Shipwreck of lumber vessel in Door County named to National Register of Historic Places

Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette
·4 min read

BAILEYS HARBOR - Five months after a Door County shipwreck was added to the Wisconsin State Register of Historic Places, it's now listed on the national register as well.

The Wisconsin Historical Society announced Friday the wreck of the Emeline, a late 19th-century lumber-carrying schooner that lies in Lake Michigan off Anclam Park in Baileys Harbor, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 28. She was placed on the state register Feb. 24.

Divers take measurements on the remains of the Emerline, a 19th-century logging schooner in the water off Baileys Harbor that recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, five months after it was listed on Wisconsin's State Register of Historic Places.
Divers take measurements on the remains of the Emerline, a 19th-century logging schooner in the water off Baileys Harbor that recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, five months after it was listed on Wisconsin's State Register of Historic Places.

Originally built in Michigan in 1862, according to the Wisconsin Shipwrecks website, the Emeline was converted two years later into a three-masted, double-centerboard schooner and lengthened from 83 to 111.4 feet. It spent most of its career carrying lumber throughout the Great Lakes region.

Wisconsin Shipwrecks goes on to say the Emeline was bringing a load of tamarack bark from Charlevoix, Michigan, to a tannery in Kenosha on Aug. 8, 1896, under the command of Capt. Adam Abrahamson, who had bought the ship just five months earlier.

On that voyage, the ship was struck by a squall about 20 miles southeast of Baileys Harbor. The storm knocked her over onto her starboard side, then her deck load of bark rolled off, "after which she righted herself only to capsize to her port side," the site says.

The Emeline's four-man crew was able to launch their rescue boat and row themselves to Baileys Harbor, so no lives were lost in the wreck.

Attempts were made over the next couple of days to right the Emeline and bring her to harbor, but none were successful. The tug Sydney Smith from Sturgeon Bay tried towing it by one of the Emeline's three masts but ended up breaking the mast instead, and the schooner Nancy Dell was used to right the vessel only to have her roll back over later.

The Emeline eventually sank in 18 feet of water near Anclam Pier on Aug. 22, 1896, two weeks after she initially capsized, with her gunwales, two remaining masts and spars protruding from the surface of the lake. By January of 1897, the wreckage had broken into pieces. By 1903, her masts were no longer visible, and she was declared a hazard to navigation and dynamited in September of that year.

The dynamite was used just to flatten the hull and collapse its sides for the safety of passing vessels, said Tamara Thomsen, maritime archaeologist with the Wisconsin Historical Society, so divers still have plenty to see at the site. The Wisconsin Shipwrecks site says the remains sit upright on a sandy bed with many hull components still intact and more beneath the sand.

Part of the shipwreck Emerline, a 19th-century logging schooner in the water off Baileys Harbor that recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, five months after it was listed on Wisconsin's State Register of Historic Places.
Part of the shipwreck Emerline, a 19th-century logging schooner in the water off Baileys Harbor that recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, five months after it was listed on Wisconsin's State Register of Historic Places.

Few examples and little documentation of schooners from the late 19th century with double-centerboard construction are known to exist today, one of the reasons the Emeline is considered a noteworthy and historic wreck. Thomsen told the Advocate in April that only six double-centerboard schooner wrecks are known to exist in Wisconsin waters and seven in all of the Great Lakes.

A diagram showing an overhead view of the remains of the Emerline, a 19th-century logging schooner in the water off Baileys Harbor that recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, five months after if was listed on Wisconsin's State Register of Historic Places.
A diagram showing an overhead view of the remains of the Emerline, a 19th-century logging schooner in the water off Baileys Harbor that recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, five months after if was listed on Wisconsin's State Register of Historic Places.

The Emeline's history as a logging vessel, with its wreck lying off a county where the lumber and shipping industries played a huge role in its history, also adds to its historical significance, said Kay Dragan, curator and exhibits manager of the Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay, when the ship was named to the state register.

The Emeline is the 27th shipwreck off Door County to be listed on the national register, all of which are on the state register as well. Following the Emeline's listing with the state, the lumber schooners Boaz (also a double-centerboard schooner) and Sunshine, both in North Bay off Lake Michigan, in June became the 28th and 29th Door County wrecks to make the state register. The Wisconsin Historical Society also is considering the wreck of the Peoria off Baileys Harbor for the state register, with a decision expected around November.

For divers interested in visiting the wreck, Thomsen said it can be reached with a short swim from Anclam Park, but visiting divers must bring a dive flag to signal their whereabouts to nearby boaters.

State and federal laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structure when visiting this site. Removing, defacing, displacing, or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime. For more information on the Emeline, visit wisconsinhistory.org or wisconsinshipwrecks.org.

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Door County shipwreck named to National Register of Historic Places

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