By Carl Eisenberg

Three quarters of the way up Wisconsin’s Door County peninsula is Anderson Dock, in the village of Ephraim. During the cold months there aren’t more than 300 people living there, but by August tourists swell the population to several thousand.

Many will take in the old graffiti-scrawled Anderson Warehouse, now the Francis Hardy Gallery. Visitors are encouraged to pen and paint their names and visiting dates on the building’s clapboard exterior. Nearby the old Anderson Barn chronicles Ephraim’s maritime past. An exhibit includes the wheel of EBENEZER, the only schooner built in Ephraim.

The schooner and four other ships that foundered off Ephraim’s coast in the bay of Green Bay are now but a memory. Some of their history is known. Having read about the ships beforehand, I came to Ephraim prepared to experience whatever their recorded history would elicit in me.

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I drove to Door County from my home in Mequon. It was a cold, windy day in early April. March may start as a lion and retreat as a lamb, but this first day was still as raw as any day in the month before. I could imagine a wind storm that would have scared me were I on a wooden schooner. I found to my delight Pioneer Cemetery in Peninsula State Park in Fish Creek on my first day in the Door. I was determined to locate this site that eluded me last year when overgrowth completely hid the path to the graveyard.

Delighted to have been able to explore it, Ilooked forward to the next day when I planned to wander the Anderson Dock. I awoke to a delightful day with little wind and temperatures in the mid-50s. I had heard about the Anderson Warehouse, now the Francis Hardy Gallery, which is covered in acceptable graffiti. Boaters and visitors are encouraged to add their names and date of their visit.

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Norwegian born Aslag Anderson, a millwright, built a store and the dock in 1858. Now, the Anderson Historic District also includes the Anderson Store Museum, the Anderson Barn Museum, the Svalhus Research Library, and the Anderson Homestead built in 1864.

Starting in the 1890s the Anderson Dock was used for commercial and tourism purposes until land transportation improved. The Hart Steamboat and the Goodrich Lines provided provided access to Ephraim using the dock.

One of the unseen attractions, at least for me, is the awareness of what happened off shore on the west side of the peninsula. At least five ships wrecked in a narrow area off Ephraim. Wind, waves and ice broke up old EBENEZER in the early 1900s; ice whipped by gale-force winds crushed J. K. STACK in 1893; loaded with cordwood, UNION capsized in 1886; shifting ice pummeled JENNY in 1896; and in 1895 JAMES H. JOHNSON, aka J. H. JOHNSON, ran aground on a reef and eventually disintegrated. No lives were lost.

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● EBENEZER was a three-masted, scow schooner, built in 1890 by Captain Fordel Hogenson on the beach just north of his home in Ephraim. Scow schooners had a broad, shallow hull which gave them stability. Instead of a deep keel, they used a centerboard that could be retracted, allowing the ships to move heavy loads of cargo in shallow water. In their book, Schooner Days in Door County, Walter and Mary K. Hirthe write that EBENEZER usually wintered in Ephraim’s Eagle Harbor where necessary repairs would be made.

The Hirthes report:

“Despite this constant attention, The Ebenezer, like all of the wooden schooners, was losing her struggle with the elements. In 1905, the last Ebenezer was grounded for good because of a badly leaking bottom in the inner harbor at Ephraim where she was born. The slanting deck of the old schooner became a playground for the children of Ephraim in all seasons until the ice of winter and the waves of summer scattered her bones over the beaches and bottom of Eagle Harbor.”

● J. K. STACK was a wooden, two-masted schooner built in 1875 in Escanaba, Michigan. She called Charlevoix, Michigan, her home port. The ship’s final voyage is described in a newspaper story from April 12, 1893: “The small trading schooner Stack, owned by Henry Amundson, of Ephraim, was totally wrecked at that port by being crushed by ice during the westerly gale of the 12th. The schooner Jenny, owned by Sam Neilson, was also crowded against the beach about the same time, but was not so badly hurt but what she can be readily repaired. The Ebenezer escaped without suffering any damages whatsoever.” The Door County Advocate of April 22, 1893, reported that all three vessels had been wintering in Eagle Harbor.

