On this day, May 13, 1873, the Goodrich wooden passenger and freight steamer DePERE was launched at Manitowoc, Wis. Built by Rand & Burger, she measured 165 feet in length, 29 feet in beam, and 11 feet in depth. No expense was spared. She was built for the Chicago and Green Bay line and cost over $80,000.
DEPERE at Manitowoc, March 19 1885
Although she had a lengthy career, she was given up as a wreck in December 1882 when a blinding snowstorm caused her to miss the lights of the Manitowoc harbor and run ashore about a mile southwest of the Two Rivers Life Saving Station when sailing from Chicago. The following is the report from the lifesaving station on her rescue and that of the crew of the schooner OLIVER CULVER which went ashore thanks to the same storm. This shows the dedication and responsibility the lifesaving crew had when helping these stranded ships.
December 3, 1882–At 11 o’clock at night during the prevalence of a heavy southeasterly snow-storm the keeper of the Two Rivers Station (Eleventh District), Lake Michigan, received information that a steamer was ashore about a mile southwest of the station. His crew were not on duty at the time, as the station had been closed for the winter a few days previous, but he at once set out to assemble the men, directing each one as he found him to proceed at once to the scene of the disaster.
He had thus notified six of the crew and was on his way to find the rest when he discovered through the gloom a schooner ashore about four hundred yards to the northeast of the station. It was then midnight, and as soon, therefore, as he found the other two men he instructed them to go down abreast of the latter vessel with lanterns and Coston signals to let her people know that assistance would soon reach them. This done the keeper proceeded to where the steamer was ashore and found six of his men already there, and in their company were six of the steamer’s crew, including the second mate, who had just landed in one of their own boats; the mate reporting that the rest had refused to leave, preferring to remain on board until daylight, the vessel being not more than two hundred feet from the beach.
He also reported the steamer as the DEPERE of Kenosha, Wisconsin, with a crew of thirty men, and that she was bound from Chicago, Illinois, to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, with a general cargo. It will thus be seen she had run a few miles past her port of destination, owing probably to the blinding snow which had obscured the lights of the harbor.
After burning a Coston signal to let the rest of the people know that assistance was handy, in case they wished to be landed before daylight, the keeper detailed one man to remain there on watch and build a fire on the beach, while he and the rest of his crew started to the station for the surf boat to board the other vessel, telling the mate of the steamer as he left that he would return as soon as he could rescue the schooner’s crew.
It was 3 o’clock in the morning (December 4) when the life-saving crew arrived abreast of the stranded schooner, which lay two hundred yards out from the beach, and barely distinguishable in the storm. The surf at that point was extremely rough, and it was deemed prudent to wait for daylight before attempting to launch, the chances for getting out through the surf in the darkness being very doubtful.
As soon as it was light enough to see what they were doing the schooner was boarded and her crew of seven men were safely landed by 7 o’clock, and conducted to comfortable quarters in town. The rescue was effected none too soon, for the vessel had even then broken in two. She proved to be the OLIVER CULVER owned in Chicago, Illinois, and bound to that port from Pensaukee, Wisconsin, with a load of lumber. She became a total wreck, but the captain succeeded in saving a little more than one-half of the cargo.
Without a moment’s delay the keeper turned his attention to the DEPERE, but upon arriving there with the surfboat half an hour after landing the crew of the schooner, he found the rest of her people all ashore, the surfman whom he had left there on watch having, with the assistance of the second mate, succeeded in landing them with the steamer’s boat after daylight while the station crew were engaged at the Culver, the surf not being so heavy where she lay as it was further north.
The DEPERE weathered the storm and remained in fair condition, but owing to the lateness of the season and the difficulties and great expense which would attend the necessary operations for her release, her owners, the Goodrich Transportation Company, decided to let her lie there until spring with two men on board to watch her, and in the following April (1883) she was floated off.
December 12, 1882.–At 10 o’clock in the forenoon, during a heavy southeast blow, the keeper of the Two Rivers Station (Eleventh District), Lake Michigan, received word that the steamer DEPERE, which had stranded on December 3 (as already mentioned in this record under that date) about a mile southwest of the station, and been left in charge of two watchmen for the winter, was in danger of going to pieces through pounding so hard in the surf, and that the two men were anxious to be brought ashore, as their own boat had been stove and was then closed for the season–and went to their assistance with the surfboat.
The snow was so deep that a sleigh had to be used to get the boat down abreast of the vessel, and then another difficulty was encountered in the huge barrier of ice cakes which had been driven ashore by the sea, and piled up in the edge of the surf.
They succeeded, however, after much labor, in dragging the boat over it and into the surf, the same work having to be repeated upon their return with the two men, who were safely landed on the beach at about noon, their boat being also brought ashore with them. The situation of the men had been a very grave one, as there was no telling how soon the steamer might break up, the surf was so heavy; and they were very grateful to the life-saving crew for so promptly coming to their relief.
The DePERE was rescued the next spring, thoroughly rebuilt and went back into service on July 9, 1883.
STATE OF MICHIGAN
Goodrich sold the DePERE in 1892 to S. B. Grummond for $20,000. She ran on the Grummond line from Green Bay to Lake Erie and was later renamed STATE OF MICHIGAN. Her owners included the Peoples Steamship Company of Detroit, George McCullough of Detroit and in 1900 the Barry Brothers of Chicago who ran her between Muskegon and Chicago.
STATE OF MICHIGAN
On October 18, 1901, she sprang a leak when a piston rod of her engine broke and punched a hole in the boat’s bottom. She foundered in 60 feet of water four miles off White River Harbor, Michigan, between Muskegon and White Lake. The crew escaped in boats with the assistance of the White Lake lifesaving crew. Her owner Capt. Miles Barry did not attempt to raise her as he considered her too far out and thought she would be demolished the heavy weather that late in the season.
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The schooner OLIVER CULVER was built in 1855 at Rochester, New York, and measured 140 feet in length and 26 feet in beam.
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Suzette Lopez
Photo credit: Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society
