Lady Elgin

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One of the most terrible disasters in the history of the Great Lakes – the loss of the excursion steamer Lady Elgin of Chicago along with 297 of the 393 persons aboard. On 8 September 1860, the steamer collided with the 126 foot schooner Augusta which was just launched five years earlier and was considered one of the finest and largest ever built in Oswego.

The statement of Mr. Carryl, the clerk of the Lady Elgin, given in his own words as follows, details succinctly the disaster:

“The steamer Lady Elgin left the harbor of Chicago at half-past eleven o’clock on Friday evening last, for a pleasure excursion to Lake Superior. There were about two hundred and fifty excursionists from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on board, and among them the Union Guard of that city. About half-past two o’clock this (Saturday) morning, the schooner Augusta, of Oswego, collided with the steamer when she was about thirty-five miles from Chicago and ten miles from land. The collision took place at the midships gangway and on the larboard side of the steamer. The two vessels separated immediately afterwards, and the schooner, having her sails set and the wind blowing freshly, drifted from the steamer very soon. When the collision occurred there were music and dancing going forward in the principal cabin. Instantly after the crash of collision both ceased, and the steamer sank half an hour after. “

One of the heroes was Edward W. Spencer, a student at the Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston. At great risk to himself he swam back and forth between the wreckage and the shore. In all he is credited with saving 18 people after which he became delirious, repeatedly asking “Did I do my best?” He was allegedly confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life and was the impetus for the establishment of the Evanston, Illinois US Lifesaving Station which was henceforth manned by NWU students. A plaque in his honor at a Northwestern University gymnasium commemorates his heroic effort.

The captain of the Lady Elgin, John Wilson, survived for many hours on a raft on which he had gathered twenty-four passengers. He went from one to another, encouraging and assisting them, but one by one they were washed away and drowned. Only eight of the twenty-five finally were saved, and the exhausted captain was not among them. He was lost trying to save two women from the surf when he was dashed on the rocks and killed just off shore. His body was not found until three days later when it came ashore at Michigan City, Indiana, some 60 miles away. The captain was well known for his good qualities as a warm friend, a good sailor and an honest man.

The schooner which collided with the ill-fated Lady Elgin had her name changed from Augusta to Colonel Cook, by act of Congress, on February, 1861, and now goes forth to try a larger sea than Lake Michigan. The schooner Colonel Cook, piloted by Capt. Humphrey, cleared from Milwaukee for Liverpool with a cargo of 15,000 bu. wheat and 5,000 ft. of lumber. We hope she may have a prosperous voyage, steer clear of all dangerous craft, and be sold out to good advantage on the other side of the salt pond.

The Lady Elgin was a double decked wooden sidewheel steamer built at Buffalo, New York in 1851 by the well know ship chandlers Bidwell, Banta and Co. for Aaron D. Patchin and Gillman D. Appleby of Buffalo. She was named for the wife of Lord Elgin, the Governor General of Canada, and measured 252 ft. long by 33.7 ft. wide and 14.3 ft. deep. She carried 1037 gross tons beneath her decks and her steam engine sported a 54 inch cylinder with an 11 foot stroke that powered two 32 foot paddlewheels. The ship was built of white oak with frames with iron reinforcements to carry 200 cabin passengers, 100 deck passengers, 43 crew and 800 tons of freight and subsequently would have been somewhat overloaded the night of her loss. She was one of the larger steamers on the lakes and was very popular due to her luxurious accommodations and quick speed. She had been built to run between Buffalo, New York and Chicago, Illinois but had later been used to take excursionists through the new Soo Locks to the Lake Superior wilderness.

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Henry C. Works wrote a song in 1861 about the fate of the steamer in a song named “The Lady Elgin.”

Up from the poor man’s cottage, forth from the mansion door;
Sweeping across the waters and echoing ‘long the shore,
Caught by the morning breezes, Borne on the evening gale;
Cometh a voice of mourning, a sad and solemn wail.

chorus: Lost on the Lady Elgin! Sleeping to wake no more!
Number’d in that three hundred, who failed to reach the shore.

Oh! ‘Tis the cry of children
Weeping for parents gone;
Children who slept at evening
But orphans awoke at dawn.
Sisters for brother weeping,
Husbands for missing wives —
Such are the ties dissever’d
With those three hundred lives.

chorus: Lost on the Lady Elgin! Sleeping to wake no more!
Number’d in that three hundred, who failed to reach the shore.:

Staunch was the noble steamer,
Precious the freight she bore;
Gaily she loosed her cables,
A few short hours before.
Grandly she swept our harbor,
Joyfully rang her bell;
Little thought we e’er morning
‘Twould toll so sad a knell.

chorus: Lost on the Lady Elgin! Sleeping to wake no more!
Number’d in that three hundred, who failed to reach the shore.

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Four years after the disaster, a new rule required sailing vessels to carry running lights. The Lady Elgin disaster remains the greatest loss of life on open water in the history of the Great Lakes

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The wreck of the Lady Elgin (know as the “Titanic of the Great Lakes”) was discovered in 1989 off Highwood, Illinois by Harry Zych, who was awarded ownership in 1999 after a protracted legal battle. The wreck, consisting of four main debris fields lying in 50 and 60 feet of water, has been stripped of artifacts through the years. Divers must obtain permission from Harry Zych and the Lady Elgin Foundation, and are expected to observe the preservation laws governing historic sites. The wreck site has been cataloged by the Underwater Archaeological Society of Chicago. The Lady Elgin shipwreck was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

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