Excerpted from the book "Ships and Men of the Great Lakes", by Dwight Boyer, 1977.
Any vessel that provides transportation for people and supplies over a period of years, thus furnishing the goods of life and a means of livelihood in remote places, eventually endears herself to those she serves; however mordant their utterances on her behalf. They may make scornful references as to her speed and appearance; poke fun at her management, and deride her accommodations. Over the long haul, however, she earns a grudging acceptance and a degree of affection simply by coming and going, despite a capricious adherence to schedules and routes. The ship is, after all, the most convenient, sometimes the only, link to friends, relatives, and distant places. They may revile her with sarcastic nicknames, make abrasive comments as to her seaworthiness, and use pungent terms to describe her crew. But in the final analysis she is "their" boat.
The Erie L. Hackley, twenty-one years of steady service behind her, was just such a vessel, or at least Captain Joseph Vorous hoped she would attain that enviable status when he, Henry Robertoy, Orin Rowin, and Edgar Thorp bought her in the spring of 1903 for $3,000.
Captain Vorous thought she would work out nicely for the service he was starting between various Green Bay ports in Wisconsin. It was admittedly a somewhat precarious venture financially, since some time would naturally elapse before the people and small businesses in the communities she planned to serve would accept the Hackley as a steady, on-going institution. One of the partners, engineer Orin Rowin, hard pressed for funds, was having his share of the purchase price deducted from his wages at a rate of twenty dollars a month.
Captain Vorous and his partners had no delusions of grandeur. They would ply a simple route that would provide a living for the Hackley’s owners and just a little money additional to set aside for a larger vessel should the service generate enough business.
"I don't want to set the world on fire," he confided to friends and
associates, "just establish something that will continue on after us."
The route, as initiated, began at Sturgeon Bay. From that point the Hackley would
steam directly across Green Bay to Menominee. From there she would come back
across the bay to Egg Harbor, sixteen miles north of Sturgeon Bay. Then,
from Egg Harbor to Fish Creek it was a short voyage, in the lee of the land
and protected from unpleasant weather from any direction but directly west
and north. From Fish Creek it was almost a straight shot up the Strawberry
Channel and past Eagle Bluff until it was time to haul to starboard on the
course to Detroit Harbor, on Washington Island.
Intermediate stops could be made, if freight or passengers offered, at Sister
Bay or Ellison Bay. What's more, the route afforded several harbors of refuge
should weather conditions dictate. Shanty Bay, behind Horseshoe Island; Eagle
Harbor; and Hedgehog Harbor, protected by Death-door Bluff, offered sufficient
water and good holding ground.
But in six months the Hackley had earned only one nickname, the "Egg
Harbor Express". It was probably an expression of frustration by the
residents of Egg Harbor because they arrived home, after departing Sturgeon
Bay, only after a thirty-two-mile round trip across Green Bay to Menominee.
Captain Vorous was from Fish Creek, and the Hackley crew quickly took on a "hometown" look. In addition to partner Henry Robertoy, cook Carl Pelkey, deckhand Freeman Thorp, fireman Elaine McSweeney, purser Frank Blakefield, and engineer Orin Rowin were "Fish Creekers," as they were known. The single exception was deckhand Hugh Miller, who hailed from Charlevoix, Michigan. Appropriately, the service began under the official name of Fish Creek Transportation Company.
Green Bay is a large body of water contiguous to Lake Michigan. Anywhere but in the Great Lakes country it would qualify as a lake in its own right. The surrounding countryside at the turn of the century, on both the Wisconsin mainland and the Door County Peninsula, was rugged with primitive roads. The most convenient access to shoreside communities was still by boat.
Other steamers served the larger, more accessible ports, but Captain
Vorous was of the opinion that the modest size of the Hackley would
enable him to build up a steady trade where docks and depths of water were
limiting factors. The Hackley, built in Muskegon, Michigan, in
1882, was 79 feet long, slightly over 17 feet in beam, and drew only a
little over 5 feet of water. Her steam plant, although modest, was considered
adequate and had served her well.
At 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 3, 1903, the Hackley left Sturgeon
Bay, bound across Green Bay to Menominee with about her normal complement
of passengers but with a larger-than-usual cargo of general freight, from
barrels of beer to bolts of cloth.
The wind had been blowing steadily from the south-southwest all night, and
a considerable sea was running. But Captain Vorous did not
consider waiting for better weather. The Hackley, encountering quartering
seas all the way, made her way safely over the sixteen-mile course to Menominee,
although it must have been a memorable voyage for some of the passengers.
At Menominee a few passengers departed and others came aboard. Some additional
freight was also loaded and stowed while Captain Vorous availed
himself of the latest weather report. Under ominous, leaden skies, a somewhat
diminished southwest wind and sea still prevailed. Oddly, the weather report
predicted a sudden shift of wind to northwest before long, with heavy squalls.
