The Sailing of the Rouse Simmons
“Sight of the little schooner brought joy and gladness to the hearts of hundreds
and thousands. The arrival of the ship at
Chicago, with its trees lashed to its masts, was a happy
traditional occasion, marking the start of the Yule season…
The owner of the Christmas Tree Ship was as much loved by his crew as he was by
the thousands of children he made happy at about this time of year.”
Manitowoc
Herald
November 24, 1962
On August 15, 1868,
the Milwaukee Sentinel announced the
launching of a new sailing vessel built in one of the city’s local shipyards.
The schooner, christened Rouse Simmons,
made news in several states. The Milwaukee press
reported: “The Rouse Simmons, one of
two new vessels recently contracted for by
Kenosha, Wisconsin,
parties, will be launched this afternoon from the shipyard of Allan, McClelland
& Company. Her dimensions are as follows: Length overall, 127 feet; breath of
beam, 27 feet 6 inches; depth of hold, 8 feet 1 inch; measurement about 220
tons. The model of the Simmons
combines speed with large carrying capacity, and in this respect must be
considered faultless. Her entrance, though seemingly full, is nevertheless quite
sharp, and her run is really beautiful. The timber used in her construction is
the finest we have ever seen put into a vessel, and the manner in which it has
been put together reflects the highest credit upon the builders. The cost of the
new vessel, when fully completed and ready for sea, will be in the neighborhood
of $17,000. She will carry three masts, fore-and-aft rigged, with square sail on
foremast. Her owners are Royal B. Tousley and Captain Akerman, of
Kenosha, the latter of whom will have command. The
Simmons is designed for the lumber trade and will ply between Manistee and
Chicago.”
Forty-four years after the Rouse Simmons
was launched, it made headlines again – but this time not in a celebratory way.
On December 6, 1912,
the Milwaukee Sentinel reported that
the schooner had gone missing in “the vicinity of Twin River Point” – an area
that had “long been considered one of the most dangerous portions of the lake,
having earned through its many wrecks and wild waters the name of ‘the graveyard
of the lake.’”
The same article made mention of the
Simmons’ earlier days: “The
Rouse Simmons was a three-masted schooner and slid off the ways in 1868,
having a capacity of 16,000 bushels of grain. It was then one of the largest
boats on the Great Lakes and was the pride of
its builder. Later, as larger and faster boats were built, the
Rouse Simmons was used for the transportation of iron and copper ores,
lumber, piling and rough stock of all descriptions. In its career it changed
hands many times, the present owner being M. J. Bonner of
St. James, Michigan. Two
Milwaukee men have owned the schooner, John Faville and
F. S. Maxon. It was a well-built boat…”
The ship was built of native timber and was designed to carry timber.
It was estimated by Theodore Charrney, “the most devoted student of the ship’s
storied career,” that the Rouse Simmons
piled up a veritable mountain of lumber dockside during her lifetime spent
serving the Chicago market – 200 million board feet (Schooner
Passage, Professor Theodore J. Karamanski).
The ship could carry up to 350,000 board feet of lumber at a time.
Although the majority of the ship’s life was spent hauling lumber, the vessel
became tragically remembered for its last cargo - Christmas trees.
On November 23, 1912,
Captain Herman Schuenemann was transporting a Yuletide cargo of evergreens with
the Simmons when the ship was caught
in a ferocious storm and subsequently sunk.
Two years earlier, in 1910, Captain Schuenemann purchased part ownership in the
ship that was destined to become “his coffin” (Chicago
Maritime, David M. Young).
According to the “Consolidated Certificate of Enrollment and License” for the
Rouse Simmons, issued by the Department of Commerce and Labor/Bureau of
Navigation, the owners of the ship in 1910 were listed as follows…
…The Rouse Simmons took approximately
six months to build at a cost of $14,000 to $17,000 (reports vary) – a sizable
sum of money in 1868. As previously
mentioned, the ship was “the pride of its builder” and “the timber used in her
construction was the finest” – reflecting “the highest credit upon the
builders.” The ship’s sturdy construction served it well during its forty-four
years in the lumber trade on the Great Lakes
until it went missing in 1912. The Grand
Haven Daily Tribune of Grand Haven, Michigan,
reported the Simmons’ loss on
December 6, 1912:
“Many a middle aged Muskegon,
Michigan, man will recall the days when he helped load the ill-fated
old schooner Rouse Simmons with
lumber for the then almost insatiable
Chicago market. Others will recall her weekly trips made
more noticeable by the peculiar name the craft bore.”
