cc  >> Welcome to the Wisconsin  Historical Museum.  I'd like to introduce Hank  Whipple.  He'll be talking about the life  and death of the SS Wisconsin.  >> Hank Whipple: Again,  on behalf of the Wisconsin  Historical Society,  I'd like to thank you for  attending.  And we're going to be talking  about Black Tuesday.  Anyone here remember Black  Tuesday?  Well, do you know what it is?  You don't remember it.  Do you know what it is?  >> (inaudible)  >> Whipple: October 29, 1929.  It was also the last day, it's  always a Black Tuesday, for the  SS Wisconsin.  One of the greatest of all  American sea stories  is "Moby Dick."  It contains a passage about the  hazards of weather on the Great  Lakes.  It's Ishmael talking at the  Golden Inn and he says,  "Now gentlemen, in their  interflowing aggregate, these  grand freshwater seas of ours,  Erie, Ontario, Huron, Superior,  and Michigan, possess an  ocean-like expansiveness. 

 They are swept with Boreal and  dismasting blasts as direful as  any lash of a saltwater wave.  They know what shipwrecks are,  for out of sight of land, even  though inland, they have drowned  many a ship crew during the  midnight with all there was left  was the shrieking of the crew."  End of quote.  The SS Wisconsin was US registry  number 80861.  This is a newspaper photograph  of her.  She was 215 feet long with an  iron hull, and she is now  sitting upright on the sand and  mud on the bottom of Lake  Michigan.  The water is 125 feet deep, and  the hull is intact except for a  hole blasted in its starboard  side in the 1930s when some  divers, these were hardhat  divers, were attempting to gain  access to her.  All that remains is her steel  superstructure.  All that remains of the steel  superstructure, which was ripped  by the force of the sea as she  sank, lie scattered like jack  sticks on her deck.  On her bow, the steering post,  capstan and bollard still stand.  The anchor chains wound around  the stem on the bow and runs out  to the sea where it had been  dropped. 

 The chimney smokestack has been  dislodged, and it's lying across  the deck of the vessel with its  orange-red stripe with a top  black band still obviously  visible, and it's the trademark  of the Goodrich Steamship Line.  The Wisconsin was one of the  early all steel steamboats built  on the Great Lakes in the 1880s.  Even for that day, the majority  of the steamers were either  built all of wood or with a  steel hull and a wooden  superstructure.  She was designed by the  well-known marine architect  Frank Kirby.  And she was in the cross-lake  railroad transit of rolling  stock, the old Ann Arbor, this  type of thing that -- western  group.  Her design, however, was  extremely innovated for her day.  She was built with a double  hull, which is not unlike the  modern supertankers.  She had an ice-breaking bow  designed to ride up on the ice,  and then crush through the ice  with the sheer mass of her  weight.  This is a standard contemporary  ice-breaking bow design.  Throughout her life she was  regarded as one of the strongest  ships on Lake Michigan. 

 She was built for the Goodrich  Transit Company of Chicago at a  cost of $159,000 at the Detroit  Dry Dock facility in Wyandotte,  Michigan.  She was launched on October 11,  1881.  She measured 1183 tons, was 215  feet long, 34 feet wide and the  depth of her hold was 14 feet.  The steam engine was mounted in  the aft section, as you can see  back here toward the stern.  She had a twin sister.  The SS Michigan was launched the  same year.  Both were in service for the  Goodrich Transit Company by the  end of 1881.  This was a very lucrative  railroad rolling stock transport  across Lake Michigan from  Ludington, Michigan, to  Milwaukee.  There was much media attention  given at the time of the  launching of these two vessels.  Numerous articles in the papers  and publicity about their safety  and unusual qualities. 

