Three hundred lives! The ordinary modern tourist would hold up his hands in incredulous wonder. “Is it possible,” he might ask, “that such tragedies have occurred on the Lakes?” I doubt if there are many who know that upon the Lakes have occurred some of the greatest marine disasters of the world. On September 8, 1860, the Lady Elgin collided with the schooner Augusta and went down in Lake Michigan, carrying with her three hundred men, women, and children, most of whom were excursionists from Milwaukee. Two months later the propeller Dacotah sank in a terrific gale off Sturgeon Point, Lake Erie, carrying every soul down with her. Nothing but fragments were ever seen afterward, so complete was her destruction. On the steamer Ironsides, which dove down into one hundred and twenty feet of water, twenty-four lives were lost in full sight of Grand Haven. Many vessels, like the Ironsides, have perished with their bows almost in harbour. Less than four years ago, for instance, the big steel ship Mataafa was beaten to pieces on the Duluth breakwater, while not more than thirty or forty rods away thousands of people stood helpless, watching the death-struggles of her crew, who were absolutely helpless in the tremendous seas, and who died within shouting distance of their friends.
Probably the most terrible disaster that ever occurred on the Lakes was the burning of the steamer G. P. Griffin, twenty miles east of Cleveland. The vessel was only three miles from shore when the flames were discovered, and her captain at once made an effort to run her aground. Half a mile from the mainland the Griffin struck a sand-bar and immediately there followed one of the most terrible scenes in the annals of marine tragedy. The boats were lowered and swamped by the maddened crowd. Men became beasts, and fought back women and children. Frenzied mothers leaped overboard with their babes in their arms. Scorched by the flames, their faces blackened, their eyes bulging, and even their garments on fire, over three hundred people fought for their lives. Men seized their wives and flung them overboard, leaping after them to destruction; human beings fought like demons for possession of chairs, boards, or any objects that might support them in the water, and others, crazed by the terrible scenes about them, dashed into the roaring flames, their dying shrieks mingling with the hopeless cries of those who still struggled for life. From the shore scores of helpless people, without boats, or any means of assistance, watched the frightful spectacle, and strong swimmers struck out to give what aid they could. Only a few were saved. For days scorched and unrecognisable corpses floated ashore, and when the final death-roll was called, it was found that 286 lives had gone out in that frightful hour of fire.
Is there a more tragic page in the history of any ocean than this?—a page to which must still be added the burning of the steamer Erie, with a loss of one hundred and seventy lives, the sinking of the Pewabic with seventy souls off Thunder Bay Light, in Lake Huron, the loss of the Asia with one hundred lives, and scores of other tragedies that might be mentioned. The Inland Seas have borne a burden of loss greater in proportion than that of any of the salt oceans. Their bottoms are literally strewn with the bones of ships and men, their very existence is one of tragedy coupled with the greatest industrial progress the world has ever seen. But there are no books descriptive of their “attractions,” no volumes of fiction or history descriptive of those “thrilling human elements” that tend to draw people from the uttermost ends of the earth. This field yet remains for the writers of to-day.
And romance walks hand in hand with tragedy on the Inland Seas. For two or three years past a new epidemic has been sweeping the world, an epidemic which has attracted attention in every civilised land and to which I might give the name “treasuritis”—the golden ignis fatuus of hidden treasure which is luring men to all parts of the world, and which is bringing about the expenditure of fortunes in the search for other fortunes lost on land or at sea. While South Sea treasure-hunts have been exploited by newspapers and magazines, while Cocos Island and the golden Pacific have overworked the imaginations of thousands, few have heard of the treasure-hunts and lost fortunes of the Lakes. So businesslike are these ventures of the Inland Seas regarded by those who make them, that little of romance or adventure is seen in them.
How treasures are lost, and sometimes found, in the depths of the Great Lakes is illustrated in the tragic story of the Erie. This vessel, under command of Captain T. J. Titus, left Buffalo for Chicago on the afternoon of August 9, 1841. When thirty-three miles out, off Silver Creek, a slight explosion was heard and almost immediately the ship was enveloped in flames. In the excitement of the appalling loss of life that followed, no thought was given to a treasure of $180,000 that went down with her—the life savings of scores of immigrants bound for the West. For many years the Erie lay hidden in the sands, seventy feet under water. In 1855, a treasure-seeking party left Buffalo, discovered the hull, towed it into shallow water, and recovered a fortune, mostly in foreign money.
Not very long ago a treasure-ship came down from the North—the William H. Stevens, loaded with $101,880 worth of copper. Somewhere between Conneaut, Ohio, and Port Burwell, Ontario, she caught fire and sank. For a long time unavailing efforts were made to recover her treasure. Then Captain Harris W. Baker, of Detroit, fitted out a modern treasure-hunting expedition that was as successful in every way as the most romantic youngster in the land could wish, for he recovered nearly $100,000 worth of the Stevens’s cargo, his own salvage share being $50,000.
The Steamer “Wahcondah.”
One of the Lake grain carriers which was caught in a storm late in the season after being buffeted by the waves of Lake Superior for about fourteen hours.
While there have been many fortunes recovered from the bottoms of the Lakes, there are many others that still defy discovery. Somewhere along the south shore of Lake Erie, between Dunkirk and Erie, lies a treasure-ship which will bring a fortune to her lucky discoverer, if she is ever found. One night the Dean Richmond, with $50,000 worth of pig zinc on board, mysteriously disappeared between those two places. All hands were lost and their bodies were washed ashore. In vain have search parties sought the lost vessel. The last attempt was made by the Murphy Wrecking Company, of Buffalo, which put a vessel and several divers on the job for the greater part of a season. In the deep water of Saginaw Bay lies the steamship Fay, with $20,000 worth of steel billets in her hold; and somewhere near Walnut Creek, in Lake Erie, is the Young Sion, with a valuable cargo of railroad iron. Off Point Pelee is the Kent, with a treasure in money in her hulk and the skeletons of eight human beings in her cabins; and somewhere between Cleveland and the Detroit River is a cargo of locomotives, lost with the Clarion. In Lake Huron, near Saginaw Bay, are more lost ships than in any other part of the Great Lakes, and for this reason Huron has frequently been called the “Lake of Sunken Treasure.” In the days when the country along the Bay was filled with lumber-camps, large sums of money were brought up in small vessels, and many of these vessels were lost in the sudden tempests and fearful seas which beset this part of Huron. Beside these treasure lumber barges, it is believed that the City of Detroit, with a $50,000 treasure in copper, lies somewhere in Saginaw Bay. The R. G. Coburn, also laden with copper, sank there in 1871, with a loss of thirty lives. Although searches have been made for her, the location of the vessel is still one of the unsolved mysteries of the Lakes.