Very shortly before the founding of the Naval Academy, there was built at Pittsburgh for the Government a small iron gunboat. She was named the Michigan and intended for service on the Great Lakes. To most people (count me in), statistics are never very interesting, so I will only say, briefly, that she was launched in 1844, that she was a paddle-wheel steamer of 685 tons displacement, with a mean length of 165 feet, beam twenty-seven feet and draft nine feet, that she was barkentine rigged, and that she was armed with six howitzers. Mar¬velous to relate, her complete cost was only $165,000.00.
I served in this craft some nine lustrums ago and was then told by one of the old-timers on board that, though built in Pittsburgh, she had been shipped by sections to Cleveland and there put together and launched. A somewhat hasty search through docu¬ments in the Naval Academy Library neither confirms nor con¬tradicts this statement, but I believe it true, for the alternative would have been a long and roundabout cruise via the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers, the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, the St. Lawrence River, and Lake Ontario, and when the ship had reached the western end of the last named body of water, her paddle wheels would have had to be removed before she could pass through the Welland Canal and thus reach Lake Erie. At any rate she was on that body of water in 1844, and Erie, Pa., was made her “home port.” For a great many years, she wintered in Erie and in summer cruised the lakes, from Buffalo at the foot of Lake Erie, on the east, to Duluth at the head of Lake Superior, on the west, visiting all of the larger American ports and many of the smaller ones, as well as a few on the Canadian side. I understand, however, that of late years her cruis¬ing has not been so extensive.
Having cruised the “unsalted seas” for sixty years as the Michigan, the Navy Department, in 1905, took occasion to “rob her of her good name.” The names of the states were wanted for the new battleships, and the dignified name of “Michigan” was given to one of them, while the gunboat became the more commonplace Wolverine.
With two fellow ensigns , I reported for duty on board the Michigan in July, 1877, and remained attached to her till the end of October, 1879. All three of us were much pleased with this detail, as the duty had always been considered very desirable and moreover it put us in the wardroom, a pleasant situation that did not fall to the lot of the vast majority of ensigns in those days.
I think it will be convenient to divide the Michigan’s year into two periods—the stationary period and the cruising period. The former began in November when the ship was securely moored to her dock in Erie and stripped to her lower masts; then the portable roofing was broken out of the store house and the ship housed in, after which several stoves were set up, which, with the regular heaters below, generally furnished a fairly com¬fortable temperature.
Then set in a period of masterly inactivity. The crew, which numbe.t Tc about one hundred, were, almost without exception, reliable, well-behaved men, many of whom served enlistment after enlistment on board the ship, a considerable number being married and having their families in Erie. It was, therefore, a matter of course that the watches should alternate with a day on board and a day ashore. One man who was asked the question as to what he was doing now by an acquaintance that he had evidently not seen for some time, was heard to reply, “I work on board the Michigan!”
As with the crew, so with the officers, most of the married ones joining their families in rented houses, while the few others established themselves in the old Reid House, then Erie’s principal hotel. Immediately on going into winter quarters, watch stand¬ing ceased and the watch officers were allowed to go into day’s duty. This gave each a day on and either two or three days off, according to the number available.
The routine of the day required everybody to be on board for quarters at 9:30 in the morning, after which came a drill of some kind, followed by a period of chitchat in the wardroom. By 12:30 all the officers except the one who had the day’s duty had taken their departure, and the watch entitled to liberty started as soon as dinner was over. Officers’ messes were broken up, the meals for the officer having the day’s duty being brought to him from the hotel by a wardroom mess attendant who trans-ported them in a huge patent tin affair that really kept the food fairly hot. This officer had many lonely hours, for visitors were few and there was usually little on board to demand his atten¬tion. The commanding officer2 did all he could to ameliorate the situation: he permitted us the use of his comfortable cabin whenever he, himself, was not on board, and he made the very liberal interpretation that the officer whose duty it was, would be considered “on board” as long as he was in sight of the ship. We were thus allowed to go skating in the vicinity of the ship or to take the ship’s ice-boat out for a spin.
This privilege proved fatal a few years later to that fine fellow Tom Plunkett, of the class of 1871. Being out skating one day, he got onto some newly formed ice where ice cutters had recently been at work, and breaking through, was drowned.
Erie, in my time, was a modest place compared to the big, bustling city it has since become; there were no movies, of course, and really good theatrical companies appeared in the town only at rare intervals. The people were most hospitable and took a more than ordinary interest in the Navy, for during the long succession of officers attached to the ship, not a few had married Erie young ladies.
The winter climate was not the best in the world. State Street, the principal business thoroughfare of Erie, terminates in a long hill, at the foot of which the Michigan was moored. This hill was considered Erie’s hottest stretch in summer and coldest in winter. In going from our quarters to the ship, we frequently had to encounter an “air” both unusually “nipping” and “eager,” and sometimes had to plough through snow above our knees. When, therefore, the stationary period came to its close, some of us were not sorry.
The cruising period began in early April when the ship came out of winter quarters and preparations were made for the sum¬mer campaign. Then followed a cruise that lasted till November. We were compelled to make leisurely progress, the ship not having the speed of a destroyer; I never but once saw her attain ten knots, and that was in Lake Superior, with a strong wind on the quarter, and all sail set.
