1847 — Nov 21, Fire, Steamboat Phoenix sinks, Lake Michigan off Sheboygan, WI–160-258

— ~304 goDutch.com. “Third Dutch-American sesquicentennial…victims of Phoenix…”
— 258 Thompson. Graveyard of the Lakes. 2004, pp. 101 and 103.
— 255 Wisc. Historical Society. Dictionary of Wisconsin History, “Phoenix (Shipwreck)”
–190-250 Ratigan. Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals. 1969, p. 53.
–190-250 Shelak. Shipwrecks of Lake Michigan. Pp. 51-52.
— 250 Wangermann. “The Loss of the Phoenix.” 1995.
–190-250 Wisconsinshipwrecks.org. “Phoenix (1845).” Wisconsin Historical Society.
— 240 Holden, “The Phoenix”
— 240 Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours. 1977, p. 681.
— 200 Historyorb.com. Today in Michigan History.
–161-200 Swayze. Great Lakes Shipwrecks “P.”
— <200 Swayze. Shipwreck! 1992, p. 189. -- 200 Waggoner. History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio. 1888, p. 458. -- >197 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 396.
— 190 Mansfield. History of the Great Lakes (Vol. 1). 1899.
— 160 Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 259.
— >160 Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the Western Waters. 1856, 177.
— 160 Simonds. The American Date Book. 1902, p. 98.
— >160 Van Eyck. “The Story of the Propeller Phoenix,” WI Magazine of Hist., 1924, 290.
— 160 Childs. A History of the United States In Chronological Order… 1886, p. 126.

Narrative Information

Holden: “As the fire progressed, panic broke out! The ship was now dead in the water, and in site of Sheboygan! As the fire raged, people threw themselves into the freezing water. There were only two lifeboats, and each one was limited to twenty-three people. ….

“Of course this meant that most of the people had no way of escaping the flames other than jumping overboard. [“…the lights of Sheboygan were in sight.” (Van Eyck 1924, 283)] There, even the strong swimmers died quickly in the icy water.” (Holden, “The Phoenix”)

Mansfield: “The season of 1847 closed with one of the most terrible disasters that ever visited the lake region….While upward bound… at about 4 o’clock [am], some 15 miles north of Sheboygan, and several miles from the shore, a fireman on duty discovered flames on the underside of the deck above the boiler…. It rapidly spread along the underside of the deck. Three pumps and several lines of water buckets were put in operation immediately, but it was found impossible to check the flames..” (Mansfield, 1899)

“….Others ascended the shrouds, clinging in masses to the ratlines, up to the very crosstrees, from which as the fire reached the combustible material they were soon precipitated into the burning mass beneath. (Mansfield, 1899)

Thompson: “…there is no question [of the cause of the fire] in the case of the Phoenix. The fire started because Second Engineer Bill Owen allowed the boilers to overheat. What prompted his negligence is still a mystery, though. Perhaps he went ‘up the street’ while the boat was delayed at Manitowoc and spent some of his hard-earned money in a local tavern. Any sober engineer would surely have tended to the boilers when it was discovered they were getting low on water. While Bill Owen was clearly responsible for the fire starting, the tragic loss of life on the Phoenix was largely due to the lack of an adequate number of lifeboats to accommodate all those aboard. While there were about three hundred passengers and crewmembers aboard the steamer, the two lifeboats had a combined capacity of only forty. That was not unusual, however. As dangerous as the practice was, U.S. passenger ships would not be required to carry enough lifeboats and life rafts to handle all those aboard until well after the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic in 1912. In the more than sixty years that would pass between the burning of the Phoenix and the loss of the Titanic, it’s likely that thousands of people dies in shipping accidents because the vessels they were on didn’t carry enough lifeboats. Even after more than fifteen hundred died on the Titanic, operators of U.S. shipping companies had the audacity to argue against being required to add more lifeboats and life rafts.” (Thompson 2004, p. 103.)

