THE MISSING BODIES OF THE CURSED CHICORA

Here’s a sigh for the Chicora, for the broken, sad Chicora.

Here’s a tear for those who followed her beneath the tossing wave.

O the mystery of the morrow—from its shadows let us borrow

A star of hope to shine above the gloom of every grave.

—Nixon Waterman

When sailors saw the ghost ship of the Chicora, glimpsing it through a foggy haze on the water, it meant that the crew was in for some rough times. The Chicora became a bad omen on the lake, and the men took caution, fearing what was in store for them. Built in 1892, the Chicora had a cruising speed of seventeen miles per hour and was over two hundred feet long. Its main purpose was to bring passengers and goods back and forth from Milwaukee to St. Joseph, Michigan. The ship had fifty-six luxury rooms for higher-class citizens with money to live first-class lifestyles on the boat, and there were regular rooms for the average, everyday person. The ship was “luxuriously furnished,” complete with mahogany wood and electric lighting.

The Chicora was sailed by Edward G. Stines, who had more than two decades of sailing experience on the Great Lakes. Before it was to set sail on the day of its final journey, Captain Stines was told not to sail by his doctor. He had been sick, and the doctor advised him to stay home and rest before getting back to his job. Figuring that he was in a fine condition to sail and that the journey would be an easy one, he ignored the doctor’s orders. This was the first sign the good captain didn’t bother to notice that could have saved his life and the lives of the passengers. The second bad omen was brought on by a man named Joseph Pearl, traveling to Milwaukee from St. Joseph on the Chicora. A duck had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the lake. The bird was considered a strange sign, and the superstitious captain heralded it as a sign of bad luck—even more so when the man from St. Joseph shot it down with a gun he had brought with him.

Joseph bragged to Captain Stines about his marksmanship, and it was described in a Milwaukee Sentinel article that the captain “began to turn pale” and exclaimed to Joseph, “My God, Pearl, what have you done? I feel like kneeling down and praying.” From that point on, the entire crew was in a depressed state, already feeling the fate that was near. The story about the duck began to spread rapidly. Soon, it was being said that the duck was an “immense gull,” and the Michigan City Dispatch, on January 31, days after the Chicora went missing, published that “there is a superstition among sailors that ‘ill-luck follows him who kills a seagull.’” Many of the crewmembers refused to travel back toward St. Joseph with Joseph Pearl onboard, but they most likely were assured by others that “they were being silly and superstitious.” Author Kit Lane, in his book Chicora: Lost on Lake Michigan, writes that “in the distant past it was linked to the idea that drowned men were reincarnated as seabirds and that killing one was tantamount to killing a shipmate and evil luck would surely follow.”

Nevertheless, Captain Stines, ignoring the doctor’s orders to rest and trying to forget about the duck, set the Chicora to sail on Monday, January 21, 1895, toward St. Joseph from Milwaukee, with passengers and flour that was in high demand onboard. This ship’s usual second mate was sick, and to replace him, Captain Stiles brought on his twenty-three-year-old son. The weather was nice for a winter’s day and was described as being “spring like.” There were no signs that it would change. The steamer didn’t usually run that late in the season, but there was a high demand for the flour it was carrying as cargo, so the owners no doubt felt that it was worth the trip. Ten minutes after the Chicora set sail, a message arrived a few minutes too late, telling the captain to stay docked as the barometer was falling fast in Benton Harbor, Michigan, a sure sign of a storm brewing.

Lake Michigan is very unpredictable, and before captain and crew knew it, the lake had whipped up one of its finest storms. Massive waves crashed into the sides of the Chicora, and the winds blew fierce and fast. The storm lasted for two days. John H. Graham, one of the owners of the Chicora, had a house in St. Joseph with a tower on its roof. He sat within the tower, one of the highest points in St. Joseph, scanning the waters in hopes of glimpsing the Chicora. Rumors that people spotted it a couple miles off the coast of St. Joseph surfaced, but the blizzard conditions made it near impossible to see anything for certain. Friends and family eagerly awaited the ship’s return in St. Joseph. All ports along the southwest coast of Michigan were alerted to be on the lookout for the doomed Chicora. Even Captain Stines’s brother, Henry, was in his steamer City of Ludington, searching desperately.

When the first bits of wreckage started to wash ashore at Saugatuck and farther north, people knew that the Chicora had met its match. Pieces of the ship, and even furniture, started to appear. A search party was formed and, along with other ships, combed the waters and the shore, but no bodies were ever found. According to the Great Lakes Journal from 1919, a skeleton hand was found hanging onto a hat with the initials “G&M” years later. G&M stood for the Chicora’s company owners, Graham and Morton Transportation Co, but no one knew if the skeleton story was true or just a legend.

To this day, the Chicora is one of Lake Michigan’s biggest mysteries when it comes to shipwrecks. Rumors circulated during the month after its sinking that a floating hull was found, with crewmembers of the Chicora alive and clinging for their lives to the battered wood. According to the Michigan Shipwrecks website:

During the first week in February, a Chicago-based tug reported sighting a hulk floating on the open water with crew members still alive! W.J. Hancock, regular clerk of the Chicora who missed the sailing, was sent to the southern part of the lake to investigate. After renting a tug he reported seeing only a dark iceberg covered with seagulls.

All kinds of crazy stories started to be told about the disappearance of the Chicora. Two of the most intriguing ones were of bottles found with messages inside from the crew of the cursed ship. On April 14, a bottle came ashore with a message reading, “All is lost, could see land if not snowed and blowed. Engine give out, drifting to shore in ice. Captain and clerk are swept off. We have a hard time of it. 10:15 o’clock.” A week later, a second bottle washed up in Glencoe, Illinois, with a small note written on notebook paper that read, “Chicora engines broke. Drifted into trough of sea. We have lost all hope. She has gone to pieces. Good bye. McClure, Engineer.” People speculate whether the notes were real or just a hoax, but either way, they are a creepy reminder of what the crew went through. At least twenty-three men went down with the ship, and no bodies were ever found. It is believed that they still man the Chicora, now part of another realm, appearing to other ships to warn them of dangers to come.