Ahnapee/Algoma and the Christmas Tree Connections

Two Rivers’ Rogers Street Fishing Village has a treasure trove of information with its numerous artifacts from the famed Christmas tree ship Rouse Simons. Christmas Tree Point is found in Algoma and is named in honor of the 52 Christmas tree ship captains known to have passed the Lake Michigan port city. Author-historian Fred Neuschel found that 44% of all Christmas tree ship crew members were from Algoma. Captains such as the Schuenemann brothers, Armstrong, Nelson and Sibilsky were among the illustrious. Others were not quite so well known. Increasing numbers of German immigrants to Milwaukee and Chicago brought a demand for evergreen trees at Christmas, and the ship captains did their best to supply them. November weather is Lake Michigan's worst, but it was the affect on the bottom line made the tree captains feel the risks were worth it.

When Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Schuenemann stepped on to the dock the day they came from Manitowoc to settle in Ahnapee in 1860, first born August was a baby. Other children followed, including Herman, the second Christmas tree captain in the family. August was the first. The boys and their siblings spent their childhoods and beyond in Ahnapee before most of the family moved to Chicago in the 1880s. Though far from Ahnapee, they maintained contact with relatives including their uncle, Herman Bietz.

Herman Schuenemann

It was the golden age of schooners on Lake Michigan. Traffic was so high before 1900 - and for awhile after - that boats were known to come upon ship-wrecked survivors. But it didn’t happen in November 1898 when August and his crew went down with the S. Thal. August had recently purchased the vessel and was taking trees from Sturgeon Bay to Chicago. As rough weather got worse, August made a run for shelter at Manitowoc. Continuing to Chicago when the weather died down, the Thal again met severe weather about 30 miles north of the city. As winds pushed the boat toward shore, Schuenemann tried to get the vessel farther out into the lake while flying distress signal flags which were seen though not reported.  All were lost when the boat went down. By then the Schuenemann brothers were living in Chicago where Herman had stayed with his wife who had recently given birth to twins Pearl and Hazel. Had Herman been with August that fateful day - as he would have been without the new babies - the rest of the story would have never happened.

August was gone but the Schuenemann tradition continued without interruption and loads of Christmas trees were taken to Chicago from northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. That last trip of the year often provided more income than a season of sailing and the additional money meant repairs to the old wooden boats.

There was a romance in a ship loaded with Christmas trees coming into port to be met by throngs of excited people.  With his whiskers, stature and sparkling eyes, Herman added to that romance presenting an image fitting Clement Moore’s description of jolly old St. Nick.  And, Herman was a generous man who also knew how to market himself. Dubbed “Captain Santa,” Herman was a Chicago favorite. Income from the last voyages was dwindling and in early November 1911, Herman told reporters that interest in the trees was waning.  That year his cargoes held 27,000 trees while a year earlier the city was supplied with 150,000 trees, though not all his. He figured 100,000 trees would meet the needs in 1911. What happened? It was partially the railroad, and tree farms were coming into vogue.

When Herman’s Rouse Simons left Thompson, Michigan that 1912 November day, many looked at the sky and wondered why he was leaving. It was said that even the rats ran off the ship in the brewing storm, however Herman felt he could outrun it. His crew would have been light as at least one crew member also took off.  

Kewaunee Station 1909

This blogger’s ancestors were in school with the Schuenemann kids and the families attended St. Paul’s Church together. Farming along the lake as they did, how many times did my grandparents see the Christmas tree ships go past? When the Rouse Simons was off Kewaunee that 1912 day, she was seen and known to be in distress. Grandpa’s first cousin Nelson Craite was the Kewaunee lighthouse keeper. There was a valiant rescue attempt but the seas were too rough and the life-saving crew was powerless. Kewaunee Station called Two Rivers to be on the lookout. Joe Dionne, another first cousin, had been reassigned to Sheboygan sometime before. In his place was Capt. George Sogge, a man with ties to Algoma. When Joe was interviewed after it was known the Simons was lost, he said conditions on Lake Michigan were bad as he’d ever seen them.

The Rouse Simons went down before it reached Two Rivers, but where?. Over the years trees washed up along the shore and eventually a “farewell” note in a bottle was found washed ashore near Sheboygan. It took 49 years for the boat to be found by diver Kent Bellrichard, and somewhat by accident. Bellrichard was diving to a wreck, but he never expected it to be the Rouse Simons.

When the boat failed to reach Chicago on schedule, Barbara Schuenemann and her daughters were concerned, though in storms captains made for the safety of a port and stayed until the storm blew itself out. It didn’t happen that time. Captain Santa was gone and greatly missed, though his spirit remained. Barbara and the  girls, Elsie, Pearl and Hazel, took over supplying trees and greens to the folks in Chicago. In November 1916 - four years after Herman went down - the paper mentioned Barbara loading her new schooner with trees in Schoolcraft Co., Michigan. Barbara, then being called the “Christmas Queen,” worked with one daughter to scour the woods of the U.P.  Another daughter remained in Chicago to handle sales.

