Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes by Anna Lardinois

Author:Anna Lardinois [Lardinois, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science, Earth Sciences, Geography
ISBN: 9781493058556
Google: _odUzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Globe Pequot
Published: 2021-11-15T23:50:11.099811+00:00

BEWARE THE BREAKERS: LADY ELGIN (1851–1860)

The legends and lore surrounding this tragedy make it difficult to definitely know what happened on that stormy September night in 1860. While we will never know how many lives were lost and the wildly conflicting survivor accounts make the events that followed the collision between the Lady Elgin and the schooner Augusta unclear at best, what is certain is that the event, which left an estimated one thousand Milwaukee children orphaned, began as a party. Spirits were high as the ship set sail from Chicago to Milwaukee at eleven-thirty the night of September 7, 1860. The band played on and on as merrymakers danced and drank beneath the glittering chandeliers of the ship’s saloon. The ship was overcrowded, with perhaps as many as five to six hundred people onboard the 252-foot wooden sidewheel steamer, but no one cared while the booze flowed and pretty girls swayed in time to the music.

Estimates of the ship’s passengers that night range from just over three hundred people to more than six hundred. While there seems to be little agreement on the number aboard, all agree that the ship was overfilled that night, but when the ship shoved off, few aboard seemed to care. Many of the passengers were part of Milwaukee’s recently disarmed Irish Union Guard. Unwilling to support Wisconsin Governor Alexander Randall’s secessionist anti-slavery views, the group was forcibly disbanded. They’d purchased their one dollar round-trip tickets to the Windy City to see Stephen Douglas and rally support for their Democratic cause. Energized by the events of the day, the group attracted others who wanted to join in on the fun, and many of the revelers followed the Milwaukeeans aboard the ship, where the party continued.

The Lady Elgin sails Wikimedia Commons

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