1925 - Part 4 - Across the Continent by Motor Boat (with Evinrude Big Twins)

This is Part 4 of the serialized story.  It turns out the publisher put photos out of order in the articles.  Part 3 and this part had photos belonging, logically, in a previous part of the cruise.  I'll put them in here, and also go back and place then where they belong for future readers!  

Don't forget to join AOMCI if you are interested in the early outboards as we have many people who can help you get started exploring this exciting period of outboard technology.

 Soon after we were safely moored in Manistee Harbor. Captain Kincaide and his men sailed away for Milwaukee.  Although the storm had everything off the lake, they could laugh at the weather with that packet of their's which was made to float when every other type of surface craft had run for port, or dived to Davy Jones" locker.

Entrance to Manistee Harbor around 1910

Current satellite view of Manistee

Next morning the wind had abated somewhat.  It was still blowing from the northwest, and the lake was running wild from the lashing received the day before.  When we rounded the breakwater, we decided to attempt the run of twenty-eight miles to Frankfort, in spite of the fact that the surface was but little smoother than the sea that chased us back to Manistee in our previous attempt to make the same route.
Between Manistee and Frankfort there were two harbors we might run into in a pinch - Onekama, ten miles north of Manistee, and Pierport, four miles above Onekama.

North of Pierport there was no possible chance of a landing, except to beach the boat, until we would reach the sheltered harbor of Frankfort.  Arcadia, ten miles south of Frankfort, showed on our charts as a sheltered basin with a 3 foot channel leading into it.  A three foot channel gave promise of being dry in spots between the furious waves that were pounding against the shores of Michigan from the other side of the lake.

Pierport's story is interesting.

When we passed Arcadia, we decided we were fortunate not to be compelled to attempt a landing there.  The lowering of the level of Lake Michigan, and the silting up of the channel into Arcadia Harbor, made it just the same sort of a landing place that any other portion of the beach  would have been.

My reference to the lowering of the lake levels prompts me to venture a few comments on the subject at this point of the story.  The lake levels have gone down alright, and in seeking to account for it the majority of people have looked o further than to see just one obvious cause the Chicago Drainage Canal.  We heard the hue and cry from Racine to Sorel, Quebec, and the arguments against the drainage canal seem to be so firmly entrenched in the public mind that one might as logically argue the failure of the Volstead Law with hidebound prohibitionist.  Far be it from me to praise Chicago's action.  I've already done precisely the opposite in previous paragraphs.  But looking at the situation with an open mind, and with the background of experience having traveled oner the whole water area affected, I believe the Chicago Drainage Canal is only part of the answer.  Certainly the water flowing out through the canal isn't a drop in the bucket compared to the Great lakes.  I don't think the canal could ever take four feet of water off the lakes any more than I could syphon out Los Angeles Harbor with a piece of garden hose.   


We do know the last few years in the Great Lakes watershed have been years of scanty rainfall.We know that the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers have been deepened for navigation; and that rocks, rapids and other obstructions in the St. Lawrence River have been blasted and dredged out. In heaping the blame upon Chicago, every factor that might be a cause or a contributing cause seems to have been overlooked, except the visible one that affords such a convenient scapegoat.  With this handy target for the brickbat of blame to be heaved at, folks seem to have forgotten that natural watersheds have a lot to do with the maintenance of water levels in lakes.  Thus, they have also overlooked the fact that a vast area of the timberland - the natural watershed of the Great Lakes has been ruthlessly destroyed.  That has undoubtedly curtailed the amount of water now flowing into the lakes.

 Stopping the flow of the Drainage Canal certainly would not alter that condition, and I doubt if such an action would restore the lake levels by a single inch in the next ten years.  Until some group of engineers and corps of hydrographers have been assigned to the task of making a study of the subject over a period of years we will remain without authentic data as to just what is becoming of the Great Lakes. 

Meanwhile, Chicago will probably remain the scapegoat, even though it seems the loss of lake water through the Drainage Canal should have been offset by the Volstead Law which curtailed Milwaukee from mixing the water with malt and hops and retailing it in bottles and barrels.

Hmph... this should have been with Part 3.  Shame on the publisher.

If I attempted to describe the pummeling, hammering and dousing that we received in making the run from Manistee to Frankfort, I'd expect to be accused of having too vivid an imagination, or deliberately exaggerating the truth.  But truth is often stranger than fiction.  If anyone ever tried to tell me our peanutty little packet could have weathered the seas we traveled that day - before we actually experienced it - I'd have told them they were crazy as any locoed horse that ever roamed the plains of Chihuahua.

The contortions that Transcontinental went through that morning were utterly indescribable.  Wilton and Woodbury took turns at the wheel while I remained aft to see that our motor power didn't let us down. 

Time without number I couldn't see the sky for the water going over us, and when I found difficulty in trying to keep myself in the boat, I strapped myself to the seat with a couple trunk straps.  Meanwhile, Poor little Spy was as about as miserable a picture as was ever created in dogdom.

