1912, the Year Without Christmas: The ‘Rouse Simmons,’ the Christmas Tree Ghost Ship

German-American families in Chicago got terribly homesick at Christmas time and longed for a Christmas tree. Shipping captains from Michigan, beginning with August Schuenemann in 1890, decided they would bring them trees from northern Michigan to Chicago, although the Great Lakes are at their most treacherous in late November and December because of sudden, violent storms. August’s brother Hermann Schuenemann joined in the business in 1894, leasing a number of ships to spread the Yule time joy. Even after August Schuenemann went down with all hands in 1899 aboard a 52-ton, two-masted schooner when it sank in a storm near Glencoe, Illinois en route to Chicago with a cargo of trees, Herman bravely continued the venture.

Instead of selling the Christmas trees wholesale to Chicago businesses, Herman Schuenemann docked downtown with electric Christmas lights and a tree adorning the main mast of his ship and sold the trees directly to the public straight off the ship. He used the slogan “Christmas Tree Ship: My Prices are the Lowest” and they were, selling for between 50 cents and $1 a tree. He often gave trees away to needy families, earning him the nickname “Captain Santa,” and the arrival of his ship heralded the beginning of the Christmas season in Chicago. In 1910, Herman needed a new ship and he acquired the Rouse Simmons, a worn out, wooden, three-masted schooner built in 1868.

November of 1912 was quieter than usual with only one significant storm, but due to the threat of a second storm brewing, Schuenemann ignored the poor condition of the old ship and had it loaded with more than his usual 5,000 trees, filling the ship’s hold and even lashing the trees fifteen feet high on the deck. This resulted in the lower booms having to be propped up on wood crutches to make them usable. One sailor jumped ship before departure when he heard a rumor that the rats had abandoned it. It was snowing and the temperatures were falling on November 21 when the Rouse Simmons started her ill-fated 350 mile trip from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Chicago.

She made it across the lake and was sighted near Two Rivers, Wisconsin the next day flying a distress signal, her sails torn and deck weighted down with ice, floundering through the waves, apparently made top-heavy by her cargo. The Two Rivers Lifesaving Service station at once launched a 34’ power boat, the Tuscadora, to go to her aid, but within a thousand feet of the stricken ship, a sudden snow squall cut all visibility, and by the time the lifeboat crew could see, the ship was gone, and never seen again. She vanished along with her 17 men in the rising waves and strengthening winds of a storm’s fury.

Chicago newspapers called 1912 “the year without Christmas,” and the sad fate of the Rouse Simmons became legendary when, for years afterwards, sailors reported seeing a ghost ship with a deck piled high with Christmas trees. To this day, a ghost ship is reported being sighted nearby.

Hermann’s widow continued the Christmas Tree business for another 21 years with their three daughters, but by railroad. She ingeniously leased an old wreck of a ship tied up at the usual Chicago dock and loaded the trees on it after they arrived by train. The daughters made Christmas wreaths on the ship as an added attraction. The practice of transporting trees by schooner ceased in 1920, as railways, highways and tree farms made it easier and cheaper to buy a tree.

A message in a bottle from the Rouse Simmons washed onto the shore at Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It had been corked using a small piece of cut pine tree and, other than the occasional trees caught in fishing nets, was the only remains of the vessel discovered for many years. The message read: “Friday … everybody goodbye. I guess we are all through. During the night the small boat washed overboard. Leaking bad. Invald and Steve lost too. God help us.”

A note was later found that some also believe to have been written by the first mate of the Rouse Simmons: “These lines written at 10:30 p.m. Schooner R.S. ready to go down about 20 miles southwest of Two Rivers Point between 15-20 miles offshore. All hands lashed to one line. Goodbye. Nelson.”

In 1924 a fishing boat found a wallet belonging to Captain Schuenemann. Well preserved by oilskin, it contained business cards, a newspaper clipping and an expense memorandum.

The wreckage of the Rouse Simmons was found in 1971 by scuba diver Gordon Kent Bellrichard near Two Rivers, Wisconsin, its hold still filled with traces of the trees. A later study of the wreck suggested that the ship’s mizzen mast had snapped off above the deck and the upper portion was not located. The main mast was found forward and to the port side of the wreck, but with the base missing. The foremast is intact and from its position suggests at least one of these masts fell out of the mast step as the ship went down.

The ship’s anchor was retrieved and now stands at the entrance to the Milwaukee Yacht Club and several other recovered items, including the ship’s wheel, are now housed in Rogers Street Fishing Village Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.