In February 1950, papers announced the death of 56 year old Elsie Schuenemann Roberts, the Schuenemanns’ eldest daughter who carried on. It was said she was called “Elsie, the Christmas wreath girl” as she was the holly wreath supervisor, but there were also times that Elsie skippered the boat. At Elsie’s death, her twin sisters Pearl Ehlign and Hazel Gronemann were still living in Chicago.

Over the years other stories have added to the Schuenemann Christmas lore, but not all are true. One story dates to December 1873 when, as the tale goes, Herman was aboard Capt. Johnny Doak’s Ella Doak as it hurled itself against the fierce winds and waves to jump the sandbar to enter the Ahnapee River. The little bark did get into the river, a feat thought to be nearly impossible. It was said Johnny and his crew of Herman, Orange Conger, Sea Star Sibilsky, Alec Doak and Charles Nelson sailed in that ferocious weather to get home in time for Christmas dinner. When George Wing told the story, he said the feat was miraculous. However, Wing was the 16 year old editor of the young Ahnapee Record when he wrote about the event for the first time in July 1873. Writing his historical memoirs 30 or 40 years later, he had the Doak jumping the bar on Christmas Day. It’s a great story and so well written that one is freezing in the wind and cold just reading it. But it didn’t happen that way. Years later when articles said Herman Schuenemann was on the Doak for the Christmas miracle, it wasn’t true. Quite possibly if there was a Schuenemann aboard, it was August who was several years older than Herman, however August is not recorded as being on that boat either. Frederick and Louisa Schuenemann were against their sons going to sea and it is doubtful that 7 or 8 year old Herman could have gone against his parents’ wishes in 1873. Capt. Doak had an exceptionally fine crew; he didn’t need a kid.

A humorous Algoma connection to Christmas and the lake extends to the visits of the schooner Reindeer which serviced the lake ports picking up bones to be taken to city soap factories. By 1959, Algoma had another Christmas tree connection. Manitowoc’s Jerry Waak approached a relative, Algoma’s Maynard Feld, with an idea. Jerry’s Aluminum Specialty Company wanted to manufacture aluminum Christmas trees and he wanted Maynard’s Algoma Dowel Co. to supply the tree trunks. Christmas was in the air all year. Joe Schmidt, Frank Weisner, Melvin Keller, the Haegele brothers and Wally Englebert were a few of the men running the rod machines which formed dowels from strips of lumber. The dowels were sawn into the appropriate lengths by Aggie Langer, Elsie Schmidt, Gloria Zak and Jerry Vandertie. Munchkins – part-time teenage employees – drilled holes into the sections, allowing them to be pinned together to form the trunk as tall as desired. AlSpeCo, as the Manitowoc company was called, sprayed the trunks silver before drilling holes at intervals all around from top to bottom. Aluminum branches fitted into the holes formed the tree. When Christmas was over, the tree was easily taken apart and neatly stored in a remarkably small box to be kept for the following year.

The aluminum trees started as silver trees. Then there were gold or pink among the purchasing choices. Trees revolved. Then came the plates with blue, green, red and yellow sections. The plate revolved with the tree and as the plate passed over an upward-shining spotlight, the revolving tree turned colors. The aluminum Christmas trees were a fad far from the green trees brought by the tree captains, the trees farmers cut in their woodlots or city folks bought on a street corner. A little less than 100 years after the Christmas tree ship captains made an economic impact on Ahnapee/Algoma, aluminum Christmas trees were making an impact of their own.

One can only imagine what the Christmas tree captains of over 100 years ago would think seeing today’s artificial trees or the perfectly formed and shaped real trees coming from the tree farms. What comes next?

Wisconsin Historical Society Museum has had displays of Aluminum Specialty Co. trees, aluminum wreaths and more. Rochelle Pennington has written a marvelous book – and a children’s book – about Capt. Schuenemann. Fred Neuschel tells the stories of Schuenemann and all the captains coming from Ahnapee and Virginia Johnson tells the story of the growth of Ahnapee from its beginnings as Wolf River to 1897 when the place was renamed Algoma. Hans Nell and Wes Cox tell the stories of the Schuenemann family in their award-winning Algoma House Histories. Rogers Street Fishing Village in Two Rivers is a wonderful summer destination. So is Algoma.

Captain Armstrong’s great-granddaughter Nancy gifted a bench to the city. One can sit on the bench, gazing from Christmas Tree Point out into the lake imagining a time that was. The view has changed a bit. The old piers were there during the heyday of the Christmas tree ships, but in the early days there was no lighthouse. There were range markers. Schuenemann began spotting Algoma’s old lighthouse (left) in 1898. It was much like the one that can be entered at Rogers Street, though considerably larger. 

It’s been nearly 100 years since the last tree ship sailed south, but the romantic history of a time that was remains.