 The long line of the Goodrich  Steamship Company started with a  partnership of Albert Goodrich  and George Drew, which lasted  from 1856 to 1859.  The Goodrich Steamboat Line was  formed when Drew was bought out  by Goodrich and continued till  1874.  At that time, Goodrich formed  the Goodrich Transportation  Company.  As part of the company's 1884  promotional material, it was  averred that the line served all  principal ports and summer  resorts on Lake Michigan.  The company was reformed and  reorganized in 1906 as the  Goodrich Transit Lines and  continued in business under that  name until it went into  bankruptcy and liquidation in  1933.  During its 75-year history,  Goodrich Line served many ports  and communities on both Lake  Michigan, the shores of Green  Bay and the lower Fox River.  As I indicated, the company was  known by its mark on its  smokestack, the red-orange band  with the black topping stripe.  Goodrich found that the business  was declining so he sold the  Michigan and the city of  Milwaukee to the Detroit Grand  Haven and Milwaukee Railroad in  1883.  This became the present Grand  Trunk Railroad.  It connected Canada, Detroit and  Milwaukee, causing the company  to state that its car ferry  service saved 340 miles of  shipping and without the  necessity of having to go  through Chicago. 

 The railroad had recently not  renewed its cross-lake contract  with Goodrich, deciding to go  into competition directly on its  own.  It operated under the Pere  Marquette name.  And they had these, I think they  went up to 19 or 21, was the  highest number in the Pere  Marquette series.  They went from Ludington,  Michigan, to Milwaukee.  Wisconsin would change ownership  in 1896 when it was purchased by  the Crosby Line of Muskegon,  Michigan, and renamed SS Naomi  in honor of the owner's  daughter.  Crosby took over the Detroit,  Grand Haven and Milwaukee  cross-lake transit shipping.  He then sold her to the Racine  and Milwaukee Steamship Company  who, in 1918, changed her name  to Pilgrim.  Pilgrim was in direct  competition with the Goodrich  Transit Line until March of 1922  when Goodrich took over that  company, forming the Goodrich  Transportation Line, and he  restored her name SS Wisconsin.  As she was completing a  cross-lake transit in 1882, she  struck the Grand Haven,  Michigan, north pier, knocking a  hole 12 feet behind the bow that  measured 8 feet by 5 feet.  No penalties were assessed to  the captain and the commanding  officer and crew because the  range light marking the harbor  entrance was out at the time. 

 She docked successfully.  They had the bulkhead repaired.  And it was the first accident  that Captain -- had in 25 years  on this lake.  The repair cost $3,500.  So as to not delay the shipping,  the SS Menomonie, who had been  laid up in ordinary, that is  it's like being mothballed, it's  there but they aren't using it,  was put into service the next  day and dispatched to carry the  freight that the laid up vessel  wasn't able to do.  While in cross-lake transit in  March of 1888, she and her  sister ship, the Michigan, both  became locked in the ice off of  Grand Haven.  Once in a while Lake Michigan  will freeze over.  This was one of the years that  it froze over.  And in spite of its ice breaking  capacity they, both of them,  were stuck in the ice.  There was no loss of life and,  unfortunately, the Michigan did  get holed and sank before the  tug Arctic could get to her and  rescue the crew. 

 The wreck of the Michigan was  located by divers in 2006.  And it's in Michigan waters so  it's the Michigan state  shipwreck, not one of ours.  The Wisconsin was more fortunate  than the Michigan.  Her crew jettisoned more than a  third of her cargo trying to  keep her afloat.  Using the heavy oak fenders,  which they use in docking to  protect the side of the ship,  she reinforced the hull to  prevent the ice from stoving her  in.  The SS City of Ludington was  sent from Milwaukee to her  sister.  The ice conditions took 14 days  to finalize the freezing in.  The captain, seeing that she was  in distress, thought she was  certainly in serious danger of  sinking.  So the Ludington crew, who went  across the ice to the Wisconsin,  jettisoned another 300 tons of  cargo, thereby raising the hole  in her bow above the water line.  The tug Arctic did manage to  free her, and after two  additional weeks of imprisonment  she was taken into dry dock  costing $40,000 to repair the  damage. 

 The next season she did return  to the cross-lake traffic.  As I indicated, in 1899 her name  was changed to Naomi when she  transferred to the Crosby  Company.  She was still running in the car  ferry, that is their hauling  railroad stock, across the lake.  However, while sailing for  Crosby, in the middle of Lake  Michigan at 1:00 a.m.  on the night of May 21, 1907,  she became a victim of the  greatest peril on the Great  Lakes, fire.  It was discovered approximately  when she was 28 miles west of  Grand Haven on her way to  Milwaukee.  The -- soon became a raging  inferno, seemingly destined to  doom the vessel and all aboard  her.  Fortunately, the smoke and  flames were sighted by the  freighters SS Kansas, SS --, and  the SS Sacks and Curry, all who  came to her assistance.  A flame precluded the smaller  vessels from even getting close  to rescue.  These were wooden superstructure  vessels, and it was just too  hazardous for them to approach. 

