CHICKAMAUGA

By: Capt. Ron Burkhard

Many ships rest on the bottom of Lake Huron and they lay there for many different reasons. Some are very old shipwrecks and some are not that old. As varied as the reasons are for their sinking and their age differences, they also vary greatly in the type of ship they were and their design. SCUBA divers like to dive shipwrecks; but if pressured, most will admit to having a favorite type of shipwreck they like to dive. My wife does not like to dive steel wrecks. But, like her diving friend, Margie McDonald, both prefer beautiful wooden schooners that are mostly intact. I, however, tend to like all shipwrecks and my favorite one is usually the last one I have dove on. The Chickamauga is not an intact or pretty wreck or a very unique wreck. I seldom visit her, but like to dive her for several reasons that I will later explain. We will first examine her history and the events of her sinking. Then, we will make several Scuba dives to explore her.

The Chickamauga was a wooden schooner build in West Bay City, Mi. by Mr. James Davidson. Her first enrollment was issued at Port Huron, Mi. on August 16, 1898, official # 127259. She was 322’ long, 45’ wide, with a hull height of 21.42’. Her gross tonnage was 2,472. I do not know how long she remained in operation as a schooner, but she was being operated as a tow barge when she sank. This was very common during this dominant period of steam power. By this time, steam ships had become powerful and reliable and could tow up to 5 or 6 of these converted schooners. Unlike schooners, steamers were much less dependent on the wind and could be expected to keep a reasonable schedule. This meant more money for the owners. Towing barges behind their steamers added to their profits.

If you mention barges to people today, they likely would think of a wide flat-decked pontoon looking boat. There were ships that looked like that during the Chickamauga’s time period. However, she was not one of them. Like many of her sister barges, she was a converted schooner. They were still beautiful ships. They carried cabins, masts, sails, and standing rigging, although somewhat reduced from their glory days. They still had to be steered while under tow and also be able to fend for themselves if they were cut loose during a storm or if their tow line broke. Their crews varied in size. At the time of her demise, the Chickamauga had a large crew of ten men and one woman.

At 322’, she was one of the largest tow barges on the lakes at the time of her sinking. Her sister ship--Santiago, built by the same man in West Bay City in 1899, was two feet longer. Ironically, she sank a year earlier than the Chickamauga, in deeper water, about 10 miles north of where the Chickamauga now lies. We will make our first SCUBA dive on the Santiago during the summer of 2003.

I have several pictures of the Chickamauga. She sports two masts, fore and aft, a small pilot house forward of an aft cabin, and a white band on the fore and aft outer bulwarks. Her name is displayed in this white band on the port and starboard forward section. An interesting feature on the forecastle is a small smokestack belching black smoke. This was for the steam donkey engine used to assist with lifting work. This feature caused some confusion when I first dove the wreck, which I will explain during the dive. I have also read that she was a double-decked schooner.

On September 13, 1919 the Bay City Times Tribune displayed the following title: Chickamauga Lost : Crew Safe, Vessel founders off Harbor Beach : Built in Bay City. The article went on to say: Harbor Beach, Sept. 13. The wooden barge Chickamauga bound from Escanaba to Cleveland with ore in tow of the steamer Centurion, foundered when less than half mile off Harbor Beach 4:30 am Friday. The crew of ten men and one woman were thrown into the water while trying to launch the lifeboat, which was dashed to pieces by the heavy waves. Just a few minutes before the barge took her plunge all were supplied with life jackets. They managed to keep afloat on wreckage until picked up by the Harbor Beach Coast Guard and the tug James Whalen, which went to the rescue as soon as possible after the vessel distress signal was heard. The crew lost all their private effects and several, including Captain Carl Johnson, were slightly bruised. No one was seriously injured however.

