By James Heinz

In times past legends and myths of the sea, like The Flying Dutchman, were widely believed. Even today many such myths are still believed.

One of these is “The Philadelphia Experiment”. The legend says that in the harbor of the Philadelphia Navy Yard in October 1943 the USS ELDRIDGE was successfully made to disappear while tied to the dock.  Then disappeared even more when it was inexplicably teleported to Norfolk, Virginia, for several minutes, and then reappeared in the Philadelphia yard. That story is a complete hoax.

Unlike Milwaukee, which really had a warship in its harbor that … just … mysteriously … disappeared.

The first empire Upon Which the Sun Never Set was the Spanish empire.  From Spain to the Philippines to most of Central and South America and much of the southern United States, Spain ruled the first global empire in history.

However, while Spain was living off the profits of its empire, it neglected its own development, so that by 1895 Spain had missed the entire Industrial Revolution and had to buy its warships from England. And that is where the subject of this story was launched in 1895.

The gunboat SANDOVAL and her sister ship ALVARADO were built in 1895 at Clydebank, Scotland of Swedish steel. WMHS files show that both ships were 93 gross tons, 108 feet long, 15.5 feet wide, and drew 6 feet of water. Each ship had a five foot long ram bow, popular with warships of the day, and a white hull.  She had a maximum speed of 19 knots (22 mph) and carried two 47 mm guns and two machine guns. She was manned by a crew of 33.

SANDOVAL and ALVARADO were assigned to the Spanish fleet in Cuba. In 1896 and 1897 they participated in operations against Cuban insurgents. They also attempted to interdict arms supplies to the rebels.

In 1898 the US and Spain fought what some Americans called “The Splendid Little War”, the Spanish-American War.  The war was not so splendid from Spain’s point of view.  The sun suddenly set upon the Spanish Empire, which lost the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico to the US.

And Spain lost the SANDOVAL to the Unites States as well.

The SANDOVAL was stationed at Guantanamo Bay.  She and ALVARADO were converted to minelayers and laid mines to secure Cuban ports from the impending arrival of the US Navy.  Starting May 19, she had a couple of skirmishes with American warships trying to cut underwater telegraph cables.  She also supported a Spanish infantry attack on a US Marine landing party. ALVARADO was captured by the US on July 17 and SANDOVAL was captured on August 12.

WMHS files show that the SANDOVAL had been scuttled when her crew opened her sea cocks and sank her in 24 feet of water on July 25.  She was raised by the crew of USS MARBLEHEAD. At the time of her capture SANDOVAL’s condition was described as “very poor”.  She was hauled out onto land and her hull repaired but not until October 17 was her machinery able to get up steam.

After a tour of the East Coast she was decommissioned, and then recommissioned a year later in 1899 as a training vessel or practice ship for the US Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland. She was decommissioned in 1906 and then loaned to the New York Naval Militia.

What is a naval militia? Wikipedia tells us: “A naval militia is a reserve military organization administered under the authority of a state government in the United States.”  It should not be confused with the Naval Reserve or the Coast Guard Auxiliary, which are under direct federal control.

Why were these militias established?  “In the 1880s, a US Navy proposal to organize a national Naval Reserve Force was submitted to Congress, but the proposal was defeated. However, the movement to create a naval reserve force became popular at the state level. Several states began establishing naval reserve forces (including Wisconsin). The US Navy began loaning older veteran ships to these state naval militias.”  The Naval Reserve as we know it was not established until 1938.

Consistent with the US Navy’s practice of loaning obsolete vessels to naval militias, the USS SANDOVAL was stationed at Charlotte Harbor, New York, on Lake Ontario. She went on summer cruises, mostly in Lake Ontario, although she sailed as far as Chicago in 1918. She apparently remained in Chicago.

In 1919, SANDOVAL was determined to be unfit for military service and was struck from the Navy List of commissioned warships on July 23, 1919.  On September 30, 1919, SANDOVAL was sold to Charles S. Neff for use as a private yacht. Charles Neff was a Milwaukee ship owner.

The Winter 1966-1967 issue of Soundings and the January/February 1989 issue of Anchor News described the origin of the Neff fleet.  It was started by Captain Edwin Neff, who came to Oshkosh from New York in 1849. Neff started a shipping business on Lake Winnebago and later became a Mississippi River steamboat captain.    Edwin’s brother Samuel joined the firm when he was 12 by hauling sand from Lake Winnnebago to Oshkosh in a dugout canoe.  By age 15 Samuel was the captain of a lumber hooker on Lake Winnebago.

