November 2000: Shipwrecks, Ghostships and Haunted Lighthouses of the Great Lakes

This November 10 marks the 25^th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, forever commemorated in song by Gordon Lightfoot’s "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." All twenty-nine hands on board were lost in a bitter gale characteristic of Lake Superior’s fall storms, their bodies never recovered. As Mr. Lightfoot so aptly wrote, "the lake it is said never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy". Interestingly, as the Canadian Cormorant was recovering Fitzgerald’s bell (now displayed at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, Whitefish Point, MI) in the summer of 1995, its OWN bell fell from its mounting on the ward room wall !

The Fitzgerald went down on Lake Superior in the area known as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a region once rich in copper, gold, and iron mines. These mines kept the shipping lanes busy on the Great Lakes during the late 1800’s, going back and forth between Chicago, Detroit, Ontario and New York. The first ore boats were very small, loaded and unloaded by hand with wheelbarrows. Finally, the first steamer specifically designed to carry ore – the R. J. Hackett -- was built in 1869 for the Jackson Mine ore.The gold mines have been shut down some 10 years now, and the iron mines ran out in the 1950s and ‘60s, according to Daniel Fountain of Negaunee, MI. (Mr. Fountain is a professional wreck diver and has collaborated with Frederick Stonehouse on the book Dangerous Coast: Pictured Rocks Shipwrecks.) Two area iron mines are still in operation, and the low-grade iron ore taconite pellets produced are shipped off to steel mills. The Fitz was loaded up with a 26,000-ton cargo of taconite the evening she went down – not even close to her record of 27,402 gross tons – the largest ship on the Lakes until 1971.

Recently, Madame G had the privilege of meeting with Frederick Stonehouse, noted maritime historian and diver of the Great Lakes region, and curator of the Marquette Maritime Museum in Michigan. Mr. Stonehouse has researched shipwrecks of the area for the last 30 years, serving as technical consultant for National Geographic Explorer and the History Channel, as well as for many local media productions. His articles have appeared in Skin Diver, Lake Superior Magazine, and in Great Lakes Cruiser Magazine. He has authored numerous books covering the maritime history of the Great Lakes region, and he is a member of the Great Lakes and Marquette County Historical Societies. At first glance, Mr. Stonehouse appears to be your typical college professor (he also teaches at Northern Michigan University), understandably reticent on the subject of the supernatural. However, ask him about the many theories advanced as to why the Fitzgerald went down, and he is in his own element. It is Mr. Stonehouse’s opinion that the speculation surrounding the sinking is just that - speculation. He has always believed Lake Superior, aka, "Old Treacherous," to be the roughest of the Great Lakes. Fall storms on the Great Lakes are the worst, in Stonehouse’s opinion, with 40 % occurring in November alone. These storms last much longer, and are more powerful storms than the white squalls of summer, often lasting for days at a time. Lake Superior runs to 1330 feet at its deepest, its cold waters capable of reaching an ambient temperature well below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature which prevents decomposition and formation of gases in a human corpse, so that a body may never float up to the surface. In fact, they were never able to recover the bodies of the 29 men from the Fitzgerald, who are still "…down there somewhere," as Stonehouse puts it.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was a bulk freighter, carrying a full load of taconite iron ore pellets the day she sank. At 729 feet, 25,891 tons she was also the longest and largest vessel to ever be lost upon the Lakes. She sank in 530 feet of water, 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. The official explanation advanced by the U.S. Coast Guard investigation into the Fitzgerald’s sinking was improper hatch cover closure, causing the cargo hold to flood. Seeing as these 21 steel hatch covers weighed over 7,000 pounds each, with 68 clamps per each hatch, and were lowered into place by electrical hatch cranes, it is difficult for some to accept this explanation of leaking hatches. Others have advanced various theories over the years: shoaling (grounding) on Caribou or Superior Shoals, followed by the frames ripping free of the hull, which would have caused the listing to port reported by Captain McSorley; the resulting tensile strength failure of the port hull plates may have allowed the center hull to give way, causing the rear of the ship to act as an anchor, suddenly stopping her dead in the water with the 8,000-ton cargo shifting forward to destroy the deck, and breaking her in two. Other theories include failure of the welds holding the keel to the hull plate, or a combination of structural damage to the inner shell with the added stress of the incoming water weight. The list of possible explanations is seemingly endless. As Frederick Stonehouse says, "the wonderful thing about the Fitzgerald is that anybody can have a theory, but none of them can be proven right or wrong…"

