Door
County has a shoreline of 200 miles, not counting
the innumerable bays
and inlets which indent its shores. This shoreline is
faced with reefs and headlands and along its front
are scores of hidden shoals and many dangerous passages.
For many years quite as much of Door County's history
was enacted on the water as on land. The many hundred
fishermen daily watched the vagaries of the sea and
the sea captains, traveling in these waters with their
cargoes of forest products, learned to respect the
sudden gales on Green Bay, the treacherous squalls
in the Door and the big storms of Lake Michigan.
The
passage through the Door was particularly dreaded.
To lose a deckload in making the passage was so
ordinary an event as not to be worthy of
mention. I have before me the diary of the
lighthouse keeper of Pilot Island, kept
from 1872 to 1889. It appears from the entries
in this journal that their daily diet consisted
of winds and roaring seas with a shipwreck
at least twice a week as a piece de resistance.
It seemed the regular thing in those days
of many sails to ground on a shoal, throw
off the deckload and then work loose. Frequently
the keeper or one of his assistants
leaves the station to get the mail from Washington
Harbor and is unable to return for three weeks.
Owing
to the extremely exposed position of this
little rock in the sea it is practically
inaccessible in any storm. In the fall of
1872 he reports eight large vessels stranded
or shipwrecked in the Door in one week.
The preceding year, 1871, almost one hundred
vessels were lost or seriously damaged in
passing through the Door.
The greatest storm of present memory occurred October 16, 1880. It started to blow from the southeast on the evening of October 13th and continued for three days. The waves ran so high that at the Cana Island Lighthouse, then kept by William A. Sanderson, the sea frequently broke over the house. The lantern at a height of eighty eiqht feet was at times completely covered with spray from the huge waves.
This
storm did immense damage to shipping. At the Door
twelve vessels were driven on the rocky beaches of
Plum Island and Detroit Island and were seriously
damaged, many of them being a total loss. At Baileys
Harbor seven large vessels were stranded, two being
a total loss. In North Bay a large fleet had sought
refuge from the storm. The vessels were mostly of
the larger class and were either bound for Buffalo
with grain or were on their way from that
port to Chicago with coal and other supplies.
About
fifty of these vessels crowded into the little harbor
during the storm. Some of them made the harbor safely
and anchored. As the storm continued to increase
in violence many of these dragged their
anchors and were driven ashore. Here the
waves washed over them and it was necessary
to jettison the cargoes to keep the decks
from bursting. As more and more vessels
came in there were a number of collisions
and several large vessels were total wrecks
and were abandoned.
The
crew from one of these vessels was rescued
in such a daring manner by one of the fishermen
on shore that mention must here be made
of it.
At
5 o'clock in the afternoon a large schooner named Two
Friends attempted to enter the bay. A part of her canvas
having blown away she could not be kept on her course
but
drifted
on the outer point where she struck the
limestone ledge in twelve feet of water, there
being twenty four feet of water on her seaward
side. The first sea that swept over her after
she grounded tore her yawlboat from its davits
and carried it away.
The
crew attached lines to fenders and tried to
send them to the shore but the current was so
strong past the point that the plan failed.
The tremendous sea soon broke up the deck and
sent the main and mizzen masts overboard, whereupon
the crew of seven men took refuge in the forward
rigging which still held firm. Their cries for
help were plainly heard on shore but the sea
was running so high that none of the men assembled
on the shore dared to launch a boat in the face
of such immense breakers.
There
was one man, however, upon whom the appeals for assistance
made so strong an impression that he determined to risk
his life in an attempt to rescue the doomed crew. This
was James Larson. He obtained a light skiff from William
Marshall and a line long enough to reach to the vessel
which was about six hundred feet from the shore. By
the time his preparations were made it was nearly 11
o'clock, but the moon was giving sufficient light to
direct his course.
The
weather had grown very cold and it was evident
that if the rescue was delayed until morning
it would be too late. With the assistance of
two men the boat was launched through the breakers
whereupon Mr. Larson with intense (…text missing…)
(…text
missing…) be hatched on the island, as the
vibration kills them in the egg, and it causes milk
to curdle in a few minutes. Visitors at the lighthouse
on foggy nights sit up in bed when the siren begins
its lay and look around for their resurrection robes.
"The
Pilot Island Lighthouse is famous for having witnessed
more shipwrecks than any other lighthouse on the
Great Lakes. If their number could be told it
would be a legion. On this little crag and its
nearby rocks and shoals scores of proud vessels
hare been irresistibly driven to be quickly
pounded to pieces by the thundering seas. Many
times the crew of the lighthouse have been called
upon at the risk of their lives to save the
imperiled crews.
A
notable example of this was the heroic rescue
of the crew of the A. P. Nichols on November
9, 1892, by the
keeper of the light, Martin Knudson. The Nichols was
bound from Chicago to Escanaba without cargo and was
caught in a big storm. Her big anchor was no match
for the gale and the schooner drifted on the rocks
of Pilot Island. When
she struck the waves washed clean over her. Martin
Knudson, the keeper of the light was familiar with
every rock around his storm-beaten island, and knowing
the location of a shoal leading to the stranded vessel
he waded out, although it was exceedingly risky to
wade out over the slippery stones in the face of the
big waves that came crashing in.
