The Christmas Ship Lady Ellen

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

I was "inspired" this morning by an e-mail from Ginnie Johnson--friend, author and historian in Algoma--to write this blog about my uncle, the Christmas tree ship captain, and his scow-schooner Lady Ellen.  Thanks to Fred Neuschel for much of the content which is from his book Lives and Legends of the Christmas Tree Ships . 

From the January, 1875 Sturgeon Bay Expositor:  "John McDonald is setting up frames for a new vessel which will be ready in spring."

One-armed John McDonald, the brother of my great great grandfather Michael McDonald, was the captain of a Christmas tree ship. In its first voyage to Chicago from Ahnapee (Algoma, WI), in 1876, the scow-schooner Lady Ellen, commanded by Captain McDonald, endured a sad fortune. When Captain McDonald reached Chicago with his load of trees he found the market glutted with Christmas trees and to “add insult to injury,” he had to winter Lady Ellen in Chicago because the season made the return to Ahnapee too dangerous.

Captain McDonald was not discouraged however. The next year he was back in Chicago with another load in time for the holiday in his little scow which was described as an “insignificant looking craft.” But her productivity was worthy of praise enough to be mentioned in the big city newspaper. The little vessel earned $650 for Captain McDonald and “she still had her canvas on.” ($650 in 1876 was worth about $13,400 in 2009 using the CPI)

John McDonald lost his arm at the battle at Stones River, TN in the Civil War. Despite his challenge he was the first owner of the scow-schooners Lady Ellen and Whiskey Pete. He had the skills and he took the opportunity to make himself a successful pioneer in the maritime village of Algoma, aligning himself with prominent local businessmen like Charles Boalt and De Wayne Stebbins (husband of my great great great aunt Frances Elliott Newell Stebbins). Captain John McDonald’s enterprises evolved from commercial fishing to playing an important part as contractor in the building of the Sturgeon Bay Lake Michigan Ship Canal.

Captain McDonald’s “maritime odd couple” were his little workhorse ships: Lady Ellen and Whiskey Pete. The schooner lacked the graceful curved lines that we picture of a sailing ship. The vessel was a simple, shallow, slab-sided box, built from the bottom up to assume a shape that was described as “an outsized cement mason’s mud box… with a few masts, deckhouse and rudder.” The bottom was planked from side to side holding together strong timbers that ran longitudinally from fore to aft. What the Lady Ellen and Whiskey Pete lacked in beauty, they made up for with the strength and shallow draft needed to enter the waters around Door County Peninsula under which lay a bed of stone.
    
The Lady Ellen was built by Major William I. Henry, boat builder, fisherman and Civil War hero and was launched into the Ahnapee River to the celebratory huzzahs of the townfolk. The little ship was witness to just about every seminal event in the maritime history of the town. She helped to improve the harbor as a stone hooker, assisted in the building of the Sturgeon Bay Lake Michigan Ship Canal (along side the Whiskey Pete), took building materials and steam engine to Jacksonport for Hall’s new sawmill and brought back the lumber for building a new bridge over the river at Fourth Street in Algoma. She also was used to salvage cargo and equipment from wrecked vessels. She was a pioneer in taking Christmas trees from Ahnapee to Chicago. Lady Ellen was the only commercial sailing vessel to spend its whole career in Ahnapee as its home port.

The end for the Christmas ship Lady Ellen was not as heralded as that of the wreck of Captain Schuenemann’s Rouse Simmons. Today, what remains of the Lady Ellen is at the bottom of the Ahnapee River. At the end, by the 1890s, the schooner simply sat in the river and went to pieces.