During the cruising period, we visited all sorts of cities, towns, and smaller units on the American side, and a few ports on the Canadian, and in nearly all found something to enjoy, of one nature or another. We always made a short call at the Canadian town of Sarnia, which is at the head of the St. Clair River, being opposite our own town of Port Huron. At Sarnia we laid in our wet sea stores, beer, wines and liquors, as well as tobacco, cigars and cigarettes being of good quality and considerably cheaper than on the American side. I remember on one occasion when I was going around with the caterer of our wine mess being shown by a dealer some whiskey that, if bought by the barrel, could be had for sixty cents a gallon. It was real whiskey but new, and we did not think highly of it. But now that “the hydrant-headed monster Prohibition” has come to dwell with us, it would no doubt, in this country, be considered a first class article and command a price many times sixty cents a gallon. Going through the Sault Ste. Marie Canal was always interesting and I remember once admiring two picturesque Indians, in scant costume, that were spearing fish in the rapids of the river near by. The scenery in Lake Superior was particularly beautiful being marred by the hand of man only infrequently and in isolated spots. Then, too, the climate was most bracing. As I remember, although it was mid-summer, we frequently found it expedient to sleep under two blankets. I have in mind some excellent fishing that we enjoyed on one of the shoals near the Apostle Islands (so called because they number twelve). The only disagreeable Lake Su¬perior experience that I recall was on an occasion when we were caught for several hours in a dense smoke from a burning forest. We were debating the expediency of starting all hands singing the Lux Benigna when we ran out of the “encircling gloom.” But all cruises must have an end and by early Novem¬ber we found ourselves back in Erie getting ready for another winter.
One or two of the personnel of the Michigan, I recall with unusual clearness. The first is Mr. Murphy, the pilot. The ship in her cruises was very rarely out of sight of land and then only for brief intervals. Therefore, there was never any regular navigator attached to her. Instead, the Navy Department al¬lowed her two pilots, employed by the year at (I think) $1,200.00 each. Mr. Murphy was one of these, and a fine old Irish speci¬men of nature’s nobleman he was. All the years of his active life, except the Civil War years, he spent in the Michigan. When the Civil War broke out, he went “below” (as salt water was known locally) and served with Jouett in the Metacomet, re¬turning to his old job on board the Michigan right after the war. A short time after I joined the Michigan and before I knew any-thing about his previous service, I one day asked him how long he had been in the ship. His reply was, “Why, sir, I cooked the first day’s grub of vittles that was ever et in this ship!” This was true. When the ship was first commissioned, he was the ship’s cook, and became, successively, seaman, boatswain’s mate, and quarter master, and while holding the last named rate, he used his eyes to such good advantage that he was able to qualify as a pilot. He held this position in the Michigan for many years and finally, when too old for further seafaring, the influence of Admiral Jouett and some other senior officers with whom he had served, was sufficient to get him warranted as boatswain. He was soon thereafter retired with sufficient income to keep him in comfort for his remaining years.
Angus Johnston, captain of the forecastle, dwells vividly in my mind. One day when Lieutenant “Jimmie” Kelley—well known in his time throughout the service—had the duty, some work had to be done forward and he sent for Johnston to come aft to re¬ceive the necessary directions. Soon Johnston appeared at the mast. He was a Scotchman and had been a deep-sea sailor for many years. He was probably the oldest man on board and his years must have been over sixty. He was stockily built and the two most striking characteristics of his weather beaten coun¬tenance were his eyes, large and blue, and his mustache, of the walrus type that grows out very little and down very much. Kelley, having given the necessary directions, ended by asking Johnston to give his idea as to what constituted a good seaman
His reply was, “One that can hand, reef, and steer, heave a proper lead, keep a good anchor watch in a bad roadstead, and replace a spar when it don’t say how in the books.” We thought that a good definition then, but it would doubtless be archaic now when the naval seaman—if there be such a thing—must very likely be a sabe todos, with a smattering knowledge of aeronautics, destroyers, submarines, modern torpedoes, radio and many other novelties unknown fifty years ago.
Of the eighteen commissioned officers attached to the Mich¬igan during my tour, only one,3 besides myself, still survives;
They lived their lives, they had their day,
And time and tide have swept them away.
And we two “remainders” have in the race of life, brought buoy No. 70 perceptibly abaft the beam.
With pleasure I look back—and it seems far back—on my years in the Michigan; I doubt if they could be duplicated in the present age of drive, and complexity and rivalry. The old ship —I wish she had the old name—is, after eighty years of service, still “a going concern,” and still stationed at Erie, where she is used for training reservists. She bids fair to out-distance Dr. Holmes’s “wonderful one horse shay.”
1 The late Lieutenant Commander W. H. Schuetze, and the late Rear Admiral J. M. Bowyer, one time Superintendent of the Naval Academy.
2 The late Commander G. W. Hayward
3 Commander W. M. Irwin, Retired.
Wolverine Nee Michigan—A Bit of the Old Navy
By Commodore E. B. Underwood, U. S. Navy, Retired