Schooner’s Last Trip Began from Douglas – Spring 1989
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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.
By Carl A. Norberg
Back in 1924, the slip alongside the rotting old Red Dock at the foot of Union Street in Douglas became a landmark in the final chapter of the sailing days on southern Lake Michigan.
Captain John Woltman, owner of the schooner Mary A. Gregory, bent on the best suit of ancient canvas she owned, cast an experienced eye over the weatherbeaten standing and running rigging and with particular attention to the bilge pump, declared her ready to sail.
A small cargo of potatoes and local fruit was stowed in the hold by his two seamen, docking lines were cast off as the small tug put a strain on the tow line.
With mixed feelings, her master guided his craft past old Saugatuck, into the broad Kalamazoo River, passing a ripple away from the old sawmill city of Singapore buried beneath the sand dunes and out the “new” cut into Lake Michigan. Mainsail and foresail rattled up to their places aloft in cadence to a half-forgotten chantey. As the tow line was cast off, two headsails slid up the stays and she was bound for Chicago.
Schooner MARY A. GREGORY in Douglas, Michigan in 1923. Image courtesy of Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library.
Captain Woltman fully realized that this was the last chapter for the Mary A. Gregory. Furthermore, he knew this was the swan song of his sailing career. He suspected, and rightly, that this was the last cargo to reach the port of Chicago under sail, an unbelieveable contrast to the maiden voyage of his schooner in 1875 when 20,900 sailing vessels arrived and departed that port in a single season.
After discharging her cargo at the South Water Street Market, she was towed up the north branch of the Chicago River and moored in the mud alongside of Abe Burrell’s Yacht Yard, where Captain Woltman became the foreman. I became well acquainted with the schooner here, which quickly became a haven for homeless sailors of the old school, who could spin endless yarns of Skillagalee, Beaver Island and the Straits.
But the old vessel was deteriorating rapidly so that in 1926 she was towed out into Lake Michigan, well off shore, for her last moments. Set to the torch, she was a vivid spectacle to only a half dozen old salts. When the charred embers slipped beneath the waves, the last vestige of commercial sail was gone from Chicago and southern Lake Michigan.
It is reported that she was not forgotten to the Chicago Historical Society, which is said to have acquired her capstan, compass, figurehead, starboard running lights, megaphone and sternpost.
John Woltman, last owner of the Mary A. Gregory, was born in Holland, Michigan, in 1857, son of Captain Thomas Woltman, master of the Great Lakes schooners William Tell, Union Mary and Anteres. Young Woltman shipped aboard the Mary on her maiden voyage to Chicago with a cargo of lumber, in 1874.After ten years of sailing he married Selma Sundman and made his home in Chicago. When he obtained his master’s papers in 1893, he purchased the schooner Wonder, of 39 tons, which a few months later was caught in a vicious late fall storm and on Nov. 29, with sails in ribbons and anchor dragging, was driven ashore seven miles south of Grand Haven. Farmers assisted the exhausted crew to safety. Undaunted, Captain Woltman saw the Wonder floated the following spring and once more he sailed her.
It was in 1875 when the new schooner splashed into the murky waters of the north branch of the Chicago River at John Gregory’s ship building yard. This is about a mile from Abe Burrell’s yard where she ended her days fifty years later. The vessel was built for Nathan Sanders, of Chicago, who was so proud at the launching he passed out ten cent cigars while dreaming of the profits he would make from his new vessel.
Not a sailor himself, he would have a captain and crew engaged in carrying lumber from the north woods ports to booming Chicago. Soon he would regain his investment of $7,000, which was the building cost. In the late 70’s and early 80’s the freight earned to Chicago from Grand Haven was $1.25 per thousand board feet of lumber and $1.65 from Manistee. Lumber cargoes were always available and demand for lumber in Chicago unlimited. Sailor’s pay was $.75 to $1 per day.
The Mary A. Gregory was a handy two-master of 87 gross tons, 84.6 feet in length, 23.8 foot beam and drew only 6.6 feet of water with centerboard up, without cargo. Always well cared for, insurance inspectors rated her A-l and A-2 even in 1895. Mr. Saunders sold her in 1893 and for some time she loaded barreled fish from northern Wisconsin waters to Milwaukee and Chicago. At the turn of the century her ownership shifted to Michigan ports, usually owned by her master, and was well known from the Straits of Mackinac to St. Joseph.
As lumber and cedar posts became scarce at the great sawmill ports like Manistee and Muskegon, our schooner found cargoes at anchorages such as Cross Village, North Manitou Island, Hamlin Lake, Beaver Island and innumberable small piers requiring risky and skilled vessel handling, always without benefit of tow boats. Her curse was common to all schooners…that of too small a crew. She usually carried two men besides the captain, once in a while one more or less. In heavy weather and close quarters they always needed more hands, but in fifty years of constant sailing, often late in, the fall, or evading ice floes in the spring, she had a good record. Only once, in 1903, did she capsize, when four men were swept to their death in a strong gale. In 1907 she stove a hole in her bottom anchored off Bois Blanc Island in the Straits, loading cedar posts.
In late summer and early fall her captain-owner often became an inter- island trader, peddling fruits and vegetables from the mainland. When Captain Woltman bought her in 1912 he continued to seek a few extra dollars in this manner for his wife and four daughters back in Chicago.
Records of the Life Saving Service and Coast Guard show only a few minor assists to the schooner, so well was she handled in spite of depleted rigging and an aging hull. On December 3, 1913, truly a late month to be sailing, but still seeking a few more dollars before winter lay up, Captain Woltman loaded potatoes at the Sands and Maxwell Warehouse in Pentwater. The marine reporter of the Ludington Chronicle wrote “These vessels, which once lined the docks almost continuously, are seldom seen in Pentwater nowadays.”
As a postscript to our story of the Mary A. Gregory’s final trip in 1924, there still remained on Lake Michigan three old schooners. They were the Lucia A. Simpson, carrying cedar posts to Milwaukee, The City of Grand Haven, a two master, and Our Son, a three master, both carrying pulpwood logs to Muskegon. By Sept. 26, 1930, all were gone…forever.
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