The “peculiar name” belonged to both the ship and a real man. Who was he?
According to the Kenosha County Historical Society in
Kenosha, Wisconsin, as
reported in the Society’s bulletin in October 1971, Rouse Simmons was a citizen
of their community in the 1800’s and helped finance the building of the ship.
Their records read: “Three
Kenosha citizens with a vision of the future saw the great potential
in getting into the profitable shipping business and also in building up the
growing Kenosha
community. They decided to build a suitable schooner primarily for transporting
lumber. In 1868, R. B. Towsley, with the shipping and business know-how, and
Captain Ackerman, with an excellent record of seamanship and lake port
knowledge, planned a three-masted lake schooner. Rouse Simmons was not a
partner, but he helped finance the building of the ship.”
Although Rouse Simmons did not own the vessel named in his honor, the ship was
christened with his name out of gratitude for his financial support. The Simmons
family was a manufacturing power in Kenosha,
Wisconsin (just south of
Milwaukee) and went on to found the Simmons Mattress
Company – a bedding and furniture factory. (If you are sleeping on a Simmons
Beauty Rest mattress, you are connected to a piece of the Christmas Tree Ship
story.)
In the pages of a dusty, old Bible, the names of other Simmons family members
were recorded. The 160-year-old
Bible was purchased by Raymond E. Johnson, a retired teacher, in a used book
store. He paid only $7.00 for the leather-covered heirloom. Mr. Johnson
recalled…
…Although the factory has long since been demolished, many reminders yet remain
in Kenosha of
the family’s influence on the community.
There is Simmons
Island, Simmons Field, and the grand Gilbert M.
Simmons Library, gifted to the city by Zalmon Simmons as a memorial to his
deceased son, Gilbert.
Kenosha is only one city of several along Lake
Michigan with memorials directly - or indirectly - connected to the
Rouse Simmons…
…The city of Muskegon,
Michigan, lies across the lake from
Kenosha. Here, visitors will find many memorials placed
by a wealthy lumber baron named Charles H. Hackley who purchased the
Rouse Simmons in 1873. He held the ship in his fleet for more than a quarter
of a century during his most prosperous years in the lumber industry. (This was
the longest period of time any one person owned the vessel during its forty-four
years.)
The ship was said to be the “work horse” of
Hackley’s fleet and the vessel contributed significantly to the earnings of
the Hackley company during this time. Hackley later sold the vessel when the
lumbering industry became less profitable, and the vessel was then passed
between many owners.
Charles Hackley, according to his biography, was a man who “gave freely of his
wealth to the betterment of the city where he made his millions in the 1800’s.
Much of his belief was founded upon Andrew Carnegie’s
Gospel of Wealth written in 1889. Like other entrepreneurs of the time,
Charles felt that his wealth should be used not only to correct hardship and
misfortune, but also to benefit those who wished to better themselves. In an
interview, Charles Hackley said: ‘A
rich man to a great extent owes his fortune to the public. He makes money
largely through the labor of his employees… Moreover, I believe that it should
be expended during the lifetime of the donor so that he can see that his
benefactions do not miscarry and are according to his intent… To a certain
extent, I agree with Mr. Carnegie…it is a crime to die rich.’”
Charles Hackley lived and died his belief and left the City of
Muskegon a hospital, a library, a school, a park, an art
gallery, and an athletic field. The Hackley family also established an endowment
fund to benefit the poor of the city, and another for the purpose of educational
benefits.
Both Muskegon, Michigan,
and Kenosha,
Wisconsin, are connected to the story of the Christmas
Tree Ship through the Rouse Simmons.
Other communities are connected to the story through Captain Herman Schuenenmann.
Algoma, Wisconsin, is
one of these.
Algoma was Captain Schuenemann’s birthplace. He was born and raised in this
picturesque fishing village north of
Milwaukee in 1865 – within three years of the
Rouse Simmons’ birth in the Allen, McClelland & Company shipyard in 1868.
