to
when it comes to underwater be karcheology, Tamara.prize
What's left in this department
When the ship was discovered of the ship?
first dived on her reported that in 1972, the gentleman that
anchor, the starboard side they had removed the starboard
And they actually brought that anchor.
There are newspaper articles up.
And then that anchor went to the that show them posing with it.
So if you'd like to see the anchor of the Christmas Tree
Ship, you can go down to the
look at it. MiThey usually have Christmas a
lights strung up all around it. >> How big would that be?
It was about eight feet, I
It was a pretty large anchor, wooden stock anchor, and it's on
display there now.
what had happened to the port But there side anchor.report of
And so when we were down
discovered that the port side anchor chain actually comes out
of the hause pipe, drops down toward the sand and then comes
up over the bow spread, which is
normally if it was sailing at not the wathat time.would look
Sounds like it was fouled.
And so we thought that perhaps >> Right.
removed the port side anchor. And so we began asking around
and that was just the way the chain ended up when they had cut
it off. And so we started asking around
and we started asking as many of
what had happened to it. the early divers on this wreck
They said as far as they knew the wreck didn't have an anchor,
a port side anchor, and it
And so we actually went back and wasn't there.
John Steele's video, John Steele we were able to get a hold of
the wreck and actually one of the early divers in the Great
Lakes who was taking video. And he went down during his
six-minute dive and filmed the
filmed the anchor coming out of the hause pipe dropping down
into the sand across the vessel.
they discovered it in 1973, and Sit was not a result of someonen
removing the anchor.
this video in the middle of winter and the video was at thed
Wisconsin Maritime Museum and we
We were like, when can we get back out on to the lake.
We knew it had to be out
We knew it had to be there. So the next spring, first thing
we went out and followed the
able to locate the port side anchor chain out and we were
And we discovered that it is anchor.
bottom. And that was what was holding
the Rouse Simmons into the wind.
crew was getting ready to set the anchor and they actually had
thrown the anchor overboard.
set into the bottom and the Bdistance it is away from the
wreck, it didn't fall over
because from the video we saw the starboard anchor was heavily
lashed in by heavy chains.
it and threw it overboard to So the crew willfully unhooked
Sure. >> And there's a few items that
we found on the deck, too, when we were doing the survey.
We found an anchor hook which they would have used for
lowering the anchor away from the ships so they wouldn't have
caused damage to the ship when
But that brings us back to we were putting it down.
that? theWhy would they throw theirdo
anchor over in 165 feet of water
windlass it would have taken because with an old manual
anchor back up. >> And frankly, they didn't have
enough chain on the ship to be
Well, I was going to ask able to set the anchor.
That's a lot of chain because you're not talking about 165,
you're talking about the
It would be a lot more. >> In a storm, the rule of thumb
is you want a scope or you want the anchor chain to be 10 times
the depth of water. So in 165 feet they would have
needed over a thousand feet of
have aboard. anchor chain which they didn't
something terribly going wrong, Sthey knew that the ship wast
doomed and they were just trying
launch their yawl and get off or to steady the boat perhaps to
the life saving station could steady theget there.aps until
But they definitely knew that they were doomed when they set
that anchor over. >> And we're talking about 16
people on this ship then kind of
out what to do. r>> And unfortunately, the yawl
boat wouldn't have been large enough to carry all 16 people.
About 8 or 10 so that would have
situation for many people made it aaboard.very poor
So the anchor is where now? >> It is northwest of the
shipwreck, and it's about 200 feet away.
And are you planning to leave it there or are you going to
bring it up for your yacht club?
It's actually illegal to remove any artifacts
from Great Lakes shipwrecks now since 1988 and the federal
Abandoned Shipwreck Act.
discovered, they removed many of So when the wreck was first
vessel which are in maritime the early artifacts from the
state. museums around much of the
to remove anything from the But now sincbottom.it's illegal
And when we do an archaeological
place. survey, we leave everything in
bottom and we don't bring We surveyanything up.es on the
172 feet strikes me, still, as being, even with contemporary
technology, a long way down.
How many visitors does this ship get?
You'll see hundreds of divers a year go out to it.
Over the years there's probably been several thousands of divers
who have visited it.
site. I>> On a good day on the lakee
there will be two or three dive boats anchored down or moored to
the wreck and with divers diving
So it's actually visited quite it.