 Only the -- who had a steel  hull, could approach.  And with skillful maneuvering by  its captain, they brought their  bow to the stern of the Naomi,  taking all the people off except  for those that had already taken  to the life boats.  Those that were in the life  boats then were picked up by the  other two vessels.  So with no loss of life, the  vessel fires finally burned out.  When it was cool enough to deal  with the ship then the -- towed  her into Grand Haven.  The damage was so severe that  she had to be towed across the  lake to Manitowoc where she went  under a complete rebuilding, and  she was converted at this point  now from a railroad car ferry to  a passenger liner.  This Phoenix-like metamorphosis  caused her to be bustled and her  main deck widened by six feet.  And bustling is a process where  they would take out, build it  out about three feet.  So, I'll call it the white part,  now is expanded in three feet  over the edge of the black which  was the old steel hull.  This was a totally steel  superstructure. 

 She was given a hundred cabins  on two different decks.  Her new appointments were the  state of the art wood and wood  paneling.  And she was considered, at that  point, the most luxurious  passenger vessel on Lake  Michigan.  This repair and metamorphosis  cost $200,000.  She went back into service in  August of 1909.  Crosby was to lose his life in  the sinking of the Titanic in  1912.  So the Naomi was renamed EG  Crosby in honor of dead owner of  the firm.  And she continued in the  cross-lake passenger traffic  until 1918 when she was taken  over by the United States  shipping board during the first  world war and subsequently  served as a convalescent vessel  in New York harbor under the  name of General Robert M.  O'Reilly.  It's wars end. 

 She was purchased by the Seymour  Line that became the Chicago,  Milwaukee, Racine Steamship  Line, operating on Lake Michigan  under the name of Pilgrim.  Two days after her return to the  Goodrich Line in March 24, 1922,  she was again sent on to the  Manitowoc, Wisconsin, for  extensive overhaul and to  improve her overnight  accommodations.  She was now running a parallel  course but in opposite  directions with the Goodrich SS  Illinois, and they're operating  between Chicago and Milwaukee.  In route in 1923 she encountered  a heavy storm from the  northeast.  A lot of water had gotten into  the engine room, the boiler room  and the coal bunkers.  The ship had sustained a list of  port.  It made her safety a concern.  The captain immediately put into  Milwaukee, and it was discovered  that the water had entered  through a gap in the bustling.  Through extensive welding, they  assumed that the plates were  repaired and the ship was in  good condition.  A law of the sea is that  shipwrecks are attributable to  one or more of three factors. 

 Human error, structural or  equipment failure and the  weather or, if you please, acts  of God.  SS Wisconsin would prove no  exception to this.  >> Upside down.  >> Whipple: How we doing now?  >> That's better.  >> Whipple: Okay.  That's her captain.  His name is Morrison, -- H.  Morrison, who was first mate at  the time of the 1907 fire.  And that's his daughter.  He was very highly regarded  among his peers on the lake. 

 But on October 27, 1929, the  Wisconsin had been in a severe  equinoctial storm on the lake.  Gave her a tremendous beating.  Her cargo had shifted.  She had put into Chicago.  She had successfully passed two  inspections a week earlier, and,  of course, running another trip  is more money.  So the more you can squeeze in  while the shipping season goes,  the more money for the company.  These factors may have caused  Captain Morrison to decide on  the night of October 29, 1929,  to leave the safety of the  harbor at Chicago and head out  on the lake at 7:27 p.m.  He was bound for Milwaukee.  There was a growing  north-easterly gale.  That gale and the warnings of  all the Coast Guard stations on  the easterly side of Lake  Michigan caused many captains to  stay in port. 

