Exhibit Recalls Frigid Journeys Of Christmas Tree Ships

December 21, 1990|By Steve Dale.

The holiday season wasn`t always a time of cheer for Chicago families. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the arduous journey attempted each year by a fleet of Christmas tree ships made Santa`s trip seem like a breeze. Unlike Santa`s mythical journey, if the breeze turned into a blizzard real lives were lost.

The Chicago Maritime Museum (at North Pier Terminal, Illinois Street and Lake Shore Drive) offers a photographic retrospective with an exhibit called

``The Christmas Tree Ships,`` through Jan. 7.

The exhibit features about two dozen photographs of the Christmas tree ships. Included are several photographs of Herman Schunemann, perhaps the most famous Christmas tree ship captain of all, his family and crew and his most famous ship, the Rouse Simmons.

According to the museum`s director, Barton Updike, Christmas celebrations weren`t very ceremonial until after the Civil War. ``The idea of having Christmas trees, wreaths and other decorations didn`t catch on until the late 1870s,`` he said.

Chicagoans couldn`t hop into their cars and drive out to the nearest Christmas tree farm. Cars weren`t invented yet, and the idea of commercialized Christmas tree farming hadn`t occurred to anyone.

Updike speculates that perhaps some folks living out in the sticks hopped onto their horses, with an ax in hand, and simply cut their own trees. ``But evergreen trees were never common in this area,`` he explains. ``The trees grew in large numbers in Michigan and Wisconsin; it just made sense to somehow ship them in.``

By this time Chicago`s ports were as busy as O`Hare Airport. As early as 1857 boats regularly sailed from Europe straight through to Chicago, making it an international destination. Boating was a top Chicago industry.

By the 1870s, schooners were busy shuttling coal, iron ore, grain and even horses to the Great Lakes region from Chicago. However, as November approached, insurance companies would drop the schooners` coverage until the spring.

``Insuring any schooner to travel in the winter was deemed too big a risk,`` Updike explains.

Traditionally, schooner captains and crew dropped anchor and struggled to find seasonal work for the winter months. That`s until there was a demand for Christmas trees. Some schooner owners rationalized that if any kind of boat could make the frigid journey, theirs could. These schooners-which averaged about 100 feet in length-were considered among the most maneuverable and speedy sailing ships of their day.

``The closest thing these captains had to radar was dead reckoning-navigating with their eyes,`` Updike says. ``The sailors would head to a forest in Wisconsin or Michigan, often to the Upper Peninsula. They usually cut and loaded the trees onto the boats themselves, and with luck they`d return within three weeks.``

By the early 1900s, the Christmas tree boats became a unique Chicago tradition. ``It was a race, of sorts,`` Updike says. ``Ships would compete to get to the dock first for all the publicity that came along with the honor. Journalists from competing papers would wait with telescopes, racing to be the first to announce which boat was the first to arrive.``

Today, most Chicagoans would probably agree that the Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving. ``In the early 1900s, any Chicagoan would unanimously proclaim the start of the season as (when) the first Christmas tree ship arrived,`` Updike says.

The boats would dock along the river and the trees would sell out quickly. Updike says the trees sold for 75 cents to $1.

``These certainly weren`t romantic voyages,`` Updike says. ``The truth is that many boats were lost at sea. And without insurance, the families of the schooner owner and crew lost everything.``

Updike explains that Herman Schunemann was a local celebrity in the early 1900s. ``He wasn`t a rich man, just a working family man,`` he adds. ``The schooner owners weren`t wealthy.``

On Nov. 25, 1913, Schunemann began his annual Christmas tree journey in the Rouse Simmons. It was an easy, uneventful trip, reaching his destination off the coast of Michigan`s lower peninsula.

But the return jaunt wasn`t as expeditious. A massive blizzard reportedly drove the Rouse Simmons off course, according to sightings reportedly made by other schooners.

Weeks passed, and the Rouse Simmons still hadn`t returned to Chicago. Meanwhile, there were several unconfirmed reports from small coastal towns in Wisconsin of having sighted the beleaguered boat.

``Finally, a bottle was washed ashore at Sheboygan, Wis.-if you believe this apocryphal tale,`` Updike says. ``Inside the bottle was a page from the ship`s log written by Schunemann, explaining the condition of his doomed ship.``