Apparently, the Neff family did not mind their 15 year old son spending time with a hooker.  Sorry, I couldn’t resist that.

Samuel later moved on to Lake steamers and owned more than 40 vessels in his lifetime. He had his own shipyard in Oshkosh and built other ships in Manitowoc and Port Huron. He was also a successful salvager of several difficult wrecks and was granted a patent for his invention of a device for refloating stranded ships.

Samuel retired in 1899 and died in 1904.  At the time of his death, he owned three vessels: CHARLES S. NEFF, LUCY NEFF, and the ADELLA SHORES.  They hauled mostly salt in 250 pound barrels, but also general cargo, ore, coal, and lumber. Samuel’s sons Sidney O. and Charles S. Neff had joined the family firm with their father.

Charles Neff was born in 1870 in Oshkosh. Unlike his predecessors he did not become a ship captain, but “was actively involved in the family shipping business helping to direct shore operations.”   In 1905 the brothers dissolved their father’s company and each son organized his own firm. At the time of the split Charles S. Neff took control of a steamer named, appropriately enough, the CHARLES S. NEFF.  From 1905 to 1929 Charles S. Neff owned between one and three ships at a time. Eventually he became a ship broker in Milwaukee and later Cleveland until the 1930s.  He died in 1940 in Cleveland.

An undated newspaper article in WMHS files described the SANDOVAL after its arrival in Milwaukee as “a dingy, war gray little boat, over which workmen are busy.”  It says that Charles Neff bought the ship at Chicago after her guns had been removed, and was having the hull painted white.

Charles Neff’s daughter Marcelia C. Neff Fisher was born in Milwaukee in 1902.  She published a book about the Neff family and their ships entitled “By Paddle Wheel, Sail, and Steam”, which is available in the Humanities Room of the Central Milwaukee Public Library.  The book describes her personal account of the first cruise of the SANDOVAL under Neff ownership:

“At exactly 4 pm on August 4, 1920, the former gun boat dropped anchor for the night near the Milwaukee Yacht Club, its 5 foot ram bobbing in the water.  Charles S. Neff and his family were on board for a Great Lakes cruise that would last 24 days … SANDOVAL rode well … strong winds and high seas engulfed us. At times our deck seemingly became part of the lake itself.  We, the children, walked through it.”

The SANDOVAL cruised all the way to Erie, Pennsylvania, where the Neff family left the ship for a land trip to New York City.  According to Marcelia: “…the SANDOVAL was used as a fruit boat until 1924, carrying peaches from Michigan orchards to Milwaukee.”  The Great Lakes Red Book, which lists ships in service on the Lakes and who owned them, shows that Charles Neff owned the SANDOVAL until 1926.

Marcelia’s memory may be wrong.  WMHS files, including a Spring/Summer 2006 issue of Soundings by legendary WMHS Chuck Sterba, show that in 1922 a Captain Leonard Brittain brought the SANDOVAL from Erie to Saugatuck to be used as a fruit boat.

Why was the SANDOVAL in Erie two years after it finished its maiden cruise on the Lakes?

I believe the answer lies in Marcelia’s account of that first cruise.  From her 18 year old point of view the phrase “At times our deck seemingly became part of the lake itself” may have seemed liked a grand adventure. From the point of view of adults, water pouring over the deck may not have seemed such an adventure.  Charles Neff was a “desk man” not a sea captain.  The reality of sailing a small ship through a summer storm may have left the Neff family afraid to sail on her again and so they left her in Erie.

Confirmation of this theory may reside in the fact that Charles Neff placed an ad offering to sell the SANDOVAL in the October 19, 1921, issue of Marine Review magazine, according to information supplied by Brendon Baillod. At that time she was still in Erie. Unable to sell her, Neff apparently tried to use her as a fruit boat.  A 1927 article mentions litigation over the costs of remodeling her for the fruit trade.

The journey from Saugatuck to Milwaukee may be the last trip the SANDOVAL made. After her sale to Charles Timm of Kiel, Wisconsin, she was docked in the Kinnickinnic River just south of Becher Street in 1927. And there she remained until she just … mysteriously … disappeared.

WMHS files contain a newspaper article from 1933 that states that the SANDOVAL had been sitting on the bottom of the KK River for the past four years. The article states: “Listing considerably, the SANDOVAL now lies jammed in mud near the east bank of the river, with the bow barely clearing the water.”

