Wreck of the George W. Holt
By James Donahue
The schooner-barge George W. Holt was a modest 23-year-old wooden vessel when it wrecked on a reef off Port Austin, Michigan, while racing for the harbor in a Lake Huron gale. It happened on July 19, 1880 after the Holt broke away from a tow behind the steamer Iron Age.
Fortunately, the skipper, Captain B. R. Hoose, seven other sailors, his wife and two other women got safely to the Port Austin lighthouse on the ship’s yawl. There they waited out the storm before reaching shore.
The 137-foot two-masted Holt was heavily laden with iron ore, under tow with two other ore-laden barges behind the steamer when the tow-line parted in the gale. The vessels were all bound from Marquette to the Detroit Iron Co. of Hamtramck when the problem developed at about 2 p.m.
Captain Hoose set sail for Port Austin, which was about eight miles to the southwest. But she was bucking a wind blowing fresh from the southeast and in a short time the old wooden hull began leaking. The Holt was sailing west by north, in an attempt to avoid the reef and defy the wind to make the safety of the harbor. But luck was against the ship that day. At a critical moment, the wind shifted to the east and blew a gale, driving the schooner hard on the reef. It was not long before the ship began breaking up and the crew was battling for their lives in the yawl boat.
The only casualty that day was the captain’s wife, who suffered a dislocated arm while she was being lifted to the lighthouse pier.
The Holt was launched at Buffalo in 1857. The ship sprang a leak and sank at Grand Island in 1870 but was raised and repaired. Two sailors on the Holt, William Olson and Harry Chase, died when they were swept overboard while lashing down a sail on the jib-boom in a gale on Lake Erie in 1863.
The schooner had been only recently purchased by Nettie Hoose, daughter of the captain, after going through the thorough refitting at Detroit.
By James Donahue
The schooner-barge George W. Holt was a modest 23-year-old wooden vessel when it wrecked on a reef off Port Austin, Michigan, while racing for the harbor in a Lake Huron gale. It happened on July 19, 1880 after the Holt broke away from a tow behind the steamer Iron Age.
Fortunately, the skipper, Captain B. R. Hoose, seven other sailors, his wife and two other women got safely to the Port Austin lighthouse on the ship’s yawl. There they waited out the storm before reaching shore.
The 137-foot two-masted Holt was heavily laden with iron ore, under tow with two other ore-laden barges behind the steamer when the tow-line parted in the gale. The vessels were all bound from Marquette to the Detroit Iron Co. of Hamtramck when the problem developed at about 2 p.m.
Captain Hoose set sail for Port Austin, which was about eight miles to the southwest. But she was bucking a wind blowing fresh from the southeast and in a short time the old wooden hull began leaking. The Holt was sailing west by north, in an attempt to avoid the reef and defy the wind to make the safety of the harbor. But luck was against the ship that day. At a critical moment, the wind shifted to the east and blew a gale, driving the schooner hard on the reef. It was not long before the ship began breaking up and the crew was battling for their lives in the yawl boat.
The only casualty that day was the captain’s wife, who suffered a dislocated arm while she was being lifted to the lighthouse pier.
The Holt was launched at Buffalo in 1857. The ship sprang a leak and sank at Grand Island in 1870 but was raised and repaired. Two sailors on the Holt, William Olson and Harry Chase, died when they were swept overboard while lashing down a sail on the jib-boom in a gale on Lake Erie in 1863.
The schooner had been only recently purchased by Nettie Hoose, daughter of the captain, after going through the thorough refitting at Detroit.