November is a perilous month on the Great Lakes as gale force winds raise mountains of water rivaling any storm on the Atlantic. The bottom of Lake Michigan is littered with shipwrecks. One of the most famous, the schooner Rouse Simmons, is the subject of a documentary by Wisconsin filmmaker Bob Leff, Chicago’s Christmas Tree Ship.
The Simmons went down with a load of Christmas trees during a powerful storm in late November 1912. Although the trees continued to wash up on the Wisconsin shore for decades, the wreck wasn’t discovered until 1971. Leff’s documentary includes interviews with the diver who found the schooner, Kent Bellrich, along with Gregory Goodchild, director of the Rogers Street Museum in Two Rivers where many Simmons artifacts are housed.
Chicago’s Christmas Tree Ship gives an interesting account of Great Lakes shipping in the age of sail as well as one particular ship. Built in Milwaukee in 1868 to haul lumber from the North Woods to Chicago, the Simmons was a survivor that hung on as steamships rendered her kind obsolete. Her captain, Herman Schuenemann, earned much of his income transporting thousands of young evergreens to Chicago’s Clark Street Pier, where he sold the trees at low prices. Like his ship, he had sailed through many storms, but in November 1912, with clouds massing and the barometer falling, he took his final risk. Schuenemann’s regular crew, seeing the rats scamper off the Simmons, grew frightened and deserted before the ship left port. Schuenemann set forth on Nov. 22 with a hastily recruited crew and was never seen again.
To order a DVD of Chicago’s Christmas Tree Ship, send $24 to VAP Films, 2217 Goecks Court, Cottage Grove, WI 53527 or visit www.VAPFilms.com