Many of the same buildings that stood in Herman Schuenemann’s youth are still
there today. One of these buildings houses
Wisconsin’s oldest winery:
the von Stiehl Winery. Although this building was originally erected near the
end of the Civil War to serve as a brewery, the caverns beneath the building -
constructed of hand-carved limestone cut from bedrock in the area - proved to be
excellent for wine production in later years.
The von Stiehl Winery has been bottling a commemorative wine for the past decade
honoring the city’s native son, Herman Schuenemann, and his ship.
A sketch of the Rouse Simmons appears
on the label with the following notation:
“Captain Herman Schuenemann of Algoma was skipper of the
Rouse Simmons, Lake Michigan’s legendary
Christmas Tree Ship.”
Algoma,
Wisconsin, is also home to “Christmas Tree Ship Point” – an area of
land within the inner harbor that leads out to Lake
Michigan. The point, within the proximity of the Algoma Lighthouse,
was dedicated to all of the Christmas tree vessels and captains who transported
trees to Milwaukee and
Chicago in the 1800’s.
(A lone evergreen grows at the tip of Christmas Tree Ship Point and is lit with
white lights year-round as a memorial.)
It is important to note that there were other ships that carried Christmas trees
besides the Schuenemann ships. However, the Schuenemann family was most
remembered because they were one of the first merchants, as well as one of the
last. Their involvement in the
Christmas tree industry lasted nearly a half century.
Captain Herman was said to be “a pioneer in Chicago’s
Christmas tree business” by the Chicago
press.
It is also important to note that the Schuenemann family used many vessels
through the years to transport their Yuletide cargos. Although they are
tragically linked to the Rouse Simmons
– the Rouse Simmons was only used for
two short years before the vessel and crew went down during the third year.
The nickname “Christmas Tree Ship” applied to more vessels than the
Rouse Simmons…
…The Chicago American of
December 5, 1912, published the following information concerning
Schuenemann vessels when Captain Schuenemann went missing with the
Simmons: “For more than
twenty-five years Captain Schuenemann had operated boats in the tree trade on
the lake… The average load for the schooner was between three hundred and four
hundred tons of trees. The big trees were loaded on deck while the wreath
material and small trees were put into the hold. Schuenemann lost the schooner,
Mary Collins, in a lake storm some years ago. The crew was rescued. The
Schuenemanns have sailed Christmas voyages in the
Maggie Dall, the Ida, the
Jessie Phillips, the Truman Moss,
the George L. Wrenn, the
Rouse Simmons, and the Thal.”
There is controversy concerning exactly what vessels were used by the
Schuenemanns during what years.
Other ships believed by researchers to have been used by Captain Herman include
the M. Capron and the
Mystic…
Captain August Schuenemann, Captain Herman’s older brother, went down with the
schooner S. Thal in 1898. (The
S. Thal was one of many ships used by Captain August.) This ship was
considerably smaller than the Rouse
Simmons and was built in Oshkosh,
Wisconsin, in 1867. The cargo of trees aboard the vessel
came from Door County,
Wisconsin…
…“Wherever tales of dying ships and dying men are told you may find the
haunting story of the Christmas Ship’s last voyage, a winter tragedy of Lake
Michigan,” wrote the Chicago Tribune
of December 24, 1944. Under the headline “Why Chicago Missed Its Yule Trees in
1912” the article continued: “No doubt the thing that tempts so many writers to
retell the tale is its contrast – the Christmas idea and the idea of terror and
lonely death. Another temptation is the mystery, for the final hours of the
Christmas Ship were known only to those who lived them and died them.
Schuenemann, it may be believed, was not much worried by the threat of storm. He
was a veteran of storms, and so was his schooner, built in 1868. Soldiers die
only in the last of their battles; ships and sailors are drowned only in the
last of tempests. But ships and men grow old, and men and ships in growing old
grow vulnerable.”
The Rouse Simmons, unarguably, had
become vulnerable in the later years of its life.
Although the vessel had once been a grand ship, decades had passed since it had
seen its prime. By 1912, the Rouse
Simmons was rickety and ramshackled, and was one of the last vessels still
afloat from the Golden Age of Great Lakes sailing when majestic schooners, with
their sails raised high, filled harbors. It was a sight to behold as never
before or since…
…There certainly is a nostalgic element to the Christmas Tree Ship story – a
remembering of a time long past when the beautiful, canvassed sailing ships were
the principle means of transportation on the Great Lakes.
