Revisiting the Christmas Tree Ship

I love Christmas and the Advent season leading up to December 25th. The month of December is full of Christmas concerts, parties, colorful decorations, and--of course--celebrating the "Reason for the Season" the birth of Jesus Christ. Back in 2017, I posted about the Christmas Tree Ship that was an annual event in historic Chicago. We're in Advent season right now, what more appropriate time than now to revisit this unique occurrence and the man who started it? 

Since moving to the Chicago area, I’ve heard many stories about large schooners that wrecked during wild storms on Lake Michigan. I thought the most dangerous storms only occurred in spring and summer, but I've since heard about one wreck that occurred during a late November snowstorm.

Captain Schuenemann (center) & Crew
Public Domain

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Sail-powered ships, or schooners as they were called, populated the Great Lakes. One of the ships, the Rouse Simmons, was built in Milwaukee and made its inaugural passage into service in 1868. In 1870, it became part of a fleet belonging to Charles H. Hackley that hauled lumber from various ports along the shores of Lake Michigan to the port of Chicago. Later, the ship changed owners several times until Herman E. Schuenemann, a native of Wisconsin and a well-establish lake captain, became a part owner.

At the same time, people had begun decorating evergreen trees to display inside their homes to celebrate Christmas. With each year, the demand for evergreens grew, and during December, a small group of lake schooners, loaded with Christmas trees, began making runs from northern Michigan to Chicago. After arriving at the port in Chicago, they sold the trees directly off the ships. One of those ships was the Rouse Simmons. 

Captain Schuenemann loved making the tree run every year, and people soon started calling the Rouse Simmons, the Christmas Tree ship.  And every December, with Captain Schuenemann at the helm, the ship pulled into port loaded down with evergreen trees. By 1912, he had been making the trip for nearly thirty years.

Last Known Photo of the Rouse Simmons (public domain, 
Wikimedia Commons)

Known as Captain Santa, he found great joy in donating many of the trees to needy families. Over the years, his reputation of generosity grew as the ship was eagerly awaited at the port.

By 1912, the Rouse Simmons was 44 years old and showing wear and tear from its years of service as a cargo ship. Still, she was kept in service, and on November 22, 1912, carrying close to 5,000 trees in the cargo hold and on its decks, the ship left for Chicago. Some who witnessed the 

schooner, as it sailed for Chicago, said the vessel looked like a floating forest.

Without the luxury of today’s radar and satellites, there was no way to know about approaching storms and their proximity to the lake. During that trip, a very dangerous winter storm came out of the northwest and caught everyone by surprise. Several known ships sank that day, but no one had seen the Rouse Simmons since it left for Chicago. As word traveled up and down the Wisconsin shoreline, people watched for the missing vessel. Finally, a life-saving station in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, reported a schooner had been spotted heading south, its flag at half-mast—a sure sign of distress. But with poor visibility and no identifying marks on the ship, no one could be sure it was the Rouse Simmons. Rescue boats were immediately summoned, and as soon as they were able, they headed for the spot where the vessel had been sighted. But, when they arrived in the area where the ship was last seen, there was no trace of a schooner.

Schuenemann’s wife remained hopeful that her husband had taken the ship into a safe harbor to ride out the storm and that he would show up in Chicago a few days past schedule. Sadly, the schooner never appeared. However, through the spring and summer of that year, signs of the schooner’s destiny showed up as pieces of Christmas trees began washing up on shore.

Mrs. Schuenemann and her daughters continued the tree business, first bringing the trees to the city by schooners and later by train. After the widow died, the daughters sold the business, and by 1920, the deliveries to Chicago by rail and water ended.

Then in 1924, fishermen found Captain Schuenemann’s wallet wrapped in oilskin, which protected its contents from water damage. The wallet was returned to his wife.

Fast forward to 2006, during an underwater archaeological survey, divers found the ship’s anchor chain, masts, and spar along with the schooner's bow, where many of the trees were stored below and surprisingly still intact. Pictures of these artifacts can be seen on various websites detailing the Christmas Tree ship’s story.

A picture of the wreck that remains at the bottom of Lake Michigan near Two Rivers, WI, is at left. Every year, divers place an evergreen tree on the wreckage.

Although new to me, the legend of the Christmas ship has been around for years, mixed in with ghost stories and sightings of ships once lost to the waters of the lake. There is even a children’s book about the ship. 