All told, there have been an estimated 150 - 300 shipwrecks in an eighty-mile stretch alone along Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, extending from Whitefish Point to Pictured Rocks. As a result, these treacherous waters have been dubbed the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes." Lake Superior may have the reputation for the worst storms, but Lake Michigan and Lake Huron combined hold the record for the most shipwrecks. And Lake Erie, although the shallowest, is known for its sudden squalls. Finally, although Lake Ontario is almost as deep as Superior, it is the least dangerous of the Great Lakes. Over 6,000 ships have gone down on the Lakes; the storm of November 1913 is the worst on record, taking 12 ships, nearly 300 lives, and damaging at least 25 other vessels. With their long history of maritime disasters, it is no wonder the Great Lakes have spawned fantastic tales of ghostships and hauntings among their lighthouses and shores…

The Edmund Fitzgerald herself has appeared as a phantom, as recently as within the last five years according to some reports. But why do these ghostships return ? Are they harbingers of doom, or merely portents of approaching storms ? Frederick Stonehouse believes that "if there’s a commonality between them…they’re seen at the beginning of a storm" or incoming fog. These ghostships take on the solid appearance of reality, with personnel often sighted onboard, even with the use of binoculars. According to Stonehouse, whenever a ship sinks under mysterious circumstances, it will be reported seen for approximately one generation afterwards, and then the sightings stop as a "pretty consistent" rule.

There is an "A-B-C" of ghostships on the Great Lakes: the Alpena, Bannockburn, and the Chicora being among the most frequently sighted. However, dozens of other ships have also sailed off into ghostly oblivion on these truly Great Lakes. Sometimes a sailor will experience a chilling premonition before boarding, as did Engineer Milton Smith of the Charles S. Price. The ship was lost along with thirteen other vessels sometime between November 8-11, 1913 in the worst recorded storm in history on Lake Huron. Mr. Smith left the crew because of his premonition several days before the ship sank, and was later called upon to identify the bodies washed ashore.

Built in Marine City, Michigan in 1867, the Alpena was a 197-foot, 653-ton side-wheeled steamer with a powerfully large, single-cylinder vertical beam engine and 24-foot diameter paddlewheels. Typical of the side-wheelers in the Goodrich line popular on Lake Michigan, the Alpena carried generous freight tonnages and generated a high passenger revenue with its comfortably-appointed passenger quarters and deluxe accomodations on the cabin deck. Alpena’s regular route as a night boat service took her across the lake between Muskegon and Grand Haven to Chicago. Captain Nelson Napier preferred propeller-driven ships, believing side-wheelers put too much of a strain on their machinery and shafts on open lakes, and were best suited for rivers. The rocking wave motion often left one of the side wheels completely out of the water while the ship rocked at an angle in the waves. Completely rebuilt in the winter of 1876-77 at a cost of $20,000, the ship was considered quite lake-worthy at the time of her disappearance.Lost in a storm in the early morning hours of October 16, 1880 that wrecked or damaged at least 90 other vessels, and thought to lie near Holland, MI, her wreck has never been found. It was estimated that between 70 and 80 people lost their lives on the Alpena that night, with bodies and wreckage scattered for 70 miles along the beach. She had been sighted several times before midnight, before falling victim to the collision of two massive weather fronts caused by a dramatic drop in temperature from 65 to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, with high winds. By some reports, the last ship to see her was the schooner S. A. Irish , running parallel to the Alpena’s course about 10 miles from Kenosha before turning off for Milwaukee. Both had been sighted by the steamer Mary Groh, who was also caught in the snowstorm. The Muskegon reported passing the Alpena about 1 AM, and another steamship captain claimed to have heard her whistle distress signals into the storm. Notes found after the loss of the Alpena paint a terrifying picture of her final moments. One such note was found inserted behind a piece of the cabin moulding which washed up later: "This is terrible. The steamer is breaking up fast. I am aboard from Grand Haven to Chicago." The signature was illegible. The keeper at Point Betsie Life Saving Station found a bottle with a message in July 1881 that read: "October 16, 3 o’clock, on board the Alpena…she has broke her port wheel; is at mercy of seas; is half full of water; God help us, Capt. Napier washed overboard. – George A. N. Moore, 856 South Halstead Street, Chicago, Ill." The back of the message read, "The finder of this note will please communicate with ny wife and let her know of my death." Known for years as the "Ghostship" of Lake Michigan, the Alpena is still seen on foggy days, her engine noise heard faintly above the roar of the waves.