Moreover
it was 8 o'clock at night and intensely
dark. However he succeeded in almost reaching
the vessel. Standing in water up to his
shoulders, he finally made himself heard
above the terrific roar of the sea and ordered
the captain and his men to jump, one by
one, and he would catch them. It seemed
like suicide to jump into that foaming caldron,
but in order to see if rescue was possible
Captain Clow jumped first. He went in far over his
head but Knudson caught him before he was sucked
away by the undertow.
Captain
Clow remained on the shoal while Knudson
rescued the next one in the same way. In
this manner the entire crew of six mere
rescued, including a female cook and the
captain's aged father, old Captain David
Clow, who had suffered shipwreck about on
the same spot twenty years before. When
the last one had left the vessel the lighthouse
man piloted them all ashore along the narrow
and crowded ridge of the shoal.Speaking
of this rescue Captain Clow said later:
"It
is a wonder to me how Martin Knudson found his way
along that ledge of rocks in the darkness of the
night. He is about the bravest man I have ever seen.
How he managed to keep his bearings after rescuing
the crew, has been a wonder to me ever since. A single misstep and
we would all have fallen off the rocks into deep water
and undoubtedly been drowned."
The
schooner J. C. Gilmore had stranded on the
island a week before and her crew was still
at the lighthouse. The addition of the crew
of the Nichols made sixteen persons to feed,
and for a while it looked to the men as
if they had escaped drowning only to die
by starvation. For a week the storms prevented
any one from leaving the island. However,
after a little a lull in the storm enabled
the lighthouse crew to obtain some provisions
from the Nichols which soon afterward went to pieces.
The
Baileys Harbor Lighthouse was erected in 1852 through
the activity of Alanson Sweet, a Milwaukee vessel owner
who had platted a village at Baileys Harbor and caused
it
to be selected as the county seat. A light
was therefore needed to guide the commerce which
he hoped would soon flow in and out of the new
metropolis. It originally was placed on the
east side of the harbor near the point. This
was abandoned in 1870 when two range lights
were built at the head of the harbor.
The
old white tower of the former light, built in
1859, is still standing. The
Eagle Bluff Lighthouse, three miles north of Fish Creek,
was built in 1868. The first keeper was Henry Stanley,
who served until 1883. He was succeeded by William Duclon
who is still at the post, having served about thirty-five
years. This lighthouse was erected to mark the east
passage of Green Bay. The Chambers
Island Lighthouse was built in 1868. The
record is incomplete. Lewis Williams, Peder
Knudson and Charles E. Young were the respective
keepers up to 1893.
Soren
Christianson was keeper from 1895 to 1900, Joseph
Napeizinski from 1900 to 1906 and Jens J. Rollefson
since that time. This lighthouse was erected
to mark the west passage of Green Bay.The
Cana Island Lighthouse, four miles north
of Bailey Harbor, was built in 1869 on a
stony island of nine acres. A driveway to
the mainland has now been built. The tower
is eighty-eight feet high and the light
can be seen eighteen miles. It is in a very
exposed position. The keepers of this station
have been the following:
William Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1870-1871
Julius Warren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1872-1875
William
T. Sanderson . . . . . . . . . . . . 1875-1891
Jesse T. Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1891-1913
Conrad A. Strahn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1913—
On
the southeast side the water is deep right up to the
shoal while on the opposite side it shelves gradually
off into deep water. On quiet days the water flows
placidly over this submerged ridge of limestone and
the surface gives no indication of the danger that
is lurking there. In stormy weather, however, particularly
when the wind is from the northeast, the sea froths
and roars over it in a terrific manner. In the early
days, before the bay was properly charted and danger
spots marked, this submerged reef was the cause of
many a marine disaster.
To
the credit of Whaleback Shoal it must be told that
once it was the means of saving lives instead of
destroying them. Two Norwegian fishermen from Ephraim
by the names of Anton Olson and Anton Amundson were
fishing on the ice near Chambers Island early in
the spring of 1890. Suddenly they found that the
ice had broken up and
was carrying them slowly but irresistibly toward
Lake Michigan. The floe on which they were marooned
was many miles in extent and for a time they had
hopes of making connections with Elison Bay point
or Door Bluff.
In
this they were disappointed, as the
floe kept a course several miles distant
from land. As the floe was breaking
up they knew that sure death awaited
them if they were carried out into Lake
Michigan. After spending a night and
day of fading hopes and weariness on
the ice floe they toward the close of
the second day found themselves close
to Whaleback Shoal. Covered
with huge cakes of ice which
had stranded there it now lay like
a huge, sinister serpent of ice. It had one
virtue, however: it was not moving toward sure death.
With their ice picks they broke off a small cake
of ice and by means of this ferry reached the shoal.
Here
they found the ice heaped up in the greatest
confusion, making strange caves and crevices.
They crowded into one of these though with
little hope. They were too far from land
to be seen and they knew that no vessel
would venture out for many days. Moreover,
the shoal was such a dangerous place that
mariners gave it a wide berth. For two days
and nights they sat in their cages of ice, exposed
to the freezing cold of early April nights
without food. Then they noticed that the
wind which had shifted was bringing the
ice back. For hours they stared anxiously
until they saw quite a large cake of ice come near
the shoal.
Hastily
they launched another cake of ice, paddled
across the intervening space of water and
embarked. Not many hours afterward they
were safely back on land with their ice
sleds. They had been four days and three
nights among the icebergs.