 But not the Wisconsin.  She was carrying four passengers  and a crew of 64.  A cargo consisting of  automobiles, iron castings and a  substantial quantity of box  freight.  The storm soon shifted to the  east-northeast with 20-foot  towering seas.  They're striking her starboard  bow and giving her a terrible  beating.  The voyage would prove to be  Black Tuesday for her, as well  as the New York stock exchange.  And one of the problems on the  Great Lakes is not so much the  height of the waves as the  frequency.  Like on the ocean you may have a  30-foot wave, but if it has a  quarter mile frequency cycle  it's not doing much.  But on the Great Lakes they can  be 50-foot with 20-foot cycles,  and it continues beating, you  never actually come off of one  without smashing into another.  And that's what was happening  that night. 

 The SS Illinois had laid up at  the dock in Racine, received a  radio message at 12:50 a.m.  from the Wisconsin wanting to  know about docking conditions in  that harbor.  She was told that everything was  filled up because of the storm.  There was no space.  So Captain Morrison said, I'm  going to try to make Milwaukee.  He wasn't able to make  Milwaukee.  Then he decided, well, I think  I'm going to try to make Racine.  However, the cargo holds were  flooding, the engine room was  starting to flood, he was losing  steam power.  He knew once water got into the  boilers that there would either  be an explosion or in any case  he wouldn't be able to have  propulsion.  So he headed into the wind,  dropped the anchor, let the  anchor chain run out and tried  to keep up steam as best he  could. 

 However, the pressure was lost  due to the fact that water was  now in the coal bunkers.  The coal was now floating  around.  It was clogging the strainers  that are on the pumps, and  finally the whole system shut  down.  At 2:15 a.m. the radio operator,  a 17-year-old fellow  by the name of Kenneth Carlson,  sent out the first SOS.  It would be the first of 17 SOSs  that would be sent out that  night.  The Coast Guard motor lifeboats  from Kenosha and Racine  immediately responded.  This is the Racine boat.  Kenosha was the same one.  It's a motor powered 36-foot  boat.  It also has, you can see there's  a mast with a sail throwed  around it as an auxiliary source  of the power. 

 Also, the new steel-hulled fish  tug called Search, owned by the  Chamber brothers of Kenosha,  departed from Kenosha.  The Racine lifeboat was  commanded by Captain John  Olander, the keeper of the  station.  He departed at 2:30 a.m.  Kenosha boat, under Captain  Alfred Christopherson, the  keeper of the station, departed  15 minutes later.  Each boat had six additional  crew men on board.  While the keeper was out of the  Racine station, his wife took  over and was manning the lookout  tower at the top of the station.  The Kenosha Coast Guard, after  an hour of sailing in 20-foot  seas, sighted the dim emergency  lights of the Wisconsin.  They're about two miles from the  stricken ship, but it took them  an additional two hours until  they could get there because of  the weather conditions.  Christopherson realized that it  was too dangerous for his vessel  to come along side of Wisconsin.  He therefore ordered the  stricken ship to lower her  lifeboats. 

 Captain Morrison gave the  abandon ship order at 4:30 a.m.  The crew, with some of the  passengers, began to lower the  port lifeboats.  The starboard lifeboats, due the  listing of the ship, were not  able to be launched.  That is, if you're like this and  you're listing to one side, your  lifeboats lower directly so  they'd just be lowering onto the  deck, and there wouldn't be any  way that that half could be  used.  They did manage to launch five  lifeboats and three life rafts.  This gave sufficient  accommodation for all persons on  board.  The Coast Guard stood by.  The rescuers then commenced  taking survivors from the  lifeboats, rafts and from the  water itself.  When they had rescued the  survivors from two of the  lifeboats and some of the rafts,  the Kenosha life saving boat was  filled to capacity and had to  return to port.  The Racine motor lifeboat would  rescue 18 survivors after two  and a half hours of dangerous  and difficult effort. 

 It was then full and had to  return to port as well.  The fish tug Search arrived an  hour later and was going among  the debris and picked 15 people  up out of the water.  Some of them were in such bad  condition that the crew members  of the fish tug actually had to  get into the water to get the  survivors on a line and get them  back into the fish tug.  Each of the Coast Guard boats  made several trips to home port  and back picking up all of the  survivors that they could.  At Racine, the SS Illinois was  trying to get up steam when it  heard the first SOS, but in  departing it damaged its rudder  and had to turn back.  At 7:10 a.m.  the Wisconsin started it's final  journey to the bottom.  Nine men died including Captain  Morrison who was the last to  leave the ship.  He died of shock and exposure  after having been washed out of  a lifeboat due to the cold water  conditions.  Loyal to his captain was chief  engineer Julius Bushman. 