The Hackley left Menominee at about 5:45 p.m., shortly after Captain Vorous confided to purser Blakefield that he thought they could make it safely back across the bay to Egg Harbor before the squall struck.
Drawing by Dick Dugan
The Erie L. Hackley was called many things after she foundered.
Before that she was known to many as the "Egg Harbor Express."
Significantly, Ed Thorp, one of her owners, had intended returning home to
Fish Creek on the Hackley, but, after viewing the skies, seas, and
flying gale warnings, he had a sudden change of mind. Perhaps mental telepathy
was a factor in his decision, for only the night before, his brother, Roy,
had a terrible dream in which he envisioned the Hackley battling
a great storm on Green Bay before the little steamer gave a sudden lurch
and went down. So vivid was the dream that on Saturday Roy considered telephoning
Menominee to ask Ed not to make the trip. But, fearing that his dream would
be laughed at, he did not make the call.
Fifteen minutes out of Menominee, with the Hackley plugging along
on the Egg Harbor course and laboring under seas attacking her starboard
stern counter, purser Blakefield noticed that Captain Vorous had
the pilot house door open on the port side and was anxiously scanning the
skies to the northwest, from which direction the squall was predicted to
strike. Indeed, the skies in that quadrant gave every evidence of incipient
trouble: low, dark, and turbulent clouds that usually spawn tempests of
winds and seas.
The squall did materialize as predicted. But unaccountably, diabolically,
it came from the same, prevailing, southwest direction. Building up for hundreds
of miles, it hit with a stunning, paralyzing force, pushing monstrous seas
before it, rearing big graybeards that smashed into the Hackley with
such savagery that she instantly heeled sharply and dangerously to port,
hammered over on her beam ends.
Captain Vorous, desperately attempting to right his vessel,
turned her wheel hard to port to bring her head around and into the wind and
seas. But in the maneuver the Hackley got only part way around
and then fell off into the trough of the seas. Although the engine was laboring
at maximum power, the ship simply would not come around. She just stayed there
like a floating log as the seas climbed aboard.
Purser Blakefield ran to the pilot house to help the captain turn the steamer
to starboard, where she could run before the seas. It was his feeling that
if Captain Vorous succeeded in turning to port and getting
the Hackley facing the wind and seas, he would try to find shelter
in the lee of Green Island, a mile south of the steamer's course.
Once down in the troughs of the seas, the first comber to assail her from
starboard smashed in the solid gangway shutters on the lower or freight deck,
allowing several tons of water to enter the hull, heeling her down dramatically
to starboard. Succeeding seas then poured in the gangways and over her open
stern counter.
In two minutes the Hackley was gone, going down by the stern in
a great compression of air that blew off part of her lower deck and all of
the upper deck and cabins. So rudely had the passengers and crew been buffeted
about during the Hackley's short combat with the seas that not one
managed to grab a life preserver, although there were plenty aboard.
In the horrifying first moments after the steamer went down, crewmen and
passengers were tossed about in the floating wreckage, most of them grasping
at anything that would support their weight. But the wreckage itself, assaulted
by the big, breaking seas, disintegrated rapidly. The only section that remained
relatively intact was part of the upper deck, and most of the few who survived
found support there. While their combined weight kept the deck submerged
most of the time, the railings were still above water and provided a place
to hang on.
Eleven people, including Captain Vorous, perished almost
immediately. Eight others clung to wreckage throughout the cold and turbulent
night. Purser Blakefield fashioned a small raft from two timbers and managed
to survive. Under different circumstances he might have been amused at the
early morning sight of the Hackley's pilot house rolling like a
barrel in the seas, the steering wheel intact, and the captain's coat still
swinging from a hook.
The survivors were still there, all eight of them, late the next morning
when they were spotted from the steamer Sheboygan. Captain Asa Johnson
of the Sheboygan had wisely holed up at Washington Harbor during
the storm. Had he kept to his original schedule, his vessel would undoubtedly
have steamed past the numbed survivors in the dark of the night.
It was Thomas Nelson, a passenger of the Sheboygan, who first spotted
the wreckage and reported it to the second mate. The officer maintained that
what Nelson saw was merely floating logs. But Nelson insisted that it was
wreckage and that he could see a man on it. The captain was summoned and
with the aid of his glasses confirmed Nelson's sighting.
In marine-oriented communities, where ships and the men who sail or take
passage on them are friends and neighbors, indignation runs high when a vessel
and her people are lost. It is particularly strong and bitter when a skipper's
judgment and the seaworthiness of his command are questioned. In the case
of Captain Joseph Vorous, both owner and skipper, he was
doubly damned.
Always, too, there are whispered tales, reports, rumors, and idle yarns,
most of them seeming to point out strange coincidences and premonitions.