“Among those opposing the proposed legislation, known as the Seamen’s Act of 1915, was the Lake Carriers’ Association, the trade organization representing most of the major fleets on the Great Lakes. In his report to the membership at the end of the 1914 shipping season, William Livingstone, president of the association, expressed his hope that the proposed legislation would be permanently shelved, ‘as no real reason ever existed for drafting it al all.” (Thompson 2006, 104)

Van Eyck: In the 1840s “steamers carried the vast numbers of immigrants of those days from Buffalo westward, and as there were at that time no cities of importance in western Michigan located on Lake Michigan, the towns on the lake in Wisconsin became stopping places for the steamers….” (Van Eyck 1924, 281)

“It is a well-known fact that many of the Holland emigrants intending to settle in Michigan came in 1846 and as late as 1857, by way of those lake propellers along the Wisconsin coast, and then by schooners from Milwaukee or Chicago to Saugatuck, Grand Haven, or Black Lake Harbor, as Holland was then also called. It is therefore not surprising that a large company of emigrants from the Netherlands, some of them destined for Iowa, some for Wisconsin, and some for Michigan on November 11, 1847, boarded at Buffalo the propeller Phoenix, commanded by Captain B.G. Sweet, and proceeded westward on their long journey. These immigrants had late in September left their homes at Winterswijk, Varsseveld, Holten and other towns in the eastern parts of the provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel, to join relatives and friends who had already in the spring of 1847 and earlier settled in Wisconsin, Iowa, or Michigan. (Van Eyck 1924, 282)

“At Grand River, Fairport, Ohio, Captain Sweet had a fall which injured his knee so severely that he soon took to his cabin, leaving his vessel in charge of the mate. After passing the Straits of Mackinac, the Phoenix turned…southwestward, and…encountering boisterous weather, on Saturday afternoon at four o’clock put into Manitowoc to take in wood and wait for the sea to go down.

“Shortly after one o’clock Sunday morning, November 21, 1847…the Phoenix, on a calmer sea, left Manitowoc for Sheboygan, twenty-five miles away… The report is…and the weight of evidence shows, that after three o’clock some of the passengers who had not retired noticed something wrong about the boiler-room, and that, upon remonstrating with the men in charge, they were told to mind their own business. It is claimed that part of the crew had been carousing at Manitowoc, and Mr. Wissink, one of the few survivors, always insisted that one of the men who called attention to the situation had been unceremoniously knocked down…” (Van Eyck 1924, 283)

“For almost two hours the doomed passengers were in a veritable hell – near the Wisconsin shores, yet unable to reach them; on a lake full of water, yet burning to death; with relief almost in sight, but too late! To jump overboard meant a grave in the icy waters; to remain on board, certain death in the fire….One man lashed himself to the mast at the cross-tree, and died there of heat and suffocation, and later when the mast fell he came down with it into the water.” (Van Eyck 1924, 284)

“Mr. House, the engineer, who escaped, gives us a…picture of the last hours of the perishing crew and passengers. He says he remained on board until the flames drove him into the water….Upon…[a] float he supported himself for about two hours, surrounded by many other persons on rafts, whom he saw, one after another, bitten by cold, lose their hold and drown. Mr. House, the first to see the relief ship approaching, announced that fact to those near him, and exhorted them to hold on a little longer. ‘He addressed himself particularly to a lady, who had sustained herself on a floating settee…[who soon thereafter] lost her grip on the bench, and sank…” (Van Eyck 1924, 285)

The propeller Delaware arrived at the scene of disaster about two hours after the fire was discovered, and rendered all the assistance in her power to rescue those in the water…” (Mansfield, 1899) “But long before the Delaware hove to, all was over, and three men only – Donahue the clerk, and Mr. Long of Milwaukee, both clinging to the rudder chains, and engineer House…had escaped to tell the tale….some were found on their floats literally killed by the cold. The Delaware rescued the three survivors from their perilous position, picked up the four or five bodies in sight, and took the smoking wreck in tow.” (Van Eyck 1924, 286)

