The JOHN SCHUETTE: Last Schooner built at Two Rivers

A model of the JOHN SCHUETTE was donated by H. George Schuette of Manitowoc to the State Historical Museum in 1912. COURTESY OF THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

In October 1874, Danish-born Jasper Hanson and Hans M. Scove began laying the keel of the last of four three-mast schooners at their shipyard on the East Twin River in Two Rivers. It became one of the best-known schooners on the Great Lakes.

The vessel length was 137 feet; beam, 26 feet; depth of hold, 10 feet. The 289-ton schooner was launched on May 3, 1875 and named for Manitowoc businessman John Schuette, who was a state senator at the time.

Although the JOHN SCHUETTE mostly sailed the Great Lakes, the schooner made six trips across the Atlantic, mostly to England, from 1876 to 1879. The Second Welland Canal, completed in 1845 with larger, wider and deeper locks to connect Lakes Erie and Ontario and bypass Niagara Falls, made transoceanic voyages for larger ships from the Great Lakes possible.

On the schooner’s first journey, she carried a cargo of deals (cut boards) from Green Bay to Bristol, England. The freight paid was $18 in gold per 1,000 feet of lumber, a tidy sum and profitable, yet dangerous, undertaking.

In October 1876, Jasper Hanson received a letter from his son, who sailed aboard the schooner. The letter read: “Dear Sir: I have just found time to write you a letter. We arrived here in safety. You remember you did not think we would; you said the ship was too small; but we had a terribly rough passage, as it blew a fierce gale all the time we were on the ocean. We saw only two days of fine weather out of twenty-seven days. When we leave here I think we will go to Spain or Italy for nuts and wine, taking coal out, occupying about four or five months for making the trip, so I will not be home for some time yet.” Three months later, the schooner arrived at Wilmington, North Carolina.

On its second voyage in 1877, the schooner went to Hamburg, Germany, and planned to take a cargo to St. Petersburg, Russia. In July 1877, it arrived back with several tons of kainite (mineral salt) used in fertilizers by the Navassa Guano Co. of Wilmington.

During its third voyage, September 1877-April 1878, the schooner left with a cargo of turpentine for London. The vessel encountered adverse winds and severe weather, which drove it off course and damaged her rigging and steering gear. She was detained for two weeks in the Azores, off the coast of Portugal.

The JOHN SCHUETTE also made voyages with cotton from Savannah, Georgia to Liverpool, England.

Before coming back to the Great Lakes in 1879, the schooner completed a trip from Havana, Cuba with a cargo of sugar to Montreal, Canada, where she picked up a load of salt for Chicago.

For the next thirty years, the schooner remained sailing the Great Lakes, carrying lumber, oats, corn, plaster and other bulk commodities.

In September 1899, the schooner arrived with a load of coal for Scherer & Boehringer at Two Rivers. It was her first visit back in 24 years. By this time, she carried only two spars, the middle spar or mast having been removed. In 1902, the schooner returned with a cargo of coal for the Hamilton Mfg. Co.

On May 14, 1909, the JOHN SCHUETTE collided with a swing bridge at Toledo, Ohio, badly damaging her upper works. Two months later, on July 2, 1909, while bound from Cleveland to Lake Superior with a cargo of coal, the schooner collided with the steamer ALFRED MITCHELL and sank in the Detroit River. No lives were lost. The wreck was dragged ashore and, two months later, was blown up and cleared.

The Chronicle reminisced, “The old schooner was one of the best on the lakes for many years and has carried many a cargo safely through the storms of many seasons. Sailing vessels, the size of the Schuette are being more and more scarce each year and it is seldom that one is seen on the lake. When the boat was launched here it was considered a mammoth craft. In recent years steam vessels have taken the place of the old schooners and they are rapidly being abandoned.”

In 1912, a model of the JOHN SCHUETTE was donated by H. George Schuette of Manitowoc to the State Historical Museum.