Lake Erie Stories

by Chad Fraser

  Fortunately, Wolcott found himself a most unlikely ally. Nearby, on the present site of the city of Sandusky, lived Chief Ogontz of the Ottawa Nation. Perhaps because he sensed how vulnerable his situation was, Wolcott went out of his way to befriend this chief and, in the process, made a valuable contribution to Ohio history by recording the chief’s story and later retelling it to Joseph M. Root, another settler, who in turn passed it on to Fire Lands Pioneer magazine in 1863. Handing the story down still, generations later, was Ohio historian Charles E. Frohman, who recorded it in his 1969 book, Sandusky’s Yesterdays.

  Ogontz had come to Ohio with two tribes of Ottawa from Canada in the years following the American revolutionary war. Taken to Quebec by French Roman Catholic missionaries as a young boy, Ogontz had been given a Catholic education. The priests, no doubt recognizing his value in converting other Natives to Christianity, then sent him across the colony, including a sojourn to nearby Detroit, to preach to local tribes and teach them French. It was during this time that Ogontz came to develop a fierce dislike for the British-controlled government that ruled the colony, and decided that he would no longer subject himself to its rule. So, interestingly, Ogontz accompanied the two tribes to Sandusky, acting as their priest and spiritual mentor. Some French traders, who in Ogontz’s words “liked the British no more than I did” came along as well, and this uniquely intermingled band formed some of the very earliest settled communities in the area. Ogontz also had a grim prediction for Wolcott:

  A war between your people and the British is close at hand, and when that comes we must fly from here — all of us. Indians are great fools for taking part in the wars of white people, but they will do so. Ottawas will join the British and Wyandots will join your people. I will not fight in such a war. I wish your side success; but I must go with my people. Still, whilst we are neighbours let us all be friends.

  The chief’s words turned out to be prophetic: a short time later, the War of 1812 stormed ashore in Ohio in the form of a party of Ottawa Natives, who, in keeping with the Ogontz’s predictions, had allied themselves with the British. Landing only steps from Wolcott’s cabin, they were met with stiff resistance from local Natives and American settlers. According to an Ohio historical plaque that marks the site, forty Native warriors were killed in the ensuing fight, along with eight Americans, but the raiding party soon retreated.

  This and other incursions proved too much for many settlers in the area. Again following Ogontz’s prediction, many fled. A number of families went only a short distance, to Sandusky, while the Wolcotts packed what belongings they could and journeyed to the Cleveland area to wait out the war. The following two years proved to be a time of great struggle for Wolcott: not only had he and his family lost nearly all of their material possessions, but his beloved wife Elizabeth contracted a fever during their exile and died, leaving him to care for their three children alone.

  But Wolcott’s luck would soon take a turn for the better. At war’s end in 1814, the family limped back to Marblehead Peninsula and, in a sign of happier days ahead, found their cabin largely unscathed from the fighting and subsequent looting. Seven years later, on March 10, 1822, just before he signed on as keeper of the Marblehead lighthouse, Wolcott remarried, taking Rachel Miller, a young Sandusky schoolteacher, as his wife.

  But, just like the Wolcotts’ early days on the Peninsula, life at the Marblehead lighthouse would be anything but dull for Benajah and his successors, who, as we shall see, kept the job in the family for some time.

  It was during this time that the “Patriots” were active on the northern Ohio coast (see Chapter 3). These rebels, consisting mainly of Americans who loosely allied themselves with Canadian rebel leader William Lyon Mackenzie, were working to raise volunteers in northern Ohio through late 1837 for a planned invasion of Upper Canada. On February 26, 1838, they ventured across the ice to Pelee Island, quickly driving off the inhabitants, taking others prisoner and, after a week of looting and pillaging, were finally driven off after a short, bloody exchange on the frozen lake by a contingent of British regulars and Canadian militia from Fort Malden.

  After fleeing back across the ice, a number of the rebels ended up spending the night on the lighthouse grounds before being picked up by local authorities who, after seizing their weapons, dispatched most of them to their homes.

