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The S.S. Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On 24 July 1915 the ship rolled over while tied to a dock in the Chicago River.[1] A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed in what was to become the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.[1][2] Following the disaster, the Eastland was salvaged and sold to the United States Navy. After restorations and modifications the Eastland was designated as a gunboat and renamed the USS Wilmette. She was used primarily as a training vessel on the Great Lakes and was scrapped following World War II.
[edit] ConstructionThe ship was commissioned in 1902 by the Michigan Steamship Company and built by the Jenks Ship Building Company. In April 1903, the ship was named by Mrs. David Reid of South Haven, Michigan. She received a prize of $10 and a one-season pass on the ship. The ship was christened in May, immediately before its inaugural voyage. [edit] Ship history[edit] Early problems The ship soon proved to have design flaws making it susceptible to listing. In effect, it was too top-heavy—its center of gravity was too high, especially when passengers congregated en masse on the upper decks. In July 1903, a case of overcrowding caused the Eastland to list and water to flow up one of its gangplanks. The situation was quickly rectified, but was only the first of many incidents. Later in the month, the stern of the ship was damaged when it backed into the tugboat George W. Gardner. August 1906 saw another incident of listing, that resulted in the filing of complaints against the Chicago-South Haven Line, which had purchased the ship earlier that year. [edit] Mutiny on the EastlandOn 14 August 1903, while on a cruise from Chicago to South Haven, some of the ship's firemen refused to stoke the fire for the ships boiler. They claimed that they had not received their potatoes for a meal.[3] When they refused to return to the fire hole, Captain John Pereue ordered the six men arrested at gun point. Firemen George Lippen and Benjamin Myers, who weren't a part of the group of six, stoked the fires until the ship reached harbor. Upon the ships arrival in South Haven, the six men, Glenn Watson, Mike Davern, Frank La Plarte, Edward Fleming, Mike Smith, and William Madden, were taken to the town jail. Shortly after the mutiny Captain Pereue was replaced.[3] [edit] The Eastland DisasterOn 24 July 1915, the Eastland and two other Great Lakes passenger steamers, the Theodore Roosevelt and the Petoskey, were chartered to take employees from Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana. This was a major event in the lives of the workers, many of whom could not take holidays. Many of the passengers on the Eastland were Czech ("Bohemian") immigrants from Cicero, Illinois. The only surviving picture of the original church building of St. Mary of Częstochowa in Cicero is from the memorial mass commemorating the twenty-nine parishioners who lost their lives in the disaster.   In 1915, the new federal Seaman's Act had been passed because of the RMS Titanic disaster. This required retrofitting of a complete set of lifeboats on the Eastland as on many other passenger vessels.[4] This additional weight, ironically, probably made the Eastland more dangerous and it worsened the already severe problem of being top heavy. Some argued that other Great Lakes ships would suffer from the same problem.[4] Nonetheless, it was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. The Eastland was already so top-heavy that it had special restrictions concerning the number of passengers that could be carried. Prior to that, in June 1914, the Eastland had again changed hands, this time bought by the St. Joseph and Chicago Steamship Company, with Captain Harry Pedersen appointed the ship's master. On the fateful morning, passengers began boarding the Eastland on the south bank of the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle Streets around 6.30 a.m., and by 7:10, the ship had reached its capacity of 2752 passengers. The ship was packed, with many passengers standing on the open upper decks, and began to list slightly to the port side (away from the wharf). The crew attempted to stabilize the ship by admitting water to its ballast tanks, but to little avail. Sometime in the next 15 minutes, perhaps owing to a passing canoe race on the river side of the ship, a number of passengers rushed to the port side, and at 7:28, the Eastland lurched sharply to port and then rolled completely onto its side, coming to rest on the river bottom, which was only 20 feet below the surface. Many other passengers had already moved belowdecks on this relatively cool and damp morning to warm up before the departure. Consequently, hundreds were trapped inside by the water and the sudden rollover; others were crushed by heavy furniture, including pianos, bookcases, and tables. Although the ship was only 20 feet from the wharf, and in spite of the quick response by the crew of a nearby vessel, the Kenosha, which came alongside the hull to allow those stranded on the capsized vessel to leap to safety, a total of 844 passengers and four crew members died in the disaster. Many were young women and children. Writer Jack Woodford witnessed the disaster and gave a first-hand account to the Herald and Examiner, a Chicago newspaper. In his autobiography, Woodford writes:
Many of the bodies were taken to a cold storage warehouse in the vicinity, which has since been transformed into Harpo Studios, the sound stage for The Oprah Winfrey Show.[5] One of the people who was scheduled to be on the Eastland was 20-year-old George Halas. Despite stories to the contrary, there is no reliable evidence that Jack Benny was on board the Eastland or scheduled to be on the excursion; possibly the basis for this report was that the Eastland was a training vessel during World War I and Jack Benny received his training on the Great Lakes naval base, where the Eastland was stationed. [edit] Second life as USS WilmetteAfter the Eastland was raised in October 1915, she was sold to the Illinois Naval Reserve and recommissioned as USS Wilmette stationed at Great Lakes Naval Base. She was converted to a gunboat, renamed Wilmette on 20 February 1918, and commissioned on 20 September 1918 with Captain William B. Wells in command.[6] Commissioned late in World War I, Wilmette saw no combat service. She trained sailors and engaged in normal upkeep and repairs until placed in ordinary at Chicago on 9 July 1919, retaining a 10-man caretaker crew on board. On 29 June 1920 the gunboat was returned to full commission, with Captain Edward A. Evers, USNRF, in command.[6]  On 7 June 1921, the Wilmette was given the task of sinking UC-97, a German U-Boat surrendered to the United States after World War I.[7] The guns of the Wilmette were manned by Gunner's Mate J.O. Sabin, who had fired the first American shell in World War I, and Gunner's Mate A.F. Anderson, the man who fired the first American torpedo in the conflict.[8] For the remainder of her 25-year career, the gunboat served as a training ship for naval reservists in the 9th, 10th, and 11th Naval Districts. She made voyages along the shores of the Great Lakes carrying trainees assigned to her from the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois. Wilmette remained in commission, carrying out her reserve training mission until she was placed "out of commission, in service," on 15 February 1940. Designated IX-29 on 17 February 1941, she resumed training duty at Chicago on 30 March 1942, preparing armed guard crews for duty manning the guns on armed merchantmen. That assignment continued until the end of World War II in Europe obviated measures to protect transatlantic merchant shipping from German U-boats.  During August 1943 the IX-29 was given the honor of transporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Admiral William D. Leahy, James F. Byrnes and Harry Hopkins on a 10 day cruise to McGregor and Whitefish Bay to plan war strategies.[9] On 9 April 1945, she was returned to full commission for a brief interval. Wilmette was decommissioned on 28 November 1945, and her name was struck from the Navy list on 19 December 1945. In 1946, the Wilmette was offered up for sale. Finding no takers, on 31 October 1946, she was sold to the Hyman Michaels Company for scrapping which was completed in 1947.[6] [edit] MemorialsA marker dedicated to the accident was dedicated on 4 June 1989. This marker was reported stolen on 26 April 2000 and a replacement marker was installed and rededicated on 24 July 2003. There are plans for a permanent outdoor exhibit with the proposed name "At The River's Edge". This exhibit would be at the exact location of the disaster.[10] The exhibit will include 6 steel frames for a total of 12 panels. The 12 panels will combine text with high-resolution images to tell the story of the Eastland Disaster. [edit] Notes and references
This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. [edit] See also[edit] External links
[edit] Further reading
Categories: Disasters in Illinois | History of Chicago, Illinois | Conflicts in 1903 | Maritime incidents in 1915 | Mutinies | Shipwrecks in rivers | Shipwrecks in the Great Lakes | Steamships of the United States | United States Navy steamships | United States Navy gunboats | Passenger ships of the United States | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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