The Chicago Tribune summarized the
nostalgia connected to the old Rouse
Simmons in an article published by the newspaper on
December 8, 1977. It read:
“In an age when the Yuletide season begins earlier and more frenetically each
year, it is refreshing to remember the
Rouse Simmons and the legend she inspired…Aside from the romance of the
legend, the Simmons is a symbol of a
more peaceful, innocent time before World War I when the horse and the sailing
vessel gave their slow, gentle imprint to the tempo of life…Crowds came aboard
to pick over the trees. The sounds of excitement and laughter mingled with the
clop-clop of horses across the bridge and the pleasant smell of evergreens. The
Simmons and her predecessors were left over from the heyday of lumbering
when forests of white pine and spruce were cut out of Michigan and Wisconsin….It
was a pleasant way to end the shipping season – surrounded by happy families a
short ride from the Schuenemann home…It was the children that made it so joyous.
They loved the Christmas Tree Ship as much as the Schuenemanns loved having them
aboard. Yes, it was a good end for a hard summer on the lake.”
The article continued: “Despite the warm glow of Yuletide feelings, life for the
Schuenemann brothers was for the most part hard work and danger. But hard work
and danger were things sailors had been used to since they first put to sea.
Besides, it was their life. The brothers would buy old lumber schooners for a
song and wring the last bit of life out of them, nosing into every port along
the lake, seeking cargo. It was a chancy business made even chancier by the
tempestuous nature of the lake, where storms were universally feared. No one
knew better than Herman Schuenemann how dangerous late-season voyages on
Lake Michigan could be…Had the
Rouse Simmons been anything other than the Christmas Tree Ship, her loss
probably would never have been remembered. Half a dozen other ships were missing
after the same storm that claimed the
Simmons, and none of their names are remembered. But because the
Simmons was something special to the people of
Chicago, the Christmas Tree Ship earned her place in
legend and history…For the sentimental, there is the thought that men were
willing to risk – and lose – their lives to make Christmas brighter. To
historians, the Christmas Tree Ship symbolizes the end of an era – the death of
commercial sailing on the Great Lakes. World
War I was about to begin, and steam alone could keep pace with the demands of a
nation preparing for war…Perhaps it was best that Captain Schuenemann, his crew,
and the Rouse Simmons died the way
they did. In a few short years the world would know that there are worse ways
for men and ships to die…”
…The world was changing. Although schooners had dominated the waters for a time,
that time had passed. By 1912 few remained, and those that did were looked upon
as insignificant ships hauling insignificant cargos.
One of the cargos hauled by the last schooners afloat on the waters were
Christmas trees - a cargo that couldn’t be damaged if hauled in a leaking, old
vessel. Moreover, it was believed the trees would literally help keep the ship
afloat with their buoyancy.
Nearly one month after the Simmons
was taken to the bottom of the lake, there were still those who believed that
the ship might possibly be afloat somewhere. The
Manistique Pioneer-Tribune,
Manistique, Michigan,
reported on December 20,
1912: “Owing to the
nature of the cargo, the boat would not sink, and the government fears that
members of the crew may still be aboard the vessel and that the wreck has
drifted among islands that have no communication with the main land…”
…Jim Brotz, a diver who has been to the
Simmons site nearly sixty times in the past twenty years is impressed with
the “beautiful, beautiful schooner” – as are others.
“To go through what this ship did,” said Mr. Brotz, “and still be in the
condition the vessel is in, is really something…”
…The Simmons had, indeed, “lived
beyond her time and was very old for a wooden schooner” when tragedy took her,
according to Frederick Stonehouse.
His book, Went Missing II, tells that
the ship was a well-found vessel and had survived the storm that sank the
S. Thal – a blow that had de-masted every schooner on the lake,
except the Simmons.
The Simmons’ days were proud, yet
numbered.
Captain August Schuenemann met his fate while hauling a cargo of Christmas trees
on the S. Thal, and Captain Herman
would meet his fate with the Simmons.
Yet the time-honored tradition the captains represented lived on long after they
did – especially in the hearts and minds of those who waited at the docks in
Chicago for the sight of sails and the smell of pine come
November.
So, too, does the memory of the Rouse
Simmons live on as one of “the most storied shipwrecks in
Lake Michigan history.”