  This would not be the last time the Marblehead lighthouse would see military action. In 1862, a prison camp for Confederate soldiers was set up on tiny Johnson’s Island in Sandusky Bay (see Chapter 4). From behind the prison walls, the prisoners could plainly see the light beckoning from the lighthouse, a terrible reminder of the close proximity of the freedom they were being denied. Marblehead would also serve as the backdrop for the only Confederate “naval action” on the Great Lakes during the war, when a group of Confederate spies operating in Canada took command of the steamer Philo Parsons in a daring and brazen attempt to use the passenger liner to land a party on the Union gunboat Michigan and use it to free the men on Johnson’s Island. The plot was foiled, however, when the men of the Michigan were informed of the plan. The raiders were driven back to the Detroit River, where they scuttled the Parsons and escaped.

  When Benajah died in 1832, Rachel Wolcott dutifully took over the lightkeeping duties at Marblehead, making her the first woman to tend a lighthouse on the Great Lakes, though there was little notice of this fact taken at the time. It is difficult to imagine how Rachel, in a situation similar to the one fellow settler Abigail Becker would find herself in only a few years later on the Canadian side of the lake (see Chapter 5), managed. Now a single parent of three responsible for tending both a home and a farm (and a lighthouse), Rachel was living in what was then still largely unsettled frontier country. But manage she did — the light was thought to have been kept consistently lit during the shipping season, with its lanterns in very good repair. As keeper, Rachel was also responsible for keeping a log of all passing ships and, of course, helping to save lives when disaster struck. In a reflection of the times, when Rachel married Jeremiah Van Benschoten, a widower from the nearby village of Vermilion, in 1834, he was immediately appointed the new lightkeeper — no questions asked.

  Prior to its automation, fifteen keepers had tended the Marblehead lighthouse. And Rachel Wolcott was not the only woman. Like Rachel, George McGee’s wife, Johanna, took over the lightkeeping duties when her husband died in 1896. She served for seven years, until her retirement in 1903. If you include the time she helped her husband tend the light, Johanna devoted an astounding thirty-three years of her life to the Marblehead lighthouse — a feat virtually unheard of at the time, especially for a woman.

  Another notable Marblehead keeper was Charles F. Drake, who was keeper for an eight-year term, beginning in 1843. In 1851, he went on to tend the Green Island lighthouse for another eight years until it burned to the ground in a fierce winter storm on December 31, 1863, forcing Drake and his family to seek refuge in an outhouse until their rescue the following day.

  Though it appears much the same today as it did the day it opened, the Marblehead lighthouse has seen no shortage of technological innovations over its nearly 200 years. Then it burned mainly whale oil. But, as supplies became more and more scarce, thereby driving up the price, more efficient and cleaner burning kerosene was introduced. Shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, the lantern was upgraded with a new lens ordered from France, which was installed after first being displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

  Unlike many other lighthouses in the area, however, automation came relatively late to Marblehead — not until 1946. Today, even though it is no longer permanently staffed, the old lighthouse still echoes a long-gone era. This timeless old beacon is showing no signs of slowing down in its old age.

  Point Abino Lighthouse: The Great Storm of 1913

  “Goodbye, Nellie. Ship is breaking up fast. Williams.”

  This haunting message, carved into a wooden ship’s hatch cover, was foun
d by a fisherman on the beach near Buffalo, two days after the largest storm ever to hit the Great Lakes swept through, leaving in its wake an unprecedented path of death and destruction. What mariners used to call the “Big Blow” is more commonly known to history as the Great Storm of 1913; the hatch cover had come from United States Government Lightship No. 82, which, a few days earlier, had been stationed just off Point Abino, Ontario, twenty-five kilometres outside of Buffalo Harbor.

  Today, the ornately sculpted Point Abino lighthouse, first opened by the Canadian government in 1918, but unused since 1996, stands in memory of the lost crew of Lightship No. 82. The identity of the man who wrote the cryptic note on the hatch cover remains a tantalizing mystery, but a few things are known: the writer was almost certainly a member of the six-man crew of Lightship No. 82, and the note was written in the very last moments of his life, as the helpless vessel, anchored to the bottom and with nowhere to run, was being bashed to pieces by monstrous fifteen-metre waves.