Many publications about the Christmas Tree Ship can be found on Amazon.com. But the most interesting one to me is the account described on the Wisconsin Historical Society's website (link is below) that states a snowstorm didn't cause the schooner to go down at all. You can read the text at the website link and decide for yourself. Was it a storm or something else?

Every December, the final voyage of the Rouse Simmons is remembered by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw as it travels the same route and delivers a load of trees to the needy in Chicago.

Have you ever seen a ship wreckage in person? Did you read the Wisconsin Historical accounting of the wreck? Do you think that theory is more plausible? Either way, the ship got into trouble enough that a seasoned ship captain couldn't escape it. 

RESOURCES AND REFERENCES:

You can find many books and documentaries on the Christmas Tree Ship at the following link: 

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/winter/christmas-tree.html

One of the most colorful and interesting websites to learn more about the history and lore of what came to be called the Santa Claus ship can be found at this link. http://halfpuddinghalfsauce.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-rouse-simmons-christmas-tree-ship.html

Another link will take you to a site that includes more detail than the others. Not sure how much is from known fact, though still interesting to read: http://www.lakeeffectliving.com/Lake-Effect-Guide/Shipwrecks-Rouse_Simmons.html

The photo of the Rouse Simmons wreckage: Image ID: 120451; Creator: Tamara Thomsen. The photo and other similar photos, along with an accounting of what really happened to the Rouse Simmons can be found at https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM120451

Pamela has written most of her life, beginning with her first diary at age eight. Her novels include Surprised by Love in Lake Geneva and her four-book series called the Newport of the West, all set in historic Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She lives in northeastern Illinois with her two rescue cats and is active in her church.

Vintage Postcards - Great For A Peek into History & a Giveaway!

By Pamela S. Meyers

When I began to research for my first historical novel, Surprised by Love in Lake Geneva, set in 1933, I found that old postcards of the area and the mansions on the lake were a huge help to me. I had a few postcards in my possession and began searching the internet for more. Since the story involves the building of the Riviera building at the lakefront in Lake Geneva, I began ordering postcards that depicted the building as it appeared when it first opened. But the most important card to me was an aerial view of the beach and lakefront before construction on the Riviera began. The beach then was just a thin strip of sand and where the Riviera now sits, an old ramshackle building served as a dance hall. 

Fast forward to a few years later when I began my current historical series. Old postcards once again provided valuable information as I wrote the first

book, Safe Refuge. I knew in my head what I wanted the home in my story to look like. My vision was much like a large three-story home on the Snug Harbor estate. That home burned down when I was a child, but I still remember it. When I stumbled upon what has since been my favorite postcard in my collection I knew it was what I was looking for. That's the postcard on the right. I sent a copy of the postcard to my cover designer and you can see it on the cover of my book. Since then, every cover in my series uses postcards from my collection. One of the plusses of using postcards that way is that postcards are considered public domain and no usage fee is required. 

Below are a few of the postcards from my collection. Some were used on my book covers and others were only used as a reference or pure enjoyment because they always take me back to a bygone time. I hope you get as much enjoyment from them as I do.

These are only a hint of all the old postcards I have collected so far. Besides the nostalgia they provide me, they have served me well by sometimes providing me a plot point or storyline in my stories, giving me fodder for descriptions of the landscaping around the fictional estates I create and where the photos include people, the style of clothing and hair.

Do you collect things like postcards or other items from the past? Please tell me if you do. Leave a comment and I'll put your name in a drawing for your choice of any one of my historicals.

Pam lives in northern Illinois, a short drive from her hometown of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. When she's not writing her next novel, she can be found leading Bible studies (on Zoom these days), reading, and trying to keep her two rescue cats in line.

The First Transatlantic Telephone Call--A Multinational Effort

By Pamela S. Meyers

Telephone operators during the 1927 call
between New York and London
Public Domain

When I was writing Tranquility Point, Book 3 in my historical series, I had my heroine receive a phone call from her intended while he was in London and she was in Wisconsin. Sounds plausible. Right? It would have been except the year was 1918 and the first commercial transatlantic telephone service didn’t happen until 1927.  And, even then, it was done by radio phone and the cost to make such a call was extremely high. Thankfully, I realized my error and rewrote the scene with him sending her a telegram instead.

