The Rouse Simmons was what lake mariners called a “lumber hooker,” a ship that engaged in repeated short-haul voyages, taking lumber from mill to market. The craft was named for a prominent Kenoshan whose family would give the world the Simmons Beautyrest mattress
her captain
On November 25, the Rouse Simmons departed Thompson Harbor between Point Aux Barques and Manistique in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula , The barometer was falling as Captain Schuenemann entered the open water. The crew and ten lumberjacks brought on board to fell Christmas trees watched from inside the cabin as snow danced through the rigging. Those on duty pulled their collars up against a wind that blew with increasing strength. The spray of the rising seas lashed the Christmas trees on deck. There was nothing the crew could do as their cargo froze beneath a layer of ice. There was concern because any shifting of the frozen cargo could spell disaster.
Struggling along the eastern shore of the Door Peninsula, the Rouse Simmons was spotted by a tug and the brig Dutch Hoy. Sometime between November 25 and 26, Captain Schuenemann raised the distress flags. The following day, the Sturgeon Bay Coast Guard Station observed the Rouse Simmons. The Simmons was spotted once again, this final time by the United States Lifesaving Station at Two Rivers.
Fighting the lake and a driving blizzard, the Simmons continued on. The distress flags still visible and tattered sails whipping in the wind, the Rouse Simmons refused to surrender without a battle of epic proportions.
The snow closed in a final time and the Rouse Simmons vanished from view. Lost from sight of land, the Rouse Simmons slipped beneath the waves
None of her crew was ever found, but through the years, she kept calling for help.
Two weeks and six days after she went down, a fisherman came across a corked bottle. In it was a torn sheet from the captains log, with his farewell message. It read, “Friday…everybody goodbye. I guess we are all through. Sea washed over our deck load Thursday. During the night the small boat washed overboard. Leaking bad. Ingvald and Steve fell overboard Thursday. God help us.” It was signed Herman Schuenemann
The next spring, trees weighted down nets hauled in by commercial fisherman. Twelve years after she sank a fish tug hauled up a wallet belonging to Captain Schuenemann. The wallet, well preserved because it was wrapped in oilskin, contained business cards, a newspaper clipping and an expense memorandum
The vessel made an annual Christmastime voyage to Chicago loaded with evergreen trees from the woods around the tiny Upper Peninsula
For over eighteen years Captain Scheunemann made annual trips across the lake. Each year he returned with enough Christmas trees to supply the entire city of Chicago
The Christmas Tree Ship remained lost until 1971, when the Rouse Simmons was discovered by a diver. The Rouse Simmons rests in 180 feet of water off Rawley Point, Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
A few items have been brought up
The tree business was continued by Schueneman’s wife and daughters, but the practice of hauling by schooner was replaced by train and road by the 1920’s
When one falls, another stands in thier Stead
that is something so many do not understand about Americans
Here we have the Mighty Mackinaw icebreaker on a mission
unloading her precious cargo
Like the great multitudes of Galilee They crowd the slopes about the clustered Seas, Hearing his word through shining gladness And through the rain; Daily they grow in grace and strength, For God himself hath fashioned them. When the white stillness hushes all the Land, & Every sail is winter-folded from the tempest seas, Three ships embarking for a further shore Bear a great multitude, to where Towering, tumultuous, a City stands – Struggling with darkness, bondage, fears and pain – Open as Israel in Egypt. And as to Moses in the burning Bush. The voice of God decreed men’s Liberty. So doth his message burn again; And like the Pentecostal flame his Sprig glows upon them. The Christmas Eve is come; Behold the Trees! Whose tongues of Living Fire tell Men and little children…
“The Christ of God IS Here.”
I see SNL made a mockery out of the Nativity scene
SNL you ain’t about nothin