I wanted to do more research on this wreck so I checked the back issues of the Harbor Beach Times—they were missing for 1919. I asked the U.S. Coast Guard’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. for a wreck report. Coast Guard historian Scott T. Price replied “Unfortunately, we do not have any information regarding the shipwreck you are researching. The US Life-Saving Service was merged with the Revenue Cutter Service in 1915 to form the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard did not include wreck reports in its annual reports as the Life-Saving Service had”.

Because the Chickamauga sank in shallow water with the masts standing, and the wreck in general causing a navigational hazard outside the harbor, the wreck was dynamited on October 18, 1919.

The Chickamauga lies about ½ mile NE of the Harbor Beach lighthouse, in 38’ of water. The lat/lon coordinates are 43 50.950 / 82 37.430. When I started SCUBA diving this wreck in the early 1980’s, before I had today’s excellent navigation electronics, we aligned the Edison sign, the water tower, and a church steeple to attempt to find this wreck. I say attempt because I made several dives in the murky water without finding the wreck. I knew I was close, because I did find many small pieces of the wreck blown outward by the dynamite charges. Finally, during a dive, a huge portion of the bow section of the ship appeared out of the gloom. A sizeable section of the forecastle was lying at a 45 deg. angle to the bottom.

One of the hawespipes was lying loose from the hull and it looked like an old time ear trumpet used by the hard of hearing. It measured about 3 feet in diameter. Also, lying on the bottom under a hull section was a dead Salmon. I checked its mouth for free fishing tackle, but found none. My underwater camera was an inexpensive early model and the pictures I took did not turn out well. Part of the blame may have been the poor visibility. During the 1980’s, before the days of the ubiquitous zebra mussel, diving was often a “dive by feel” experience. Several times while descending, it was not possible to see the lake bottom until I ran into it. Despite the damage they cause to the wrecks and my dislike of them, by my experience the mussels have really done much to clarify the water. By comparison, during the late 1990’s, I stood on the bottom next to this wreck and could look up and see the surface of the water more than 30 feet overhead.

Divers like to dive this wreck because of its shallow depth. At less than 40 feet, divers don’t have to worry about decompression, nitrogen narcosis (rapture of the deep), or a rapidly disappearing air supply. You can pretty much dive in and wander around on the bottom for what seems like a whole day. That is, when compared to wrecks over 150 deep. My twin brother, Greg, and my friend, Harold Hein, prefer shallower dives and we have gone out to this wreck several times. Back then, there were still several nice artifacts on the wreck. We saw a steam gage and a brass bearing.

Despite several other dives on this wreck, I never saw the bow section again. This wreck is pretty much flattened on the lake bottom with some big hull sections remaining of the bilge area of the ship. The size of the ship is evident in this wreckage. To me the most impressive image of this wreck appeared as I was swimming along the lake bottom looking for it. Suddenly, a 4-5’ high wall of ship’s planking appeared ahead of me. Inside of this huge rectangular wall of planking was the ships’ cargo of iron ore. Heaps of ore are in and around the wreckage. Toward the stern area, I found ships ribs, hull planking, and a rounded section of the aft area of the ship.

While swimming forward, I came across a small boiler near the front of this wreckage. A converted schooner/tow barge should not have a steam boiler lying in its wreckage. I was confused by this discovery until I saw a photo of the ship showing the smokestack, boiler, and donkey engine near the bow. This is the area where the brass steam gage was found. The bow section I had found during an earlier dive must be close by. However, I have talked to several other divers who have never seen the bow section. Local area diver, Larry Gainor, said he had dove the main body of the ship without every seeing the bow section I described. Hopefully, we can get together and dive the whole shipwreck this summer.

The last reason divers like to visit this wreck is to find treasure. Fishermen lose a lot of tackle on this wreck. I have seen downrigger cables, cannonballs, dodgers, perch rigs, and anchors.

Next time we will visit a wreck that sank during President Grant’s term, and claimed a woman’s life. If you leave Harbor Beach’s harbor at the lighthouse and head NE, you will pass over the wreck of the Chickamauga. Keep going another 6 miles and you will reach the Dunderburg.