Remembering the Vernon
Monument in Two Rivers’ Pioneers’ Rest Cemetery for the unknown sailors who died in the wreck of the SS Vernon on Oct. 28, 1886.
Take a walk through Pioneer’s Rest cemetery in Two Rivers and you’ll find a monument that shows the good a community can do when people come together after a tragedy. In the fall of 1887 the people of Two Rivers took up a collection to pay for a wonderful memorial to honor the victims of the steamer Vernon.
The Vernon was on its way to Chicago in October of 1887 with a 24 man crew and about 20 passengers when tragedy struck the vessel. The boat was off the Two Rivers coast when it started taking in water on Friday, October 28, 1887. Passengers and crew were left at the mercy of the cold fall waters of Lake Michigan.
The schooner Joseph Paige arrived in Milwaukee on Saturday night and the Captain said he saw a wreck six miles east-northeast of Two Rivers with passengers in the water. The barge Superior also came into Milwaukee that same night and reported the wreck as well as a man on a raft signaling for help. Stopping to provide aid would have caused damage to both vessels, which were already struggling to get out of harm’s way. Usually the vessels would send a telegraph to the nearby U.S. Life Saving Service but being a Saturday night, the offices were closed. News of the wreck didn’t reach our area until the Sunday issue of the Milwaukee Sentinel came into town.
Between the harsh waters and hypothermia, it was believed that there weren’t any survivors of the Vernon. But nearly fifty hours after the sinking, on Monday, October 31, a survivor was found in a raft north of Sheboygan. The schooner S. B. Pomeroy had found 23 year old Swedish immigrant Axel Stone, a fireman aboard the Vernon.
Through Stone’s story, the moments of Vernon’s final journey were known. The vessel was carrying an excessive load, which led to its demise. “It was the biggest load I had ever seen on her”, Stone later said. Stone died two months later, most likely from injuries from the disaster.
On Tuesday morning the tug George Pankratz from Manitowoc searched the lake for anything that could be found from the Vernon. With the aid of tugs from Two Rivers nineteen bodies were recovered. The bodies were taken to the Two Rivers hall where community leaders began the task of trying to identify the victims of the Vernon. The city of Two Rivers took it upon themselves to memorialize the 8 unidentified victims and one unclaimed man.
Following the tragedy, a coroner’s inquest was held on Monday November 7, 1887. The inquest states, “the storm of October 29th was not so fierce nor the lake so rough as to prevent the rescue of these bodies. If their perilous condition had been known, the life-saving crew, each and all of the five fishing tugs here, besides many small boats would have gone promptly to their rescue.” As part of the inquest, the captains of Joseph Paige and Superior were verbally reprimanded for not doing all they could to save any survivors.