Even before 1927, several attempts at laying cable on the ocean floor had been attempted with marginal results. Of course, telegraph cable had been laid between the continents and had been in use for years. Still, the desire to have a cable laid across the ocean floor that would allow for many conversations to take place at the same time was the ultimate goal. They knew what was needed to work, but what was necessary to amplify the voice--a line-up many repeaters in a chain within the cable--remained elusive. In time, they were able to make the repeaters small enough, and with the development of coaxial cable with polyethylene insulation, they were able to advance their attempts.

On December 1, 1953, an agreement was signed between Great Britain, Canada, and the United States to work together to lay down two cables between Scotland and a site in Newfoundland. On the Canadian side, extra links would then be set up to carry the transmission to Nova Scotia, and then to the U.S. border where the signal would be sent by a microwave radio link to a station in Maine.

In March of 1955, the British cable ship called The Monarch laid down the cable

Illustration of the many layers
that went into the cable that was laid down
during the fifties.

in sections from Newfoundland to Scotland. Each time they added a length to what was already laid down, men on the ship would go to work and painstakingly connect all the wires inside the two lengths of cable then tightly seal it up and the process of laying down the new length on the ocean floor continued. The following year. a second cable was laid down, to allow for calls going from the U.S. to Great Britain on one cable and calls being made from Great Britain to the U.S on the second cable.

An inaugural ceremony was held on September 25, 1956, when the postmaster general in England spoke to the Canadian minister of transport and the chairman of AT&T in New York. The cable worked perfectly and during that first day of operation, 588 London to US calls and 119 London to Canada calls were made.

If you want a more detailed description of how the cable was laid by the ship Monarch, check out the video at https://youtu.be/qOg3aWwE_a0

Today with cell phones and satellite phones we take calling others all over the globe for granted, but back then it was a very big deal. 

Do you speak to others in other countries regularly?

 Photo Credits: Picture of cable layers: Photo by User:geni, Wikimedia.com

Pamela S. Meyers loves to write stories set in and around her hometown of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She is currently working on her four-book series that highlights the history of the area and the lake. Tranquility Point, Book Three in the series, releases in April 2020. 

She lives in northern Illinois with her two rescue cats and is close enough to get back to her beloved Wisconsin within about an hour. 

The Fake News Scare of World War I

By Pamela S Meyers

The term “fake news” is in our current vocabulary a lot these days, but did you know that as far back as World War I, an important announcement about the war was later said to be false?

On the afternoon of November 7, 1918, news broke that World War I was over and an armistice had been signed in France. War-weary people the world over rejoiced at the news and began celebrating.

Headline Prematurely Announcing the End of the War
Source: Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1918-11-07/ed-1/seq-1/#words=Ended%2Bend%2BEnd%2BWar%2Bwar

When the announcement reached Great Britain, workers streamed into the streets, leaving their work and began what would be an all-night celebration. Likewise, when the news wire arrived a short time later in New York City and traveled west from there, people started dancing in the streets and rejoicing. It had been a very long and debilitating war that cost many lives and terrible injuries. At last, it was over.

Source of Photo: https://www.history.com/news/false-armistice-report-world-war-i-early-celebration

The next morning, the celebrants woke up with terrible hangovers, to the news that it was all a mistake, and the war was still on. People were angry and blamed everyone from the U.S. government to the governments of the Allies. As they trudged back to their jobs and daily routines, conspiracy theories abounded.

Of course, on November 11, 1918, the news declared that the actual armistice was signed in a railroad car in France, and people celebrated all over again. In time, for the most part, the fake news that had misled them was forgotten.

How did such a thing happen? If you want a full detail-by-detail account as to the why, you can read it here. But, in a nutshell, the wheels were already turning for a summit between Germany and the Allies to end the war. In order for the German officials to safely make their way into France for the meeting, a local cease-fire was ordered so the contingent could securely pass through the front line. As the wires went out about this, the word cease-fire tripped off a misunderstanding, and, like the old telephone game many of us played at birthday parties, when the information reached the papers, the announcement read that the war was over.

When I read about this while researching World War I for my next novel, I couldn’t help but think about how much fake news is mentioned today. Nothing is new under the sun. Right?

Of course, this event made its way into my book, Tranquility Point, which will release next year.

Have you ever learned something unique about the past? If so, please share!

Sources: History.com and Centenary News.com

Pamela has written most of her life, beginning with her first diary at age eight. Her novels include Surprised by Love in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and Second Chance Love. Safe Refuge and Shelter Bay, Books 1 & 2 in her Newport of the West series, are set in her hometown of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She lives in northeastern Illinois with her two rescue cats.