By Suzette Lopez
On March 31, 1892, the ANDASTE was launched at Cleveland by the Cleveland Ship Building Company. She was the first of three the monitor or straightback steamers being built for the Lakes Superior Iron Company.
The ANDASTE was 280 feet in length over all, with a 260 foot keel, 33 feet beam, and 23 feet depth of hold. She had a roomy deck house aft of the hatches, partitioned into apartments like the whalebacks, with the pilot house in relatively the same position as on the whalebacks.
The ANDASTE was used in the sand and gravel trade and later made into a self-unloader. In 1921 she was shortened to 246.9 feet in length to fit the Welland Canal.
Her career lasted 37 years but ended on September 9, 1929, during a terrific storm on Lake Michigan. She left Grand Haven, Michigan, at 9:30 am, Monday the 9th with a cargo of gravel and was due in Chicago at 9 am Tuesday. She didn’t arrive.
By the time she was 60 hours overdue, Lake Michigan was being searched from both ends of her route by what seemed to be everyone with a boat including the Coast Guard, Lake vessels using the same route, four planes from the Great Lakes naval training station and several boats from the Chicago Yacht Club.
Hope was fading but still held out until items were brought to the Coast Guard Station in Holland, Michigan, on the 14th – the steps of the pilot house, two port lights, two oak stanchions that stood near the cabin aft and were painted red, and a little white pillow which belonged the ANDASTE’s Capt. Albert Anderson. That day also brought to Holland was the first body, an unidentified sailor wearing a life preserver.
The next few days brought more wreckage and more bodies. In the end 16 of the crew of 25 were recovered. One theory was during the storm she pitched and rolled so much her cargo shifted and she could have turned upside down.
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Suzette Lopez is the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
Photo at top of page: ANDASTE at Marquette, Michigan.
Other Photos:
Photo Credit: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