Perhaps the best-known "Flying Dutchman" ghostship of Lake Superior is the Bannockburn, a 245-foot, 1620-ton Canadian steamer, built in 1893 in Middlesborough, U.K. Rated as A-1 by Lloyd’s of London Insurance, she was launched from Scotland, a steel bulk freight steamer with a distinctive tall stack and triple masts. She departed Port Arthur, Ontario on November 20, 1902, bound for Midland, Ontario with a cargo of some 85,000 bushels of wheat in her hold. She was last sighted in gusty, hazy weather by Capt. James McMaugh of the steamer Algonquin on November 21, southeast of Passage Island and northeast of Keweenaw Point, MI. By the time she was "seriously overdue" at the Sault Ste. Marie locks, the elevator superintendent had still heard nothing of her whereabouts. Various reports began to surface of the Bannockburn running ashore along the Ontario coast, Michipicoten Island, or on Caribou Island (where the light had been out for the season since November 15, by Ottawa decree). A small amount of wreckage was later found off Stannard Rock, but her loss is still considered to be a mystery. The only clues were a lone oar and a life preserver found on the southern shore of Lake Superior months later. Storm stress, explosion of the boiler, grounding on Superior Shoal, or the dropping of her hull plates have all been suggested as possible causes of her sinking. Captain Gaskin of the Montreal Transportation Company was consulted on the matter. Since there were no other ships reported missing on the night the Bannockburn sank, he was of the opinion that there were only three possible explanations for her loss: she hit a rock or shoal, she had burst her boilers, or her machinery had gone through her bottom. This last theory may be the truth, since a steel plate from a ship’s bottom was found when the Canadian Soo lock was drained that winter. A year after her disappearance, the ghostship was sighted steaming past Caribou Island. There have been many reports of a ghostship fitting the Bannockburn’s description over the years, her icy apparition with its triple masts and single stack gliding out of the mist on stormy nights, her lamps still blinking.

Last on our list is the Chicora, a wooden propeller-driven ship launched on June 25, 1882. Built for the Graham and Morton Transportation Company, she measured 217 x 35’, and weighed in at 1122 gross tons; she went into service in the fall of 1882, along the Chicago-St. Joseph night run. Her captain was Edward Gregory Stines, a 33-year veteran seaman on the Great Lakes. Outfitted with luxurious cabins panelled in cherry and mahogany, the passenger deck sold out weeks in advance for the summer season, loaded with peaches. By the fall harvest season of 1894 , Milwaukee millers were faced with a late crop of grain and the Chicora was picked to take on the flour barrel cargo. She’d been laid up for the winter, but the flour surplus of 40 carloads needed to reach St. Joseph’s railroad yards. The Chicora left for St. Joseph on January 21, 1895 in a large storm of snow squalls and 20-foot waves. She was next sighted on February 3, floating in ice off Chicago, seven miles out on Lake Michigan. The ship signalled that 9 people were still alive, seen clearly through field glasses. Tugs were promptly dispatched to the rescue, but to no avail. One, the Protection, thought they sighted her off Hyde Park, but it turned out to be only an iceberg covered with ducks and gulls.