And it's open to anyone as often.
anything? long as>> It is.t remove
And we actually have people that
visit the shipwrecks here, so comit's quite a niche tourismto
market. >> Is there a problem at all
with divers, even if they don't bring anything up, disturbing
things so that it's a little
in effect, kind of a forensic analysis of this ship and you,
have somebody down there, well, this wheel looks pretty nice,
oh, it came out.
Even the looting isn't as much of a problem as it used to
be. Through education, we've
educated many of the divers that
They're not nonrenewable and these are important sites.
artifacts there. it's important to leave the
moved around a site. A lot of times artifacts do get
dishes, cups, plates, things Small, portable artifacts like
And a lot of people like to move like that.
of them in one area. them around and take photographs
Simmons, one of the things is if And especially with the Rouse
pull out Christmas trees that still have all their needles on
them. They look like the day they
sank. And every year somebody pulls
one out and sets it on the boat.
it's very romantic but And it's very picturesque and
off and so they discard that eventually those needles fall
And eventually you won't have trany more Christmas trees.ne.
Yeah. So we're trying to discourage
people from doing that also.
leave only bubbles and don't They say take only pictures,
We have here a picture of what appears to be the ship's
wheel, though.
The ship's wheel was Where did that come from?
Do you recall the year? discovered >> 1991.rman's net.
And it was pulled up about a
then restored by a gentleman mile north of the wreck site and
And it's on display currently at named Jim Braatz.
in Two Rivers. the Roger Street Fishing Village
long time that the wheel had And there was a theory for a
that was what caused Rouse been lost in that location and
That she had had a steering malfunction and that the mizzen
boom had swept across the deck
overboard. and had knocked the wheel
Street and the village of Two Rivers hosts a Rouse Simmons
Christmas Tree Ship weekend ever
It ends up being the first year.
But lots of people come out for weekenit to listen to theeason.
presentations and to remember the Christmas Tree Ship.
And one of the years we were
the fisherman that had brought giving a presentation and one of
forward and we started talking the wheel up in his nets came
they hadn't been fishing in the area that was a mile north but
they had actually come maybe a
Simmons and gotten their nets entangled with this artifact.
And by the time they got it aboard and got the nets hauled
up then they were a mile north
So they dragged it a mile, in of thother words?site.
Yes.
know of the locations of most of >> And that's actually how we
of entanglements with commercial our shipwrecks today are because
It is quite common. They try to avoid them whenever
possible because obviously the
But the wheel looked, in that image at least, like it's in
pretty good shape anyway. >> Yeah, they've done a really
good job of restoring it, and they really do a very good job
of preserving it at the Roger Street Fishing Village.
So if something comes accidentally then the State
Historical Society is happy to
We try to find homes for adopt it?
How many sites have you two dived on the Great Lakes?
Quite a few.
dived all of the shipwrecks in We've pretty much, we haven't
We're trying. >> We've dived the vast majority
of them, and I guess I've dived wrecks and all but Lake Erie.
I don't know how many lakes you've been in.
All of them.
When we're not working, we're >> We also out on a dive.r fun.
It's a job. If it's the same thing you would
do if you weren't getting paid
So what is the Holy Grail? then you've got the right job.
really like to find, number one What's ton your list?you would
The Holy Grail, there's actually only one Holy Grail of
the Great Lakes and that would
which is actually, it's not the first shipwreck nor the first,
European sailing vessel on the
people, it was built in the Niagara River over the winter of
1678-1679, and La Salle actually
County peninsula to load furs to brought it to Wisconsin to Door
And once it loaded furs either take back to France.
Island area, it set sail and on the Rock Island or Washington
So the Griffon was the first nobody ever saw it again.
Michigan, it was also Lake European sailing vessel on Lake
And it hasn't been discovered yet so they're still looking for
it. >> It's been a long time.
It sounds like it would be
There's been a lot of reports but there's no confirmations
yet.
[LAUGHTER] >> Well, happy hunting.
showing us through the Rouse and And thanks for
almost a legendary wreck, although it only goes back justt
a hundred years now.
With me have been Tamara >> Yep.
underwater archaeologists with Thomsen and Keith Meverden,
It's been a pleasure. the Stat>> Thank you.Society.
Thanks for having us. >> Hurry back.
Thank you.
hope you can join me for the >> I'm Norman Gilliland and I
Place Presents next broadcast of University
.