  Lightships have a long history on the Great Lakes. The vessels were heavily used by the United States Lighthouse Service at the turn of the twentieth century, and were permanently moored to the bottom in areas where hazards, such as shoals and rock shelves, threatened shipping. They first appeared in 1891, when the first three vessels, Nos. 55, 56, and 57 took up station in northern Lake Michigan. These wooden ships, each about thirty metres long, remained at their posts continuously from early April until the last of the big freighters crossed the lakes in early December. Because of these lengthy tours of duty, they were often outfitted with more creature comforts than most lake ships. Lightship No. 82, for example, featured upholstered chairs, French plate glass mirrors, and even a small library. Still, these luxuries were no substitute for the company of friends and family.

  Though they were only intended as a stopgap until permanent lighthouses could be built, these early lightships were around for an unexpectedly long period, with the last one still in service, No. 56, finally retired in 1928. Their main drawback was expense: Point Abino’s No. 82 cost nearly US$45,000 to outfit when she was launched in 1912, and US$8,000 was needed every year to properly maintain and staff each lightship. This was a massive drain on the already tight finances of the Lighthouse Service.

  Another problem with lightships, which No. 82 would go on to demonstrate, was safety — when a storm hit, it was very difficult to keep a vessel that was permanently moored to the bottom from being swamped by the high waves. What’s more, there was often no safe port for the lightships, held fast by their mushroom-shaped anchors, to find refuge in. On the contrary, lightships were most necessary when the wind and waves were at their most threatening, and their crews were duty-bound to hold their stations for the sake of the lake freighters that depended on them to find their way. As Mary Williams, the wife of No. 82’s captain, said when asked if she thought her husband had tried to make a run for safe harbour during the Great Storm: “Certainly not. Captain Williams and his crew . . . would remain at their station until blown away or ordered to move.”

  Lightship No. 82 was built in Muskegon, Michigan, and though it was somewhat smaller than many other lightships, measuring just under twenty-five metres in length, she was considered state of the art in terms of safety. Unlike its wooden predecessors, No. 82 was outfitted with a steel hull and a whaleback-shaped forecastle deck, both of which enabled it to more easily handle rough weather and high seas. Her crew, Captain Hugh H. Williams of Michigan, mate Andrew Lehy of Ohio and his brother Cornelius, the assistant engineer, Chief Engineer Charles Butler of Buffalo, Cook Peter Mackey of Buffalo, and Seaman William Jensen of Michigan, first took up station off Point Abino on August 12, 1912. It is not hard to imagine the confidence these young men must have had in their brand new steel-hulled ship as they settled into the ebb and flow of shipboard life. What they could never have imagined was the bizarre confluence of weather that would soon conspire to cut their careers, and their lives, frightfully short.

  Photo courtesy of Lower Lakes Marine Historical Society

  A rare photo of Lightship No. 82 under way, taken shortly after she was launched in 1912.

  The violent storm that raged over the Great Lakes from November 7 to 10, 1913, was actually the result of two gigantic weather systems smashing into one another. As the November 10 edition of the Toronto Globe describes:

  The storm of which Toronto was the pivotal point at eight o’clock last night was the result of a fusion of two storms off the Atlantic coast off Maryland and the other from the Canadian northwest. At the meteorological office last night it was learned that this storm was directing its attention to Ontario and its environs. Storm signals were hoisted at all lake ports Saturday, and the weather man declared that the hurricane which vented its fury on Lakes Erie, Huron and Superior was the most pronounced on record.

  Of all the lakes, Huron was the one that took the brunt of the storm, with 188 lives lost and 24 vessels sunk or damaged, many of them the pride of the Great Lakes shipping fleet. Because of this staggering loss of life, history tends to record the Great Storm primarily as a Lake Huron disaster, but what is not as well known is that Lake Erie ranked a not-so-distant second with seventeen vessels affected. The city of Cleveland took the hardest blow, suffering US$5 million in damage. As C.P. Staubach, who was on his way home to Detroit via Cleveland by train, recalled to Frank Barcus in his definitive 1960 book on the storm, Freshwater Fury:

  . . . the railroad tracks were blocked by telegraph poles and wires; the wires were tangled around them in one unholy mess. It was the same damned mess around every signal tower and station. Gangs of men were out ahead of us all day, chopping away the poles and clearing the railroad track for us. It took twelve hours to work the train through the city of Cleveland itself, a run which normally takes twelve minutes.