“An extra from the Sheboygan Mercury stated the loss of life at 250 and over, and that the fire originated from the boilers not being filled with water, and becoming heated so as to ignite the wood lying adjacent, and was not discovered until the flames burst forth instantly enveloping the whole boat.” (Mansfield, 1899) “Engineer House, however…thought ‘the fire was caused by the falling of a door in the flue, or by the breaking of a lamp in the wood hold’.” (Van Eyck 1924, 292)

Wangermann: “The boats, now loaded, were lowered and pulled away from the ship through a sea of bobbing heads and flaming debris. Frantic hands grasped for the boats as they passed by. Fearful that the panic-stricken people in the water would capsize the frail boats in an attempt to save themselves, the brutal law of survival took over. As the survivors in the water grasped the gunwales of the boat, the occupants beat at their fingers and fended off their struggling bodies with oars and closed fists.” (Wangermann 1995)

Wisconsin Historical Society: “The first of many great ship disasters off Wisconsin ports occurred in the early morning of Sunday, November 21, 1847. The propeller Phoenix, a wood burning steamer carrying about 250 Dutch immigrants to Wisconsin, caught fire within sight of its destination, Sheboygan harbor….

“A newspaper reported that the disaster was “at least partly due to the use of intoxicants by some of the crew.” Of the 300 onboard the vessel, only 45 were saved.” (Wisconsin Historical Society. Dictionary of Wisconsin History, “Phoenix (Shipwreck)”)

Sources

Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972.

Childs, Emery E. A History of the United States In Chronological Order From the Discovery of America in 1492 to the Year 1885. NY: Baker & Taylor, 1886. Google digitized. Accessed 9-4-2017: http://books.google.com/books?id=XLYbAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

goDutch.com. “Third Dutch-American sesquicentennial remembers newly arriving emigrants who became victims of Phoenix tragedy.” Accessed 7-9-2020 at: http://www.godutch.com/newspaper/index.php?id=278

HistoryOrb.com. “Today in Michigan History.” At: http://www.historyorb.com/countries/usa/michigan

Holden, Allan. “The Phoenix.” Accessed at: http://www.prostockdetectors.com/phoenix.html

Lloyd, James T. Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the Western Waters. Cincinnati, Ohio: James T. Lloyd & Co., 1856. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=JlYqAAAAYAAJ

Mansfield, John Brandts (Ed. And Compiler). History of the Great Lakes (Vol. 1). Chicago: J.H. Beers & Co., 1899. http://www.linkstothepast.com/marine/chapt36.html — Google digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=iHXhAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Pocket Books, Wallaby, 1977, 792 pages.

Ratigan, William. Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals (New Revised and Enlarged Edition). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1969.

Shelak, Benjamin J. Shipwrecks of Lake Michigan. Black Earth, WI: Trails Books, 2003. Accessed 7-9-2020 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=4CBCcye0n6IC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Simonds, W. E. (Editor). The American Date Book. Kama Publishing Co., 1902, 211 pages. Google digital preview accessed 9-8-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=JuiSjvd5owAC

Swayze, David D. Great Lakes Shipwrecks Beginning with the letter P. Accessed 9-7-2009 at: http://greatlakeshistory.homestead.com/files/p.htm

Thompson, Mark L. Graveyard of the Lakes. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2004.

Van Eyck, William O. “The Story of the Propeller Phoenix,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 7, No. 3, March 1924. Accessed at: http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/wmh&CISOPTR=3813&CISOSHOW=3705

Waggoner, Clark. Chapter X, “Lake Marine,” in History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio. NY: Munsell & Co., 1888. Accessed at: http://www.heritagepursuit.com/Lucas/LucasCommunicationChapX-452.htm

Wangermann, Bill. “The Loss of the Phoenix.” 1995. Accessed at: http://www.baillod.com/shipwreck/projects/sheboygan/phoenix.htm

Wisconsin Historical Society. Dictionary of Wisconsin History, “Phoenix (Shipwreck).” At: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&term_id=10475&keyword=disaster

Wisconsinshipwrecks.org. “Phoenix (1845).” Wisconsin Historical Society. Accessed 7-9-2020 at: https://www.wisconsinshipwrecks.org/Vessel/Details/505