Hennepin

(Photo used with permission. Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University.)

N 42° 27.645'
W 086° 31.783'

On a day that would turn out to be the next to last search day of the 2006 search season, MSRA's search team, with David Trotter aboard, marked a target that looked very promising. But what was it?

The search had been conducted in an area that could very well contain the remains of the Chicora, the Hennepin, the Sea Mar III, and a few other "ships gone missing".

A week later, MSRA affiliated divers Jeff Vos, Bob Underhill and Todd White descended into the depths of Lake Michigan to attempt to identify the vessel. Was it the Chicora, the Hennepin or some other long lost shipwreck?

On the surface, MSRA directors Jack and Valerie VanHeest could not wait until the divers' required decompression time had elapsed to hear the news. Looking around the boat and lacking a slate or message board, they wrote:

Chicora 
Hennepin 
Other 

...on a Styrofoam cup, attached a weight, and slid it down the descent line to the divers. When they retrieved it, the divers had placed a √ next to the Hennepin. At last, after nearly ten years of searching MSRA members had located the final resting place of the Hennepin!

The vessel

The story of the sinking of the Hennepin (official # 86016) is an often-overlooked tale of loss on the Great Lakes. While the vessel had reached a sorry state of repair after nearly 40 years of plying Great Lakes, her useful life came to an end without a loss of life.

She was built in 1888 as the wood-hulled steamer George H. Dyer by Wolf and Davidson of Milwaukee, Wisconsin for Davidson Steamship Company. The 208 foot long cargo vessel had a beam of 35.1 feet and a draft of 21.6 feet. She was rated at 1,372 gross tons, with a net tonnage rating of 1,086. She had one large cargo compartment rated at 1,600 tons.

Her machinery was comprised of a rebuilt steeple compound engine salvaged from the schooner-turned-steamer William. T. Graves which had been driven ashore near North Manitou Island The wreck of the Graves is still visible in 10 to 20 feet of water. The engine size was 20" & 36" by 30" stroke. Her #2 boiler was built by Lake Erie Boiler Works at Buffalo, New York and was 6.5 feet in diameter. The rebuild was done by Sheriff's Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

According to the Great lakes Marine Historical Collection at the Milwaukee Public Library, she was later re-measured at Milwaukee, WI, June 2, 1902 (208.66 x 35 x 12.33; 990 gross - 639 net), then re-measured at Milwaukee, WI, 1915 (214 x 35.66 x 17.33; 1188 gross - 953 net).

In 1898, she was owned by W. E. Fitzgerald of Milwaukee, R. H. Hebard of Buffalo and W. M. Killie of Gladstone and was renamed the "Hennepin".

On June 27, 1901 at about 1:00 PM she caught fire from an adjacent freight house while loading in the Blackwell Canal in Buffalo, New York. Her upper works and most of her machinery were damaged. The loss was estimated at $30,000. She was then sold to the Lake Shore Stone Company and fitted with an elevator belt to handle crushed stone from Stone Haven, Wisconsin, about 6 miles north of Port Washington where there was a quarry.

Some time later, when her hull became unstable, it was decided that she would be used as a tow barge rather than to run her engines. She was acquired by Construction Materials Company of Grand Haven, Michigan sometime in the mid 1920s and continued service as a tow barge. Her usual tugs were the Ufasco in 1926 and the Lotus in 1927.

Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes Marine Historical Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library

That Fateful Day...

On August 18, 1927, while under tow by the Lotus and while returning to Grand Haven from another uneventful trip to Chicago to unload a cargo of gravel, the Hennepin's end came. Leaving early in the morning on the 18th, the Hennepin would have reached mid-lake when she ran into a squall caused by a stiff "Norwester" at about 10:30 AM. The old vessel had sprung a leak. The crew worked for four hours before abandoning the vessel for the safety of the tug at 2:30 PM. The Hennepin stay afloat another four hours before finally slipping beneath the waves at about 6:00 PM. Captain Ole Hansen and his crew of 13 all lived to tell the tale. Captain Hanson was quoted as saying, "She died a hard death."

According to a story in the Grand Haven Tribune, the "Hennepin now lies in 203 feet of water and will remain there as there is no hope of salvage." The loss was valued at $100,000.

The following year, she was replaced by the Andaste which, ironically, would suffer a similar fate after just one year of service.

The Hennepin under tow.

Several months after our discovery a St. Joseph resident, who had purchased a lifeboat oar at a garage sale, presented the item to the Heritage Museum where it remains to this day.