Many of our stories revolve around launchings or losses of Great Lakes vessels. This is about a rescue. The touching letter below was written to the Life Saving Service from a ship’s captain after him and his crew, who had given up hope, were rescued by the service. It really sets the scene and tells what strength and endurance these men had.
The HUNTER SAVIDGE went ashore at Hardwood Point at 5 am on December 3, 1893. She was bound for Sand Beach.
Alpena, Michigan, December 22, 1893
Dear Sir: Knowing the interest manifested by you at all times in the workings and conduct of the lifesaving crews under your supervision, I cannot refrain from expressing my appreciation of the timely and inestimable service rendered us by Captain Plough and crew on the morning of the 3d instant. I have listened many times to the eulogistic praise of public speakers and have often read of the heroic adventures of our life saving crews in pursuing their most holy vocation of saving the lives, in time of peril, of their fellow beings, but never until that occasion when we found our boat launched upon the rocks apparently going to pieces, with merciless waves dashing high over her, a fierce snowstorm howling with unwonted fury, with our men well-nigh exhausted from overexertion and exposure and wild with excitement and fear, did I realize the horror of a shipwreck in a storm; and never until that critical moment, when our fate seemed doomed, when there was no prospect and but little hope of relief, when we discerned through the storm in the direction of the land, the forms of men, when with speechless anxiety we watched them wading shoulder deep in the surf, pushing their boat ahead, struggling with the waves, and dodging huge cakes of floating ice, watched them scramble into their boat drenched with water and sleeted with ice and snow, watched their almost superhuman efforts as they struggled with the sea in their endeavors to reach us, and finally hauled them on board nearer dead than alive, did I fully appreciate the hardships and danger to which they are subjected and the self-denying and fearless manner in which their duties are performed. It is needless to state that we are unsparing in our praise of the men who, at the risk of their own lives, thus saved us from a watery grave, and that we will always remember them with kindliest feeling. The facts and circumstances relating to the wreck of the schooner HUNTER SAVIDGE I presume are familiar to you, and I will not attempt to relate them here. The purpose of this letter is to acknowledge our appreciation of the noble service rendered us by Captain Plough and crew and our due appreciation of the Life Saving Service everywhere.
Respectfully yours, John Muellerweiss, Jr.
Sent to Captain Jerome Kiah, Superintendent Tenth District, Sand Beach, Michigan. (Source: US Life Saving Service Report of 1894, p. 206)
This captain of the SAVIDGE, John Muellerweiss, would later, as the owner, loose his wife and child on the SAVIDGE in August of 1899 along with the wife and son of that current captain Fred Sharpsteen. The ship’s mate was also lost. Mrs. John Muellerweiss had been ill for some time and was making the trip on the SAVIDGE for her health.
The SAVIDGE was struck by a squall and capsized off Point Aux Barques about 14 miles south of Sand Beach, Mich., on the afternoon of August 20, 1899. There were ten on board at the time. Five were lost and five were picked up by the steamer A. McVittie.
The HUNTER SAVIDGE was a two-masted schooner built at Grand Haven, Mich., in 1879 by Duncan Robertson. She measured 117 feet in length, 26 feet in beam and 8 in depth.
On August 13, 1988, divers from the Undersea Research Associates discovered the wreck. It is within Michigan’s Thumb Area Bottomland Preserve.
Suzette Lopez
Photo credit: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society