 He was an aged crew member.  He was encouraged by his  shipmates to take to the  lifeboat.  He refused saying, no,  I'm saying with my captain.  When he goes, I'll go with him.  If he goes down, I'll go with  him.  Captain Morrison did persuade  the engineer to get into a life  raft but because of his frail  condition he was washed  overboard and drowned.  Four bodies later floated to  shore.  Only one was identified.  All were buried in a common  grave at Kenosha cemetery.  At her sinking, the vessel was  worth a quarter million dollars  and her cargo $200,000. 

 The list of the names of the  survivors, those who were  hospitalized and those then who  were dead, appeared in the  November 1, 1929, issue of the  Milwaukee Sentinel.  The captain general of the  transit company showed up the  next morning, took over the  facilities, taking care of the  crew, the survivors, trying to  secure cargos.  The following few days the roads  into shore from Kenosha and  Racine were so crowded with  souvenir hunters and memento  seekers that the -- from the  ship would include rafts,  lifeboats, oars, cabin  furniture, bedding, cooking  utensils, 15 pages from the  ship's log book and other items.  The Coast Guard was assigned  according to their regulations  to patrol the shore to prevent  any further pilferage of this  equipment.  A full investigation was  conducted, and the captain was  found not to be at fault.  There are numerous awards and  commendations given by the  communities to the lifeboat  crews and the search crew.  A gold medal was given to each  of them.  And at the top it has an eagle  with an olive branch.  Then there's a sinking ship  below that.  Then there's a motor lifeboat  below that. 

 And it says Wisconsin.  >> Were these unique?  In other words, has the same  model been used before or was it  a unique medal?  >> Whipple: It was one that was  commissioned by the communities.  >> So it was unique?  >> Whipple: Yep, but the concept  of giving them was not unique.  The hearing found, as I said, no  fault with the captain or the  crew.  Said that the lifeboat crew and  the search boat crews behaved in  the best tradition of the  Maritime Services.  But one of the things that  happened was a dispute over a  body of the drowned 52-year-old  black cook LBH Degras.  It seems that wife number one,  you can see what's coming, her  name was June, came to Kenosha  to claim his remains on the  night of October 29th, made  arrangements for the body to be  shipped to Chicago.  Not doubting her authenticity,  the funeral home shipped him  home.  Next thing enter wife number  two, Clara.  She telephoned the funeral home  saying that she was the  legitimate wife. 

 Insurance named her as the   beneficiary.  She was "appalled"  when told about another wife.  But she said she had known  something about another woman.  Kenosha authorities were left to  sort out the problem.  The remains of the Wisconsin are  still where they sank.  She was first found in the  hardhat divers in the 1930s.  They had, in 1932, they tried to  gain access to it, and they  blasted a hole right here in  the side.  There are cars, these are the  jack straws of the  superstructure, what's left.  Here's the smokestack.  There originally had been three  bodies on the ship reported by  the hardhat divers. 

 By the scuba diving era of the  1960s, from then on nobody  reported any bodies on the ship  at all.  Well, the Wisconsin now remains  to this day a proud ship serving  a brand new public.  With the advent of the Submerged  Cultural Resources Act for  Wisconsin in 1989 and the  Federal Abandon Steamship Act of  1987, it's no longer legal to  remove or damage any of the  facilities on a shipwreck.  Also, the shipwrecks in  Wisconsin waters belong to the  state of Wisconsin.  The Historical Society is the  trustee of all these ships.  We've been placing them on the  National Register of Historic  Places.  And at this point Wisconsin has  more vessels on the national  registry than any other state.  So it's a criminal act to do any  further damage or remove  anything from the ship.  However, mother nature isn't  subject to the law, and she'll  do her official participation in  the aging process as time goes  on.  Thank you. 

 If you have any questions I'll  be glad to attempt to answer  them for you.  (applause)