“Had to Swim For Their Lives.” from the September 22, 1900 Advocate
Had to Swim For Their Lives.
Hans Hanson, lightkeeper on Plum Island, accompanied by his wife and child, recently spent a few days with their relatives down the bay shore in Sevastopol. They returned home just in time to have a decidedly thrilling experience which was near terminating in leaving Mr. Hanson at the bottom of Lake Michigan. The party landed from the steamer at Detroit Harbor on Monday, the 10th instant, and then crossed to Plum Island in a small boat. On the following day Mr. Hanson and George Cornell, assistant lightkeeper, again went to Detroit Harbor to take home a trunk and other things that had been left behind on the previous trip. While on their return voyage they were struck by the great-storm which swept over this region on that afternoon, and when still at some distance from Plum Island their boat was capsized. They managed to get astride of the keel, and in this position they drifted for about an hour, the big waves threatening every moment to wash them off. So heavy was the accompanying rainstorm that they could see but a short distance in any direction, but fortunately the wind drifted them toward the island. Finding that the boat could not land them on the beach, and that their only hope was in swimming the remainder of the way, they threw off their clothing and plunged into the raging sea. After a hard struggle they reached the shore in an almost exhausted condition, and soon afterward were in the lighthouse, not much the worse, physically, for their terrible adventure.
Had not the direction of the wind been so favorable they must have been carried out into Lake Michigan, in which case they would have inevitably been lost. The rain prevented the life-saving crew from seeing them, and therefore no aid was possible from this source. At our latest advices the trunk had not been recovered, but the boat was picked up by the life-savers and was found to have sustained no serious injury. In the clothing cast off by Mr. Hanson was his watch and $80 in money. Mr. Cornell’s trousers were afterward found on the beach, but no trace of the other clothing has yet been seen, nor is it likely that any of it will be recovered.
Death’s Door, in which Plum Island is situated, has been the scene of many thrilling incidents, and is dangerous enough even in the best of weather, but during such a tempest as that of the 11th instant few who know the place would care to sail in the stanchest of vessels. To navigate it while clinging to the keel of an overturned skiff in a gale of wind, with no land in sight through the rushing rain, with night approaching and a fair prospect of perishing in the darkness, is an experience to fright the soul of the most ancient of mariners. That two landsmen live to tell the tale is only another way of saying that truth is stranger than fiction.
Since the above was written we learn that while the life-savers were patrolling the beach they found a twenty and a ten dollar bill belonging to Mr. Hanson, this money having somehow got out of the pocket in which it had been placed.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[The “11th instant” means the 11th day of the same month this was written in.
“stanchest” was an acceptable spelling at the time.]
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