“Washington Island’s Veteran Sailor Carl Richter Has Many Tales to Tell” from the September 22, 1960 Door County Advocate
Washington Island’s Veteran Sailor Carl Richter Has Many Tales to Tell
Sarah Magnusson, Corres.
WASHINGTON ISLAND — Carl G. Richter was born Aug. 1, 1871 at Washington Harbor, the son of Jacob Richter and Mary Kalmbach Richter. He has earned his living on the water since he happened into his first sailing job at the age of 16. It was when Ole Christiansen with the Laurel was at Gislason’s dock loading cordwood for Milwaukee and was in need of a cook. Carl came up and was hired on the spot. “I knew very little about cooking, but they were in a hurry to get started, so my mother tried to teach me while I was packing my turkey (sailor’s sack). She told me how to make pancakes and such stuff. I was cook all that season, and I remember the pay was $20 a month.”
The crew of a sailing vessel had to memorize the location and function of each part of the rigging so thoroughly that they could find the right rope instantly even on a pitch black night in a howling gale. Their lives might depend on it. Once learned, this knowledge is not soon forgotten. Carl thinks to this day, although it has been many years he since he left the old schooners, he could walk blindfold along the deck and name each line correctly.
We asked how they got along without radio weather reports. “All we did was, each boat had its own “glass” on board and we watched that. They had made a mark on it to show how low it had gone before a bad storm, and if it started getting near that mark we made for shelter. Of course, you could tell if a squall was coming by watching the clouds. These things were all we had to go by.” That this was not always enough is borne out by the following story.
“One fall a few years after I started sailing (I was mate) we loaded up with cordwood for our last trip to Milwaukee to bring in all the winter supplies for Gislason’s general store. We got as far as Cana Island but the sky looked bad so we came all the way back and anchored out by the gas buoy. The others went ashore but the cook and I decided to stay on board. During the night it blew a living gale from the west. The fluke broke off the anchor and we went aground on Detroit Island. The load of cordwood was strewn all along the beach and the cook and I were on board two days and nights before we could get ashore.”
Did he recall any other storms and shipwrecks? “One I won’t forget was on the 18th of May in ’94. It blew 72 miles an hour out of the nor-northeast. I was mate on the Iris. We came into Milwaukee the next day and outside the old breakwater was the Cummings with just her spars above water and her crew of seven, including the woman cook, frozen to death in the rigging. They had climbed up and tied themselves there during the storm when the cabin went under water. During the night it had turned cold and snowed, and the Coast Guard hadn’t been able to get out to them because of the seas.
“In that same storm the C. C. Barnes went aground, loaded with iron ore and coal, near the roller mills on Milwaukee’s South Side. She was a big schooner, drew 18 foot of water, but she was blown up so high and dry that the next day you could walk clear around her without rubbers on.”
Carl quit sailing in ’95, and for the next 35 years, except in ’17 and ’18, when he was on ore carriers, he was a commercial fisherman, migrating from Washington Island to Algoma, Kewaunee, or Sturgeon Bay with the seasons, with whatever man had hired him. In 1905 he married Margaret Gudmundsen (Maggie). They have two sons, Paul of Escanaba, Arni, who runs the ferry line since his father retired in 1953, two daughters, Estelle of Denver and Margaret of Sturgeon Bay. Evelyn, the youngest daughter, died in February, 1960.
CARL RICHTER is steeped in the sea, still follows marine activities with great interest. From his kitchen window on Washington Island he can watch boats come and go. He took his first sailing job at the age of 16. —Advocate
Carl and Maggie always enjoyed their children. Ami recalls his father talking to Santa Claus. “In the kitchen there is a cleanout door about a foot wide at the base of the chimney. We children knew that Santa entered that way at Christmas to bring the gifts for our household. Early next morning as we came downstairs we heard our father thanking him loudly, and when we came into the kitchen we could easily believe we saw Santa's coat tails disappearing into that little opening. If I had any doubts, they were swept away when I found a new buggy whip stuck into the chimney.”
Carl also likes an occasional tall story. In the ’40s, (he had given up fishing and was now operating the Island Ferry Line) two of his passengers from Gills Rock to the Island were apparently newcomers to this part of the country.
“When there was a south wind I used to pass by nearer to the bluffs so the passengers could see the interesting scenery. These two were marvelling at how straight those cracks run in the rock formations, and wondering how it had happened. An old fellow near us said, “Didn’t you ever hear about Paul Bunyan? He laid all that stonework,” and turning to me he asked, “Isn’t that right?” So I said, “It surely is, and I ought to know, because I brought all that rock over from Washington Island myself.”
Maggie said to Carl, with a fond smile, “My, but you sometimes do mistreat the truth!”
We asked if he had met many famous people. Well, he once rescued the renowned political economist, Thorstein Veblen. “He was sailing in Detroit Harbor, in the east channel. It was blowing hard from the north. I was standing on shore here and saw him tip over. I couldn’t get help, so I ran along the beach to where a boat was tied, and rowed out to him. It was a good half mile row. I got him out and towed the sailboat along behind and rowed him ashore. He never said a word of thanks, just shook himself and walked away. I’ve been thinking, maybe a smart fellow like him was ashamed of not being able to handle a sailboat."
Carl never claimed to be much of a church-goer, there was no regular church on the Island in those days, although they used to hold Sunday school in their homes, but a friend of his once said, “You can’t tell me that a sailor who watches the stars all night doesn’t have a religion of some sort. He couldn’t help forming a belief.”
One of the incidentals of being a senior citizen is that someone is sure to ask about your philosophy of life. We asked Carl. He laughed and said, “I guess I’ll have to sleep on that one.” “Live and let live?" suggested Maggie. Carl said, “I don’t know, unless it’s work, just work.”
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
Articles by Sarah Magnusson
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Articles which discuss Carl Richter
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