By James Heinz
Most historians believe that Abraham Lincoln came to the state of Wisconsin twice in his lifetime. The first was in 1832, when he was the captain of an Illinois militia company during the Black Hawk War, where, as he said, he did not fight anything except mosquitos.
Abraham Lincoln in 1846 by Nicholas Shepherd courtesy of Wikipedia
The second was in 1859 when he came to Milwaukee to give a speech at the Wisconsin State Fair, which at that time was located where Marquette University now stands, four blocks west of WMHS’ home in the Milwaukee Central Library. An historical marker at 13th and Wells commemorates the event.
Lincoln memorial for his 1859 State Fair speech by Marquette. Photos by James Heinz
However, in 1848 Lincoln had both visited and not visited Milwaukee on a ship while he was returning home to Springfield, Ill., with his wife and two sons after completing a single term in Congress.
WMHS files say that the ship was the GLOBE. She was a wooden side wheel passenger steamer built in 1848 at Detroit. She was 251 feet long, 41 feet wide and displaced 1,200 gross tons. Greatlakesvesselhistory.com says that her engine came from the steamer BOSTON, which had wrecked at Milwaukee in 1846.
Photo at top of page: The GLOBE at the Rose & Fox dock, Northport, Mich., between spring 1857 and fall 1860
The GLOBE drew 15 feet of water, which was too much to pass over the bar at the entrance to the Milwaukee River, so she probably tied up to one of the piers that protruded out into Lake Michigan https://wmhs.org/milwaukees-first-cargo-pier-is-commemorated/ Lincoln then reportedly made his opinion of Milwaukee clear:
He did not get off the ship.
Which gives you some idea of what Milwaukee must have looked like back then. Lincoln then continued his voyage to Chicago on the GLOBE, where he transferred to an Illinois and Michigan canal boat.
During his voyage on the GLOBE, at some point the ship became stranded on a shoal. Wikipedia says “The boat’s captain ordered his crew to gather together all the empty barrels, boxes, and loose planks and force these objects under the sides of the steamboat to buoy it over the shallow water. The boat gradually swung clear and was dislodged after much manual exertion.” This is like Carnival Cruises today asking the passengers to get out and push.
Lincoln’s trip on the GLOBE inspired him to become the first and only president to hold a U.S. patent. In 1849 Lincoln was granted patent 6,549 for an invention involving the use of inflatable bladders to lift vessels off shoals. It was accompanied by a wooden model whittled by Lincoln himself. The device was never produced.
Abraham Lincoln’s U.S. Patent courtesy of Wikipedia
Abraham Lincoln’s Patent drawings courtesy of Wikipedia
Abraham Lincoln’s Patent Model of his Invention courtesy of Wikipedia
WMHS files tell us that three days after Lincoln was elected on November 3, 1861, the GLOBE exploded at 9 am while tied to the north bank of the Chicago River below the Wells Street bridge.
By then she had been considerably modified. Originally, she had been built as a side wheeler but in 1856 she had been rebuilt to use the latest in propulsion machinery: the propeller. This also necessitated a change from a safe low-pressure steam engine to a more dangerous high pressure steam engine.
The second mate of the PRAIRIE STATE testified to the Cook County grand jury that he had boarded the GLOBE around 6 am and noticed that the engine room steam pressure gauge was registering 20 pounds of steam pressure more than a ship whose engine was idling while tied to the dock should have registered. He left the GLOBE without telling anyone.
The blast blew the stern off the canal boat ALONZO and drove pieces of the hull through adjoining buildings. It killed a 15 year old girl who was picking up fallen apples on the dock but spared her 10 year old sister. At least two other passerby were killed, and the death toll was believed to be around 15, most of whom were crew members, some of whom were never found.
Surprisingly, newspapers at the time reported that the engine room crew survived and reported that there was little steam pressure in either propulsion boiler and that the cause of the explosion was when the engineer pumped cold water into a red hot donkey auxiliary engine boiler, although the papers also reported that the port propulsion boiler had exploded. The ship then burned to the waterline.
As if there had not already been enough tragedy, now the lawyers got involved. Litigation resulted in a ruling that the owners of the GLOBE were responsible for removing the wreck. They paid $1,500 for a cofferdam to be erected around the ship and by April 1862 the hulk was raised.
After that it is unclear what happened to the GLOBE, but it appears it was converted to a barge, burned and sank again in 1863 in Saginaw Bay, and was raised again until it was wrecked at Leamington, Ontario in 1873.
One final note: in 1896 workmen dredging the Chicago River recovered an old safe which was believed to have come from the GLOBE. There was nothing in it.
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Photo credit: James Heinz and Wikipedia
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.