Wreckage was discovered on the beach near Grand Haven, 35 miles north of St. Joseph; sections of the hull and bulwark were stuck in the ice about a mile offshore. Later searches turned up bits of furniture, deck railing, flour barrels, and the like. The ship’s dog was even found wandering on the beach near St. Joseph a few days later. The beaches were searched by over 200 steamers cruising offshore, but not one body was ever found. A story surfaced years later that a cloth cap with the letters "G & M" (Graham & Morton ?) was found with a skeleton hand still clutching onto it. Ultimately, the loss of the Chicora was attributed to the sudden squalls and ice floes that night. There is a famous 1926 ghostship sighting of the Chicora; a ship was sailing across northern Lake Michigan in a snowstorm gale when her crew spotted a wooden steamer straight ahead, blowing distress signals. As the captain turned back to help, she was gone ! When the dutiful captain reported the details to the Coast Guard at the Straits of Mackinac, he got some strange looks from the station men. No one had ever seen a boat fitting the captain’s description, but when one old chief pointed to a dusty picture of the Chicora, our trusty captain positively identified her as the ship he’d seen in the storm. Even though he risked losing his sailing ticket, he decided to go ahead and file an official report.

Over 116 lighthouses once protected the shores of Michigan, and a goodly number of them have ghostly tales associated with them. In 1789, George Washington created the U.S. Lighthouse Service in order to establish, construct, staff and maintain these beacons of maritime safety. Copper and iron mines are abundant in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and freighters carrying ore or hauling lumber and merchandise to and from major cities along the Great Lakes have contributed to heavy shipping traffic on the lakes since the mid-1800’s. The United States Coast Guard maintains those lights classified on active status, but the preservation and renovation of the lighthouses themselves has fallen to local historical societies around the country, composed of concerned citizens dedicated to preserving a bit of America’s maritime history for later generations.

In the Upper Peninsula, there are at least three well-known haunted lighthouses, each of which has been home to a number of hauntings witnessed by credible observers over the years. Recently, Madame G had the pleasure of experiencing one of the lighthouse’s phenomena firsthand, at the Seul Choix Point Lighthouse near Gulliver and Manistique, Michigan. Our host, Marilyn Fischer, created the Gulliver Historical Society in 1988 for the express purpose of restoring the Seul Choix Point Lighthouse. The light, built in 1895, has been in continual operation as an active light for the last 105 years and is maintained by the U. S. Coast Guard. The original third order Fresnel lens, built by Henry Le Paute of Paris, was removed in 1972.

                 

This lighthouse is noted for its distinctive solid copper roof mouldings and bowed gables. A scale model,meticulously constructed by retired schoolteacher Carl Holbrock, is displayed inside the lighthouse museum. Mr. Holbrock, Marilyn says, climbed out onto the roof one winter day into a blizzard to confirm that a piece of metal he’d seen on the roof was actually copper, before completing his model. Marilyn herself had to haul him back up through the window, not an easy task on a slippery windowsill with their nylon parkas ! Mr. Holbrock suffered a scraped and bloodied torso in the process for his heroic efforts.

Marilyn knows of over 150 separate paranormal phenomena at her lighthouse, five major ones of which she has personally experienced. She writes a history column, "Memories", for the local paper The Manistique Pioneer Tribune, and has written about the lighthouse’s ghosts for the Great Lakes Cruiser Magazine, the Lighthouse Digest, and Grand Marais’ free paper. This particular lighthouse is purported to be home to a lightkeeper’s ghost, Captain Willy Townshend, said to be very fond of cigars ! Mrs. Fischer, her fellow volunteers, camera crews, historians, psychics and a host of visitors have been witness to over 150 phenomena in the lighthouse. Curiously, Marilyn has never noticed any activity in the light tower itself. The hauntings seem confined to the house where the keeper and his family lived and where Mr. Townshend is said to have died of stomach cancer, in terrible pain in an upstairs bedroom, in 1910. Strangely, as we drove onto the four mile access road leading down to the lighthouse, I suddenly got a severe stomachache which stopped as soon as we arrived at the lighthouse !