Roy Thorp's dream was one of them. So was his brother Ed's last-minute decision
not to sail on the boat. Another story making the rounds was that Grace
Vorous, the captain's sister, had planned to return to Fish Creek
on the Hackley but had been advised not to by the captain because
of the threatening weather. (Actually, Grace was in the
Menominee hospital at the time and was not planning to return home until
the following Thursday.)
One tale had it that the steamer's boiler was in poor order - had, indeed,
been condemned by government inspectors.
Gossip had it, too, that purser Blakefield had one thousand dollars in his
pockets when the vessel went down, but was asserting that all the ship's
money went down with her. Blakefield pointed out that the Hackley did
not earn that kind of money and that, instead of one thousand dollars in
the till, less than one hundred dollars was involved, and it was in his desk
drawer at the time of the steamer's loss, not in his pockets.
Ed Thorp, understandably wishing that brother Roy had never mentioned his
dream, insisted that his decision had nothing to do with the seaworthiness
of the Hackley."I was of a mind to make the trip," he maintained, "but
when I saw the weather conditions, being a poor sailor, I was of a mind not
to."
And engineer Orin Rowin scotched the defective boiler rumor by pointing out
that it had been inspected and found in good order and a certificate to that
effect was in the company office.
Nasty early rumors suggested that Captain Vorous was somewhat inclined to the juice of the grape. His father, Levi Vorous, enraged by the gossip, stated flatly that his son was a competent navigator who neither drank liquor nor used tobacco in any form. Others close to the family verified this statement.
In Sturgeon Bay, the Advocate, a unique newspaper founded by pioneer publisher Joseph Harris in 1862, was conscious of all the unfounded gossip and sought to keep things in perspective, printing the contradictions as new rumors circulated, including the indignant reaction of Levi Vorous. (The Advocate, founded by Joseph Harris, is now the Door County Advocate, published by the founder's great grandson, Chandler Harris.)
Unfortunately, the Hackley had not been around long enough to earn
the affection and tolerance Captain Vorous had hoped would
eventually be her reward. Consequently, both he and the Hackley came
in for heavy fire from critics, ashore and afloat.
Some were quick to point out that the freight deck had no scuppers, or not
enough, to drain off the uninvited seas that came romping aboard in boisterous
weather conditions, and that successive seas piling in through the broken
gangways or over the open stern would inevitably eventually drive her down.
But others were mindful of the fact that the Hackley, in substantially
the same passenger and freight business, had sailed for twenty years on the
Manitou Island service on lower Lake Michigan, a vastly more exposed course
as compared to her Green Bay route. Yet she had managed to survive nicely.
The marine men were somewhat in agreement, however, in faulting the judgment of the captain when he attempted to turn the Hackley to port into the wind and seas. With the propeller or "wheel" of the vessel turning to the right, as most did, the vessel thus capable of responding faster on a right or starboard turn, a turn to starboard would have given the advantage of slight additional speed and momentum, which might possibly have gotten the Hackley around. But this was a tenuous, theoretical conclusion.
In due time, but with sentiment still high, the official government inspectors
came to Sturgeon Bay to investigate the disaster and delineate the probable
causes. Inspector General George Uhler and Supervising Inspector Wescott
subpoenaed Wallace Hill, Roy Thorp, and purser Frank Blakefield, all of whom
had intimate knowledge of the Hackley and her condition. Also testifying
were William Rieboldt, Sam Johnson, and Charles Armstrong, caulkers at the
local shipyard at the time of the Hackley's last overhaul.
Captain William Morris, owner and master of the schooner Lydia, earlier
volunteered his opinion that the Hackley was quite safe and that
ten years earlier he had assisted in giving her a thorough rebuild.
"When we got done, she was as good as new" said Captain Morris.
He also commented that on the evening the Hackley surrendered to
the elements, the Lydia had been at dock in Sturgeon Bay with a
full cargo and deck load of lumber. At about the time of the disaster, he
reported, the storm generated brief periods of wind so fierce that the top
layers of lumber had been blown around the dock area like jackstraws.
The inspectors departed with their transcribed testimony, notes, and depositions and in due time rendered their verdict. It was their conclusion that the Hackley was in a seaworthy state when she left Menominee, since she had crossed Green Bay many times under weather conditions such as existed at the time of her departure, and always without incident. Nor, they ruled, could Captain Vorous have foretold that the squall would come from an entirely different direction than predicted. It was further concluded that the steamer had been caught in the vortex of hurricane-force winds that, because of the Hackley's relatively high superstructure, were a contributing factor in "pushing her down" while in the trough of the seas, thus preventing her completion of her attempted turn.
In short, the loss of the Hackley was attributed entirely to something man is powerless to control: "stress of weather"
Captain Vorous had been prophetic about the potential of the new steamer service when it began, the "Egg Harbor Express" did not set the world on fire.