  As Barcus also notes, because of the downed telegraph lines, Cleveland was very slow to learn that it would actually bear a significant piece of the storm’s human toll as well: twenty of the freighters out on the lakes during the maelstrom were Cleveland-based, and one hundred eighty-six Clevelanders lost their lives.

  Still, on Lake Erie, there were only six men who failed to return home after those fateful November days — those aboard United States Government Lightship No. 82.

  The first sign that there might be trouble off Point Abino came on the morning of Tuesday, November 11, when a buoy and some debris bearing the markings of No. 82 were found at the beach near Buffalo Harbor. When this was reported to the area’s lighthouse inspector, Roscoe House, he immediately dispatched the lightship tender Crocus to investigate. In turn, the assistant lighthouse inspector chartered the tug Yale as well, and the crew of the Buffalo lifesaving station, already exhausted after the storm’s four-day pounding, took to the beaches to look for wreckage. All came back empty-handed.

  The search resumed early the next day, November 12. By now, Mrs. Williams had arrived to personally assist in the search for her husband. By all accounts, Mrs. Williams was a skilled sailor in her own right and, like many sailors, was quite superstitious, especially when it came to matters of the sea. Believing that if she personally went out onto the lake, she might be able to find her lost husband, she insisted on being taken aboard the Crocus.

  By coincidence, it was also on November 12 that a fisherman came across the hatch cover bearing the message, which was immediately assumed to be a final farewell from Captain Williams to his wife.

  Not entirely, according to Mrs. Williams. While she believed the message was indeed from her husband, she was also convinced that it had been written for the captain by Seaman Jensen. Her husband, she insisted, had never called her Nellie. But Mrs. Williams’s theory stood in stark contrast to statements made by the wife of Thomas Joseph, keeper of the lighthouse at nearby Horseshoe Reef. The Williams family had stayed with the Josephs throughout the summer of 1912, and Mrs. Joseph insisted that Captain Williams had indeed called his wife Nellie. A subsequent check of Williams’s signature on an invo
ice seemed to indicate that the handwriting was his, but it was difficult to be certain, given the terrible conditions under which the message was written. There is also the possibility that the message itself was a fraud, carved into the hatch cover by someone in one of the surrounding communities. But as the cover was found so soon after the disaster itself, this seems unlikely.

  So were these last thoughts really the captain’s? Or were they those of another crewman? And who was Nellie, if not Mrs. Williams? We will probably never know.

  With the lake threatening to ice over for the winter, little more could be done for the lost lightship. Roscoe House, faithful to the rules of the Lighthouse Service, recommended to the Secretary of Commerce in Washington that the positions of the crew of Lightship No. 82 be discontinued as of November 10, 1913. The assiduous House even went so far as to publicize the salaries of the lost crewmen, which ranged from US$37 a month for Seamen Jensen to US$900 per year for Captain Williams — a pittance, even in 1913 money, in light of the endless tedium and very real dangers that these men faced.

  With that, the matter was laid to rest until the following spring. Finally, on May 9, 1914, the search vessel Surveyor located the missing lightship lying a full three kilometres off her station in nineteen metres of water. Dave Beaudry, a diver who surveyed the wreck, reported that her steel hull was relatively intact, but that the interior and the ship’s wooden superstructure were horribly damaged. He could find no bodies in this initial search, though No. 82 was by this time largely filled with sand.

  Her investigation complete, the Surveyor left a buoy behind to mark the location of the wreck, and the government set about the task of contracting the job of raising No. 82. After two attempts (the first failed due to the sand-filled wreck’s astounding weight), Lightship No. 82 was returned to the surface of Lake Erie on September 15, 1914, at a staggering cost of US$36,000 — nearly as much as a new vessel. When the steel hull rose out of the surf, there was hope that the ship would finally yield the bodies of her lost crew who, it was assumed, had made the vessel fast against the storm as best they could before sealing themselves below.