Captain Townshend was born in Bristol, England. When he contracted tuberculosis, he was advised to go to sea for his health. He sailed around the world’s ports - Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia before visiting Canada and entering a seminary at Mackinaw Island. After less than a year, he left inexplicably, becoming a baggage clerk at the Mackinaw docks before settling in as a lightkeeper.

Strangers and volunteers alike have noticed the nauseating odor of cigar smoke wafting through the halls. In fact, a local Eagle Scout troop has even planted cigars around the house, which the ghost obligingly moves around (but he prefers the expensive kind). He especially likes to move cigars from the dining room into the kitchen, and from the third staircase post down to the second one. The scouts haven’t actually seen the cigars fly through the air (only heard them land), and think perhaps they rematerialize in the new location. Cigars placed at the head of the dining table closest to the kitchen will also reappear in the outside coat pocket of a nearby lightkeeper’s uniform on display. A heavy parchment paper bible, which belonged to the Townshends, is displayed in the dining room. On several occasions, its pages have been seen to slam shut when opened to certain engravings. The bible even moves itself across the room from one side to the other. The silverware in the dining room and the kitchen also reaaranges itself at night, to be found in different positions when the tour guides open up in the morning. The kitchen table, which also belonged to the family, was found in pieces in all four corners of the basement (where Mr. Townshend’s body had been embalmed). Had the table been dismantled for a reason by later occupants of the lighthouse ? This table is also said to rotate, so that place settings are out of position with the chairs. The silverware is frequently found to be at right angles to the plates, or forks are found upside down on the left side of the plate, in the English style of dining. The kitchen is also the location of a frightening kinetic phenomenon witnessed by a workman one day. A pair of wooden snowshoes flew across the room past his head, slamming into the window above the sink ! This same pair of snowshoes was seen to move by Madame G – after reentering the parlor, I noticed that one snowshoe had shifted approximately two inches to the right on top of the other. They were perfectly flat against the wall, and had not slipped down at an angle; I had been with Marilyn the entire time we were out of the room, and no one else was in the house with us at the time (about 9 PM). A mirror in the upstairs bedroom where Capt. Townshend died is also a focus of activity. It is part of a wooden vanity table which belonged to a female descendant of the Captain, a nurse who served overseas in WWI. This mirror has been seen to boil over and the faces of the keeper and a lady appear in it. This was actually recorded on film by a local camera crew filming a historical documentary at the lighthouse. Part of the footage is included in the True Lighthouse Hauntings video produced in cooperation with the Gulliver Historical Society in 1999. The mirror always looks cloudy or dirty, no matter how well it is cleaned. I even tried to clean it myself, using Windex and white paper towels to no avail – there was absolutely no dust or dirt on the surface. It simply clouded up again within seconds. Marilyn says the silver backing has been inspecteded and found to be intact. And just to add to the Halloween atmosphere (and poor Marilyn’s horror), I even found a dead bat on the floor next to the vanity !

For some unknown reason, the Captain’s ghost doesn’t seem to like the song "Blue Spanish Eyes." A number of times, this piece has inexplicably put itself at the bottom of the pile of sheet music placed on a melodian, or on the upright piano in the parlor. Last year a Spanish member of a film crew, much to his shock, witnessed this firsthand after he’d placed the music on top of the pile. No one else besides himself had entered the room !

One other ghost is said to haunt the lighthouse, that of an elderly female relative visiting a lightkeeper’s family during the 1920’s. The lady passed away during a snowstorm and her body lay in state for several days before it could be removed by sled, since the lake was iced over at the time. A visiting psychic recently "saw" the woman upon entering this later addition to the main house. He described an attractive older lady, elegantly attired and coiffed as she was laid out upon the ¾ ("not a double or a full-sized") bed in the far corner of the room. A blast of icy cold air hits you when you enter the room, standing directly under an attic. As I reached the center of the room, where a table of sailing paraphenalia sits, waves of cold air touched my face. The room, originally a bedroom, is now decorated with various photos of lake ships and maritime artifacts.

