Phoenix (ship, 1845)
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The Phoenix was a paddle steamer put into service in 1845 for the US shipping company Pease & Allen, which carried passengers , mail and freight on the Great Lakes . In the night from 21 to 22 November 1847, the overheated sat boiler , the wood paneling of the steamer on Lake Michigan in fire , which then burst into flames, and five kilometers from Sheboygan completely burned. About 250 people died, only 42 people survived. It is one of the worst shipping accidents on the Great Lakes to date .
The ship
The wooden paddle steamer Phoenix was launched in 1845 in the GW & BB Jones shipyard in Cleveland , Ohio . The ship was also registered in Cleveland . The Phoenix was 42.82 m long, 6.88 m wide and had a draft of 3.05 m.
The main ports of call were Buffalo and Chicago , but he stopped in a few other cities along the way. The ship was named after the mythical bird Phoenix named burns to rise anew from its ashes.
The last ride
beginning of the journey
On Thursday, November 11, 1847, the Phoenix Buffalo left under the command of Captain Benjamin G. Sweet for another voyage to Chicago. Sweet commanded a crew of 25. Coffee, sugar, molasses, as well as construction and machine parts for a factory near Sheboygan were stowed in the holds of the Phoenix . The approximately 70 passengers in the first class were mostly Americans from Chicago, Racine and Southport (now Kenosha ). They lived in separate cabins on the main deck. About 200 Dutch immigrants who had come from Rotterdam by ship to New York and wanted to settle in Wisconsin were traveling in the intermediate deck . They were housed in the dormitories on the tween deck.
It should be the last ride of the current season. As is not unusual on these trips, the weather was very rough and stormy due to the time of year and there were snow flurries, ice formation and freezing temperatures. In the Straits of Mackinac , conditions worsened as the Phoenix fell into a violent autumn storm. While the ship was crossing Lake Erie on November 13th , Captain Sweet fell and sustained a knee injury that left him confined to bed for the rest of the voyage. Everyone on board was relieved when the Phoenix reached the sheltered waters of the Manitowoc River early in the morning of November 21 , and docked in Manitowoc, Wisconsin Harbor . Many passengers took the opportunity to go ashore after ten days in their cramped quarters and to eat something or go for a walk in the city.
After the cargo destined for Manitowoc was unloaded and new cargo loaded , the bunkers were filled with new firewood and fuel for the boilers. After this was done, Captain Sweet decided to wait a few more hours for the weather to calm down a bit. Only in the evening did the Phoenix continue her journey.
Fire and fall
Two hours after casting off in Manitowoc, a stoker reported to second machinist Bill Owen that the pumps were no longer supplying the boilers with sufficient cooling water and asked the chief engineer to be involved . Owen ignored the stoker, not wanting to bother the chief engineer. Warnings from a knowledgeable First Class passenger who was an engineer were also turned down.
Just before 4:00 a.m. on November 22, passengers noticed smoke coming from the boiler rooms. The completely overheated steam boiler had scorched the wood paneling and set it on fire. Panic immediately broke out among the passengers , something that was not hidden from the crew members on duty. When the first flames were seen, tried a heater and a machinist, the fire to clear, but it spread too quickly. The thickening smoke and the spreading flames drove them out of the engine room .
When the fire destroyed the boilers, the Phoenix lost her propulsion and drifted in the swell about three miles from Wisconsin's banks, unable to maneuver . Chaos broke out, panic increased and "Fire!" Was shouted over and over again. This also woke the passengers who had been sleeping up to that point. Most of them rushed around in their underwear or sleepwear. Within a few minutes the decks were crowded with fearful passengers. The crew tried to keep the situation under control and, with the help of the passengers, organized a human chain through which water buckets were passed back and forth.
Realizing that the fire was out of control, Captain Sweet ordered the lifeboats to be launched. Despite similar events in the recent past, such as the fire on the paddle steamer Lexington on January 13, 1840 on the East River (139 dead) or the fire of the steamer Erie off Buffalo on August 9, 1841 (up to 250 dead), the Phoenix doesn't have enough lifeboats for everyone on board. Only two small boats with a capacity of 20 people each were available to the 300 people on the ship.
Both were occupied and launched. The first was personally commanded by Sweet and had a total of 20 people on board. The second boat, in which 19 people were seated, was commanded by First Officer H. Watts. The two men planned to row the boats to the beach, unload the occupants, and return to the ship to pick up more passengers. The water was still churned by the storm and the rowers were exhausted when they reached the bank. An immediate return was impossible. Meanwhile, the Phoenix was completely on fire. Dozens of people jumped into the freezing Lake Michigan on both sides of the steamer. Very few could swim. Others climbed onto the roof of the storm deck or up the masts, where the flames quickly caught up with them. Many didn't even make it on deck. Baskets, mattresses and doors were thrown overboard so that people in the water could hold onto them. A carpet of floating corpses and charred wreckage spread out. The survivors also reported afterwards of the sweet smell of burnt meat that hung over the lake.
The glow of the flames alerted some nearby ships. When the first ship, the steamer Delaware , reached the scene, only two crew members and one passenger remained alive who had clung to anchor chains and a fender for two hours and were nearly frozen to death. Captain Tuttle aboard the Delaware had the burned-out hull of the Phoenix towed to take it to Sheboygan. The Phoenix was deep in the water and ran aground near the northern pier . The rope broke and drove into the crowd on the pier, where it severely disfigured a 7-year-old boy's face.
Aftermath
The wreck sank next to the pier in two to three meters deep water. It was too damaged to be repaired and was abandoned by its owners. Only the steam boiler and other machinery and parts of the wooden bow section were salvaged so that they could be reused.
For weeks after the fire, the bodies of men, women and children were washed ashore. The loss of relatives has been reported in numerous Dutch municipalities. Only 42 of the approximately 300 people on board the Phoenix survived the devastating fire. The exact number of fatalities is not known as the logbook and passenger list were lost with the ship. Along with the fire of the paddle steamers Erie in 1841 and Seabird in 1858, the sinking of the Lady Elgin in 1860 and the capsizing of the Eastland in 1915 , the accident is one of the worst shipping disasters on the Great Lakes.
Despite the lack of lifeboats on the Phoenix , US passenger ships were only equipped with sufficient life-saving equipment for all travelers after the sinking of the Titanic 65 years later. The American painter William J. Koelpin (1845–1912) captured the misfortune in a painting.
literature
- Mark L. Thompson. Graveyard Of The Lakes . Wayne State University Press ( Detroit ), 2000
- William Ratigan. Great Lakes Shipwrecks and Survivals . William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company ( Michigan ), 1960
Web links
- Phoenix construction dates table in the Wisconsin Historical Society Shipwreck Database
- Detailed recap of the history and sinking of the Phoenix
- Shorter summary of the Phoenix disaster
- The chapter on the Phoenix fire in Mark Thompson's book Graveyard of the Lakes
- The Phoenix tragedy on a website about Dutch genealogy
- Link to a plaque commemorating the victims of the Phoenix in Sheboygan