● UNION was a wooden schooner built in 1867 in Sheboygan by Johnson. Milwaukee was her home port. The website Wisconsin Shipwrecks describes her final voyage.
Two Washington Harbor men, Nels Zinc and Nels Jepson, were sailing to Green Bay with a load of cordwood when the Union capsized off Ephraim in November 1886. Fishermen rescued the men. The UNION drifted to the south point of Eagle Harbor. After being pounded on the rocky shore, only the rigging was saved. “Fish Creek, Nov. 14.- The schooner Union, Capt. Nels Zinc, capsized near the Eagle Bluff lighthouse on Wednesday of last week, the crew narrowly escaping death by drowning. On the following day the capsized craft was towed into Eagle harbor, and we hear that she has been righted, but cannot vouch for the truth of the statement.” “The schooner Union is a total loss, only a portion of the rigging and outfit having been saved. The cargo of wood with which she was loaded was also lost, the boldness of the shore where the craft was beached making it impossible to pick any of it up.”

(If the newspaper story is accurate, UNION would have capsized on November 10, 1886. November 14 of that year was a Sunday. The wreck occurred on the previous Wednesday – November 10.)

● JENNY, a two-masted, wooden scow-schooner, was built in 1889 in Egg Harbor, by Ole Anderson. Milwaukee was her home port. A description of her final voyage is supplied by the Survey of Submerged Cultural Resources, 1991: “The Jenny, a vessel which had narrowly escaped being smashed by the ice in the spring of 1893 met an icy doom in March of 1896. She had been caught late in the season by a sudden freeze-over which ice-locked her in the middle of Ephraim Harbor. That next spring the shifting ice crushed her hull. A total loss.”

● JAMES H. JOHNSON was a wooden steam paddle steambarge built in 1882 in St. Joseph, Michigan. Wisconsin Shipwrecks reports that Milwaukee was her home port. Here’s a description of her final voyage as published on the website Wisconsin Shipwrecks. After she ran aground the night of May 1, 1895, “The five crew members of the Johnson were rescued by fishermen in their poundnet boat after she was stranded on the unmarked Horseshoe reef of Sister Bay, Door County Peninsula. The stranding took place on the northern section of the reef known as the ‘Rock’. In normal years she may well have cleared the reef, but 1895 was a year of low water. The cargo of hay was destroyed, although most of the bricks were salvaged within days by salvagers from the schooner Ebenezer. The Johnson began to disintegrate, within three weeks washing the hay and her cabin ashore. By spring, she was scattered around the reef along with any remaining bricks in twenty to twenty-five feet of water.”

Charles Peak salvaged the vessel’s steam engine and boilers in 1895, using the steambarge IMPERIAL for a work platform. Wisconsin Shipwreck reports the salvaged equipment was installed in the tug COMMODORE JACK BARRY the next year.

After experiencing the wind and sea the preceding day it didn’t take much imagination to understand why sailors dread ferocious storms.

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Top of page: Map of Door County, Wisconsin. Map Credit: A Door County Land Information Office map was used as the base to show geographic highlights of the story.

More photos:

Resources:Wisconsin Shipwrecks
Wisconsin Marine Historical Society
Survey of Submerged Cultural Resources in Northern Door County, 1988
Schooner Days in Door County by Walter and Mary K. Hirthe

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The Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s Great Lakes Marine Collection contains additional information about four of the vessels named in this story:

EBENEZER: A file and two enrollments (registrations), no photos
UNION: A file and eight enrollments, no photos
JENNY: Four enrollments, no photos
JAMES H. JOHNSON (aka J. H. JOHNSON): A file and one enrollment, no photos

The cost for a photocopy of a file is $10 per file. The per copy cost of an enrollment is $10. All documents are sent by regular mail. If anyone is searching for a Great Lakes vessel or perhaps an ancestor who sailed on a vessel, email the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society at wmhs@wmhs.org or send a letter to WMHS, 814 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233. Our staff will let you know what is available.

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Carl Eisenberg is a sailor and birdwatcher, and served as president of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society from 2016 – 2024. A retired pediatrician, he is a graduate of Duke University School of Medicine. He lives in Mequon, Wis.