Milwaukee County Wisconsin Genealogy

MILWAUKEE MARINE AND SHIPPING
SHIPWRECKS AND DISASTERS

The following ships were listed in various sources, newspapers 
and publications as having a Milwaukee connection.
This list includes information collected by David D. Swayze, Lake Isabella, MI

ARTICLES OF INTEREST

1839 While fueling steamboats in the bay, one man was drowned. (Source History of Milwaukee County 1881)

1839 Two wood scows were driven ashore in the bay.(Source History of Milwaukee County 1881)

LIGHT STATION

Detroit Free Press, Apr. 18, 1868
The light-house towers at Grand Haven, and the main light station at North Point, near Milwaukee, are to be supplied with new lanterns.

LAKE MICHIGAN SURVEY MAPS

Detroit Free Press, 27 Apr, 1872

THE SURVEY OF LAKE MICHIGAN. - The charts of the survey of Lake Michigan, as far as it had progressed, were destroyed by the Chicago conflagration and the work will consequently have to be done over again. The sail boat Morning Star is now being fitted out at Milwaukee, by Mr. Slocum, for the surveying party.

MUTINY

Detroit Post, Nov. 22, 1874

MUTINY - James Moran, a marine on the revenue cutter JOHNSON, is to be tried for mutiny at Milwaukee on the 28th. Not long ago, during one of his periodical rumpusses on board the cutter, he discharged a pistol, seriously wounding himself, fortunately. He no sooner got back to his post than his rebellious spirit broke out again,and now Uncle Sam is going to see what he can do to cure the fellow's bad temper.

LIGHT KEEPERS

Directory of the Marine Interests of the Great Lakes, R. L. Polk & Co.,
Detroit, (Detroit, MI), 1884 , page 419
List of lights and keepers - 11th District
Milwaukee Pier - William Kynaston, Emma E. Kynaston
Milwaukee - Mrs. G. A. Stebbins

S.H. (Sally) RAND

Waukesha Freeman
Date Unknown
Shortly after the accident

Probably Drowned
Ten miles northeast of Milwaukee, bottom up and waterlogged, lies the three-masted schooner H. Rand, of Racine, wrecked by the recent gale over Lake Michigan. Three men and a woman who were on the boat are supposed to be dead. They are: Capt. Jefferson, of Racine; his daughter, Daisy Jefferson, aged 27 years, cook of the vessel; Harry Lecus, of Milwaukee, and Frank Seabert, of Sheboygan, sailors.

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Boat Information:
Source: The Great Lakes Shipwreck File: Total Losses of Great
Lakes Ships 1679 - 1999
by Dave Swayze
© 1998 - 2001 - David D. Swayze, Lake Isabella, MI
All Rights Reserved

H. RAND
Other names : also seen as HANSON RAND
Official no. : 11185
Type at loss : schooner, wood, 3-mast
Build info : 1856, Rand & Burger, Manitowoc, WI as 2-mast schooner
Specs : 107x24x8, 125g 119n
Date of loss : 1901, May 24
Place of loss : off Manitowoc, WI [Racine also given]
Lake : Michigan
Type of loss : storm
Loss of life : 4 [all]
Carrying : hardwood slabs
Detail : Capsized and sank in a gale. Her captain always sailed her short-handed, and had often been warned that a small crew couldn't handle her in a storm. His daughter, the cook, was among the lost. She had been bound Coyne (Boyne?), MI, for Milwaukee. Later towed to the beach near Racine and blown up. Rebuilt, 1875, , enlarged in 1879, major repair, 1880

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Milwaukee Sentinel, June 10, 1959.
The boat is called the Sally Rand.

We Know What's Become of Sally
By Ron Krysiek
Dredgers dug up the original Sally Rand from her grave Tuesday, and therein lies a salty story.

Our Sally was buried 60 years ago by the sands of Lake Michigan. The other Sally, a little younger but much better known, is still kicking at 55-doing her dance at Las Vegas and Miami Beach night spots.

Our Sally, according to an old salt who knew her, was a two-masted schooner that used to haul hides and tan bark to and from Pfister & Vogel tanneries in Milwaukee and Two Creeks (Manitowoc County).

"Sure, I'll tell you about Sally Rand," said 73-year-old George Horneman, 3016 S. Superior St., after he viewed her remains Tuesday on the beach at the foot of Texas Av.

What Horneman identified as part of Sally's keel and a section of her flat bottom was recovered by crews dredging 150 feet offshore as part of the new municipal water intake and filtration plant project.

"I was just a boy of 13 when Sally sank during a storm off Sheboygan about 60 years ago," Horneman related. "All her hands were lost. There were four or five of them.

"A couple weeks later, her wreckage drifted onto the beach near South Shore Park. I used to know a junkman named Lecus. His boy, Harry, had drowned on the sailing ship so Lecus and I took axes and went out to the wreck, intending to see if we could recover any bodies.

"We chopped a hole in the bottom of her, but there wasn't a thing in her cabin. Over the years, the sand just buried Sally Rand."

Horneman said that, while debris found Tuesday bears no identification marks, "I'm positive it's Sally Rand because I marked the spot where she had drifted. It was just off Texas Rock."

Charles P. Vogel, board chairman of Pfister & Vogel Tanning Co., could not recall our Sally Rand as being owned by his firm in its early days, but corroborated Horneman's story that the tannery had operated ships between here and Two Creeks.

Vogel and Capt. Ray H. Knight, Milwaukee harbormaster, said they particularly would like to know how the schooner happened to be named Sally Rand.

"Today was the first time I knew Sally Rand also was a sailing ship," Knight said.

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Milwaukee Sentinel, June 14, 1959.
"Ireen" was really spelled "Irene":
Lost Brother On Old Ship, Asks Memento

This is the wish of a 71-year-old Bay View lady: Could she get a piece of the S.H. (Sally) Rand as a memento of her long lost brother?

Mrs. Ireen (sic) Lecus Schnacke, of 2506 S. Superior St., recalled to the Sentinel that she was only 13 when the Sally Rand, a two-masted schooler, went down in Lake Michigan. Her brother, Harry Lecus, 17, was one of the five who went down with the ship.

"We never found him," Mrs. Schnacke said. "He had no grave and we used to throw wreaths in to the lake on Memorial Day."

Although the ship sank somewhere around either Manitowoc or Sheboygan (the recollections of old salts vary on this fact), she drifted southward and settled near the beach at the foot of E. Texas Av., not too far from Mrs. Schnacke's home.

Part of the Sally Rand was uncovered Tuesday by dredging crews working on the new municipal water intake and filtration plant project.

So wouldn't it be simple to deliver Mrs. Schnacke her memento? Not necessarily. The debris of the old ship now rests at the bottom of the pile of dredged muck and sand.