The article indicates that there had been “several” attempts to raise the vessel, one by Charles Neff and one by her current owner. The article states that the purpose of the raising was “presumably to be converted into a yacht.”  This was highly unlikely in the middle of the Great Depression, not least because her boilers and machinery had been removed.

Marcelia Neff Fisher explained why the ship sank: “…boys stole all available brass, including the seacocks. The SANDOVAL soon listed and sank.”  If boys had sunk the SANDOVAL, the ship would have its revenge on them.  The half-submerged hulk was an irresistible attraction for adventurous South Side children, who played “pirate games” on the ship and jumped off it into the river.  Some of those children drowned while playing on the old ship.

Another newspaper article in WMHS files from April 22, 1933, states that the Milwaukee city attorney had sent an opinion to the supervisor of city bridges that the city could remove the hulk and either charge its current owner or reimburse itself by selling what remained of the SANDOVAL.

At this point what happened to the SANDOVAL becomes unclear.  She just … mysteriously … disappeared.

Another Milwaukee Journal article in the WMHS files dated August 30, 1977, states that Miller Fisheries built a dock over the SANDOVAL’s last resting place in 1937.  That would indicate that at least the part of the ship above the water had been removed.  Reporter John Stevens investigated if the ship was still there.  He couldn’t see anything but “mud…and a couple of ugly fish swimming around the pilings.”

The belief that the SANDOVAL remained on the bottom of the river persisted.  Chuck Sterba’s 2006 article mentioned that South Side residents claimed that the remains of the ship could still be seen at times of low water. Locals described the ship to reporter Stevens in 1977 as “a pleasure craft for Spanish royalty” and “a ship for moonlit rides.”  So much for local legend.

At this point underwater explorer Brendon Baillod enters the picture.  As recounted in a previous blog story, Brendon used a side scan sonar optimized for use in shallow water to explore prehistoric Native American fish weirs in the Crawfish River at the prehistoric Aztalan village.

In June 2020, he and Bob Jaeck conducted a sonar scan of Milwaukee’s rivers, including the KK River.  As Brendon told me in a recent email: “With respect to Sandoval…Bob and I hoped some debris might have remained but we examined the exact site of the vessel’s historical location and it was completely gone.”

If it was gone, where did it go?  Chuck Sterba’s article suggests that the ship was removed for scrap during World War II. However, Brendon Baillod states: “She was either cut up in place and hauled out, or her hull was towed out and sunk after being stripped.  By far the most likely fate is that her hull was towed out and sunk, probably after being made watertight and temporarily refloated.

“I say this because it would have been more costly and difficult to cut her up in place, particularly with her partially submerged and already posing an inconvenience to navigation.  Conversely, they could put a few patches under her keel, pump her free and tow her out basically for little cost.  During that period, several other derelicts were towed out and scuttled off the harbor, so we know it was definitely an option.”

The City of Milwaukee scuttled two and possibly three of its fireboats when done with them.

However, the last comment on how the SANDOVAL disappeared must come from Marcelia Neff Fisher: “The City of Milwaukee eventually considered her a menace to navigation, towed her out to deep water, and sank her.”  This may correlate with a story that the ship was raised in 1934.

Somewhere off Milwaukee a warship from the Spanish-American War may lie on the bottom of Lake Michigan.

One legacy of the SANDOVAL lives on in the files of the WMHS.  The Winter 1966-1967 issue of Soundings states that Charles Neff amassed a collection of marine artifacts and documents which he passed to his daughter Marcelia Neff Fisher.  The article described the collection as being marine artifacts and equipment, scrapbooks containing photographs and illustrations of Great Lakes vessels, ship directories, daily expense ledgers for various vessels, drawings and builders’ plans and books on various maritime subjects. Marcelia donated part of the collection to WMHS.

A photograph from the time shows artifacts from the collection in the display cases in the hallway outside the Humanities Room.  “Dominating the display was the ship’s bell from the CHARLES S. NEFF … the miniature model of Charles S. Neff’s patented salvage barge … ship’s steam whistle, ship’s clock, gauges, telescope, and pictures.”

The bell for the CHARLES S. NEFF still hangs from one of the book cases in the WMHS work room. From now on I will ring it every time I am down there in memory of one of only three foreign warships to ever sail the Great Lakes, a ship that … just … mysteriously … disappeared.

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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.

Photo at top of the page:   Gunboat SANDOVAL

Other Photos:

Photo Credit:  Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.