42.20.378 86.34.240
In April 2008, Clive Cussler joined Ralph Wilbanks and his NUMA team on Lake Michigan, working with michigan Shipwreck research Association, for his very first day surveying on Lake Michigan in search of the wreckage of a DC-4 Northwest Airlines Flight 2501. NUMA and MSRA had been partnering to locate the plane wreck for the prior four search seasons.
A.P. Dutton sidescan
Within just a few hours of Cussler’s first day on the lake, the team found a target. While not the airplane they had been searching for, the target appeared to be a significant sized shipwreck, which was later positively identified as the Joseph P. Farnan. About an hour later they found a second target, smaller than the first, with little upper structure and most of the lower structure buried in sand. The construction near the bow and the presence of a cathead unmistakably identifies it as a schooner with a scroll bow. The length measures 60 feet. Only two 60-foot schooners were known to have gone down in that general vicinity, the William Tell and the A. P. Dutton. MSRA did not attempt an identification because so much of the ship was gone. However the next year, MSRA located another 60 foot schooner, which they were able to identify positively as the William Tell. By process of elimination, this wreck, then could be the Dutton.
A. P. Dutton
The AP Dutton was built in Racine Wisconsin in 1856, named after grain distributor A. P. Dutton. In 1868 a partnership of Joseph McLeane of Chicago and Patrick McKenny of Benton harbor purchased the schooner principally to ship goods between the two cities. They would not use it for very long.
On the evening of December 8, 1868, Joseph McLeane, serving as Captain, sailed the Dutton out of Chicago with a crew of six. The schooner was carrying a load of new patent school house furniture, a new ergonomic design, including desks and chalk boards manufactured in Chicago. They were intended for the new Boynton one-room school house in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
The Herald Palladium newspaper described the new school as a magnificent building in which everyone can take pride. It was about 25 feet by 29 feet, built for $900 by Frank Chapman.
The wind blew perfectly for a quick lake crossing that night with a light breeze from the southwest. Midway across the lake however, the wind turned to a northwesterly gale that howled for several days. No one ever saw the A.P. Dutton or its crew again.
A. P. Dutton rendering by Robert Doornbos
The Herald Palladium reported the how the loss of the vessel affected the school. “On Saturday night the citizens held a meeting for the purpose of formally dedicating the house to its proper use. After singing by the children, Professor Simmons appealed to the people in a practical address on the subject of school work and the duties of parents and citizens. After singing America, the meeting dispersed. The district was unfortunate to loose its furniture to the ill-fated schooner Dutton so that seating arrangements were rather primitive.”
Eventually the citizens of Benton Harbor replaced the lost furniture and the school educated its students for the next many decades until the building was eventually torn down. Today the Boynton Montessori School operates on the same piece of land on Britain Avenue in Benton Harbor that once was home to the beautiful Boynton one room school house. Both the original school house and the new school building retain the name Boynton in honor of the man who originally owned that piece of property.