I heard the unmistakable "tick-tock" of a grandfather’s clock at the foot of the stairs, and so did my daughter. There is no such clock anywhere on the property, but Marilyn says there used to be one kept in the light tower. I also heard the melodic chiming of a mantle or anniversary clock several times in the parlor, although there are no working clocks in the house. In this same area, at the base of the stairs, a local carpenter named Tom Hoholik was working alone one sunny spring morning fixing the floorboards when he distinctly heard heavy footsteps descending the staircase. He ran out of the house, abandoning his tools and didn’t return until a year later, when coaxed back briefly for the filming of a video on haunted lighthouses of the area. An alarm system was installed at the lighthouse last November. The installer saw a man fitting Capt. Townshend’s description standing at the upstairs bedroom window, when the curtains mysteriously closed and then reopened with the figure standing there. The installer beat a hasty retreat ! In July, the alarm started going off between 11:00 and 11:30 PM every night; each time the police made the eight mile trip out from town, they’d find no one and nothing to have set it off. As a final note, while transcribing my audio tape of the lighthouse tour, I noticed a loud background humming or whooshing noise in the lady’s downstairs bedroom and in the dining room as soon as I entered these areas with the tape recorder. The peculiar noise stopped as I walked out of these rooms into another part of the house.

Another area lighthouse noted for its paranormal activity is the Big Bay Lighthouse 25 miles northwest of Marquette, now operated as a bed & breakfast by Jeff and Linda Gamble since 1986. Abandoned in 1961, the light tower overlooks a 60-foot cliff on Lake Superior. The original lightkeeper, William Prior, was a harsh taskmaster known to alienate his assistant keepers in short order. When his son George refused to seek prompt medical attention for an axe wound to his foot, choosing to finish helping out at the lighthouse instead, gangrene set in and the young man died several days later. It is said that William blamed himself for the boy’s death, and hung himself in despair some distance away off in the woods. His body was reportedly found on the ground mangled by animals, the skull still hanging in the noose. Mrs. Gamble says the ghost makes his presence known in the house by slamming the kitchen cabinet doors open and shut. Area psychics report as many as six ghosts haunting the house, one of whom is said to be angry that no one knew she was there ! According to an anonymous source, this young girl was playing with friends in the abandoned house during the 1950’s, sliding down a basement bannister when she fell off and hit her head on the concrete floor. She died, and her friends carried her body upstairs. However, police records of the time make no mention of a murder or of a body being discovered at the lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper’s ghost has also appeared to female guests on occasion, fading away as soon as he is seen.

Old Presque Isle Lighthouse, located on Lake Huron, was built in 1840, and has been listed by the U. S. Coast Guard as inactive since 1870. In 1871 it was abandoned, and a new one was built to the north. In 1971, George and Lorraine Parris took over as caretakers for the lighthouse. Mr. Parris passed away in the winter of 1992, and four months later in May, a dim light began to appear in the old lighthouse. The light has no electric power supply, the wires have been cut, and Mrs. Parris has even had it checked by electricians who can offer no explanation for the mysterious light source. The light lens itself has been turned or repositioned and even covered up a number of times, according to Mrs. Parris, but the light still shines and is now classified as an "unidentified" light by the U. S. Coast Guard. The captain of the Temptation claims the light saved his ship one night in the fog, and went so far as to officially log his report. Lorraine says the light appears every night at dusk, and she has captured it on film, included as footage in the True Lighthouse Hauntings video mentioned previously.

These are but a few of the haunted lighthouses on the Lakes. And probably every one has at least one ghost story associated with it. The era of the hand-lit lighthouses may be long gone, but their ghosts still dutifully carry out their nightly task, it would seem.

By no means do I consider the tales I have included here to be a complete compilation of hauntings along the Great Lakes. It is my hope that in some small way, I have honored the memory of the many brave souls who have ventured out onto these vast waters, never to return home again. Many thanks also to Frederick Stonehouse, Dan Fountain, and Marilyn Fischer for the generous assistance and gracious hospitality they extended to this ghost-crazy Hoosier ! As always, I hope my readers have enjoyed my column, and I invite your comments.

Madame G