A Short History of the Schooner on the Great Lakes,
By Karen Randall
A schooner is defined as a sailing vessel with multiple masts (the upright posts which carry the sails,), which are located one behind the other. The schooner was specially designed as an improvement over other kinds of traditional sailing ships, in that they were able to sail closer into the wind, or “upwind” more efficiently, enabling easier navigation and faster voyages to their destinations. Early designers of schooners, extolled the virtues of their lines and proportions, seaworthiness and speed.
The lake schooners which dominated commerce and passenger travel here in the Great Lakes during the late 18th and 19th centuries, before steamship travel slowly ended their reign. Schooners were the most important sailing ships in American history and very important to the development of the Great lakes region in the 19th century. By the peak of this period, about the mid 1860’s, there were 1800 working schooners in the Great Lakes. They linked the growing towns of the Midwest shores with the East Coast, bringing cargo such as lumber, corn produce, livestock, -and people, between these destinations. The “Lakeshoring” schooners continued to be built on Lake Michigan through the 1880’s. The last schooner known here, the Mary A. Gregory, sunk in 1926.
The lake Schooners ranged in size from a diminutive 40 or 50 feet in length, with two masts, to a whopping specimen of 275 feet and five masts ! Most, were made of all wood, often combinations of mahogany, pine, cypress, and fir. They had first made their appearance in the early 1800’s. The elegant and yet simple schooner design was relatively inexpensive to construct, and was found to be far less difficult than travel over land between the coast and the Midwest. Remember, there were no “interstate highways” yet !
However, travel aboard a schooner in those days still wasn’t easy. The early schooners making landfall in the Great Lakes region had no harbors, docks, or piers to tie up to. Those were mostly manmade luxuries which awaited the arrival of the 20th century.. Men had to wade and swim out to the ships, anchored offshore, carry their wives and children to the beach, even push their livestock overboard and make them swim to shore!
We’ve certainly come a long way to the modern day, when all you need to do to board THIS traditional topsail schooner, is to make your way to Navy Pier in scenic downtown Chicago.
* We are grateful to Dr. Theodore Karamanski, fellow member of the Chicago Maritime Society, whose book “Schooner Passage”, a finely researched history of Schooners in the Great Lakes, was the source for historical information cited above.