Rouse Simmons, the musical

[WIdiver_Paul]

'Christmas Tree Ship' the subject of song, plays and a documentary
Sunday, November 28, 2004
By Terry Judd
-MUSKEGON CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER

Though it has been 92 years this month since the Rouse Simmons sank in a raging winter storm on Lake Michigan, the legacy of what affectionately was called the Christmas Tree Ship continues to this day.

This holiday season, the ship will be remembered in plays, a cable television documentary and limited edition prints.

And all of this for a schooner that was once based in Muskegon and owned by lumber baron Charles Hackley.

The Rouse Simmons, loaded with more than 5,000 Christmas trees, sank on Nov. 22, 1912, with a loss of 17 crew members, including Capt. Herman Schuenemann.

For years after the sinking, sailors reported seeing a ghostly image of the Rouse Simmons in the moonlight -- its sails in tatters, Christmas trees glistening on the deck, as it battled Lake Michigan waves. Although ghost-ship sightings have faded with time, interest in the ship is as strong as ever.

Mark C. Gumbinger, a Kenosha, Wis., historian who produced a video documentary on the sinking 11 years ago, said the Rouse Simmons has gained a huge following because it sank during the 1912 holiday season while loaded with a cargo of Christmas trees. He said the loss was a tremendous blow to Chicago residents who were waiting eagerly for the ship to arrive.

"It really is a remarkable story about a majestic three-masted schooner, brimming with fresh-cut Michigan trees, heading ... toward Chicago, until bad weather and cold temperatures encrusted ice over the bow," Gumbinger said.

Gumbinger has said the pile of trees contributed to the sinking of the ship. The water from waves and falling sleet iced up on the trees, causing the ship to ride lower in the water. "One good wave came by, and down she went," he said.

'Keeping history alive'

Songs, books and a play have been written about the Rouse Simmons, and paintings of the ship by the late maritime artist Charles Vickery are highly sought collectors' items.

Each year, the route of the Rouse Simmons' last voyage is retraced by the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw. And each year, a memorial dinner is held in Milwaukee by the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society to honor the ship's captain and crew.

The holiday musical "The Christmas Schooner" will be performed in Alpena's Thunder Bay Theatre Friday through Dec. 18 and at Petoskey's Little Traverse Civic Theatre Dec. 9-19.

Gumbinger just released the video "Great Stories of the Great Lake," which includes the sinking of the Rouse Simmons. On a national level, cable TV viewers will learn of the Rouse Simmons when the Weather Channel airs "The Christmas Tree Ship: A Holiday Storm Story" two times this month and 10 times in December.

The most recent tribute to the Rouse Simmons is a limited edition print recently commissioned by Connecticut's Mystic Seaport -- The Museum of America and the Sea. The painting of the Rouse Simmons in Chicago is among 12 paintings of American ports. Museum officials report the print is among the most popular being offered.

Michael O'Farrell, publicist for the Mystic Seaport, said the paintings were done by folk painter Carol Dyer.

To create these paintings, Mystic Seaport sent Dyer on research trips to each of the dozen featured port cities where she met with local historians. O'Farrell said the Rouse Simmons and its enduring legacy made it a natural for the port of Chicago, as Dyer explained in her new book Album of American Traditions.

"My painting of the Christmas Tree Ship strives to bring back a memory that remains in the hearts of many Chicagoans," she wrote.

O'Farrell said Mystic Seaport chose to publish the image of the Rouse Simmons in Chicago as a limited edition print because it perpetuates the museum's mission of creating "a broad public understanding of the relationship of America to the sea."

"This story is important not simply because it keeps history alive, but because the story remains relevant to modern day Chicagoans," he said. "A testament to this is the fact that the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw, arriving at Navy Pier just before the holidays, delivers 4,000 Christmas trees a year to disadvantaged Chicago families."

'Captain Santa'

The Rouse Simmons was a three-masted schooner, 153 feet long. It was built in 1868 for $14,000 in Milwaukee, and was named after Kenosha industrialist Rouse Simmons, of Simmons mattress fame.

After two years with the Simmons family, the ship was sold to Charles Hackley. For more than 20 years, the Rouse Simmons was a fixture of Muskegon, hauling virgin Michigan white pine from Muskegon to Chicago. The Rouse Simmons was sold by Hackley in 1908 and was used to ship wood products from Beaver Island. In 1910, the Rouse Simmons was purchased by Herman Schuenemann.

Since the turn of the century, Schuenemann was known in Chicago for his Christmas Tree Ship, which would arrive each year shortly after Thanksgiving fully loaded with Christmas trees, where they were sold directly to residents for 50 cents to $1. Not only did Schuenemann offer bargain prices, he would give trees away to needy families.

Schuenemann soon became known in Chicago as "Captain Santa," and the Christmas season in Chicago would not start officially until the arrival of Schuenemann's Christmas Tree Ship. For two years, Schuenemann successfully sailed the Rouse Simmons as his new Christmas Tree Ship without incident, even though the schooner had gained a reputation of being unseaworthy.

But 1912 was a year out of the ordinary, which would witness the sinking of 10 large freighters in a horrific November storm that claimed more than 400 lives. Despite terrible storms in early November, Schuenemann sailed the Rouse Simmons to Thompson Harbor near Manistique where it was loaded with pine trees. According to historians, the Rouse Simmons was crammed with at least 5,000 trees and Schuenemann ordered an additional 500 trees lashed to the outside deck so he could maximize his profit.

A November gale

Despite deteriorating weather, Schuenemann ordered the Rouse Simmons to head south on Lake Michigan on Nov. 21. According to one account, another schooner heading for the safety of a harbor spotted the Rouse Simmons under full sail plowing smack into a November gale.

More than a day later, the Rouse Simmons was spotted near Two Rivers, Wis., its sails in tatters, riding low in the water, its deck and trees glazed with ice. It also was flying a distress flag.

The United States Lifesaving Service station -- later to become part of the Coast Guard -- at Two Rivers launched a powerboat, Tuscarora. It got within an eighth of a mile of the Rouse Simmons when it was caught in a blinding snowstorm. The lifeboat lost sight of the schooner. The Rouse Simmons never was seen again.

Although an occasional Christmas tree would wash ashore in Wisconsin, the sinking of the Rouse Simmons was cloaked in mystery because no wreckage was ever found. A decade after the sinking, Schuenemann's wallet, wrapped in an oilskin, was discovered in a fishing net.

Gumbinger said the mystery ended in 1971 when diver G. Kent Bellrichard located the wreck of the Rouse Simmons off Two Rivers in 180 feet of water. Gumbinger, who has videotaped the wreck, said the ship is resting upright, and its hold and deck are still brimming with Christmas trees, minus their needles.