No doubt he thought his human companions had gone completely insane, and that the boat he was in outclassed the widest bucking horse that ever kicked the dust of a rodeo.  Whenever he attempted to move about it was only to get thrown down, or slammed violently against some part of the interior part of the boat.  The deck was continually going off and leaving him in the air and occasionally he got bumped so hard that he howled.  If his canine psychology could have been interpreted, I'm sure he'd have reached the conclusion that all the fire departments of a dozen big cities were having fire hose practice with Transcontinental as their target.  Finally he sought refuge under the forward seat and between his master's ankles, and never even came up for air until we reached the quiet waters of Frankfort Harbor.  If any tender hearted person might accuse us of cruelty to an animal by reason of having the dog along, I might add the three human animals got no more enjoyment out of it than did the dog.

We pulled into Frankfort at noon, cold, hungry and drenched to the skin.  A local coal dealer lent us a shed, where we took turns skinning each other out of our wet garments.  Dry clothes from the forepeak, and we adjourned to a restaurant where we all but wore out a waitress with the demand for hot soup.  Lake Michigan, to use a popular slang expression, just about had our goats.  I felt like Edgar Allen Poe when he quoted the raven "nevermore" - under such conditions.  I didn't care if the transcontinental cruise ended right there. All the glory of being the first man across North America with a motor boat wasn't going to amount to much if I had to die a hundred ordinary deaths to get there. 

With a full stomach and dry clothes, I left Wilton and Woodbury strolling on the docks, and walked out on the breakwater to have a look at the lake.  Of all the seething cauldrons of fury I have ever looked at, Lake Michigan that day would have taken all the prizes. I sat down on a portion of the breakwater where the waves couldn't quite get over, and could scarcely believe my eyes that our little boat had actually lived to drive through 28 miles of such seas. 

The more I watched, and thought about it, the more I became convinced that if a man is born to be hanged - he isn't liable to drown.  Then, sitting there, I began to meditate over what queer ideas some men have of pleasure.  I could think of no more comfortable place at that moment, and no place I'd rather be than in the living room of my own home in California.  Had I chosen to do so, I might have been sitting before  a wood fire in an open fireplace at home - reading, smoking my pipe, or just loafing around petting my wife as I'm usually doing when blessed with sufficient intelligence to stay home.  But, there I was out trying to cross North America in a motor boat, a feat that had never been dome, and which the majority of sane people regarded as impossible.  I was half successful, and yet, half defeated; and knowing full well that I'd be condemned if I failed, branded for a fool if I drowned, and with scant praise of financial return if I succeeded. 

After half an hour's effort I gave up all attempts to analyze that trait of a man's make up known as love of adventure:     "All for prominence, so I am told, 

 And a few pieces of yellow filth called gold -" 

Taking another look at the lake, the wind had died down to a gentle zephyr, and the waves were no longer crashing over the breakwater.  I sauntered back to Frankfort, and told Wilton and Woodbury I was ready to shove off again if they felt like taking more punishment.  Twenty minutes later we were heading around the breakwater, heading for Betsie Point.   The sea was still choppy, but nothing like the infuriated jumble of water through which we had pounded all morning.

Point Betsie U.S.C.G. Station

Glen Haven is now an historical village part of
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
An old USCG Life Saving site there, too.

Rounding Betsie Point close to the chore where our charts showed nothing but unobstructed water, we found even calmer water in the great bight known as Betsie Bay. 

By this time South Manitou Island had begun to loom into view twenty five miles away.   Sleeping Bear Point, around which we were heading for the Port of Glen Haven somewhere over the northern horizon.

The lake had quieted down so that we were taking no chances in running a course eight miles off shore across Betsie Bay.  Although
CLARK, the motor we were using, was kicking the lake astern of us at a very good clip, we didn't seem to be getting anywhere. 

But, eventually the Sleeping Bear began to show signs of life by crawling up off the horizon.  This portion of the shore of Michigan is nothing but a wall of sand dunes - dunes that rise in a beautiful sweeping curves from the water's edge, and topped with coniferous trees that struggle for life between the shifting sands and sweeping winds. 

In some places, however the dunes rise almost perpendicularly from the shore of the lake, and with the charts showing deep water right up to the sand walls.

 

By the time we crawled around the end of the Sleeping Bear's nose, all of Lake Michigan's pent-up fury seemed tp have been spent.   The surface flattened out like a pane of glass. There certainly wasn't a trace of ursine carniverousness such as we would have most assuredly have encountered had we attempted to round Sleeping Bear Point during the gale of the morning or the previous day.  Lights were beginning to blink on South Manitou Island, and from several points along the mainland shore when we altered our course to the south and east toward the village of Glen Haven at the lower end of Sleeping Bear Bay.

Pulling up to the pier at Glen Haven we found it a very good place to tie up in calm weather, but no place at all if the lake got the least bit rough.  We tied up temporarily under the pier, and went to a hotel on shore.  After dinner it was decided that Wilton and I would remain at the hotel, while Mr. Woodbury anchored out to sleep aboard the boat.

Early next morning we found a strong off-shore wind blowing.  Wilton and I breakfasted, and then went to the dock where we had to splash stones in the water around Transcontinental before we succeeded in breaking out the Watchman aboard the boat.  Somebody had to stay aboard, so the cameraman and I went aboard, while Val went ashore for his breakfast.  That morning we learned another lesson about Great Lakes weather, and that was that lee shore breezes are just about as bad as open water winds on these notoriously choppy inland fresh water seas.  Shoving off across Sleeping Bear Bay in the direction of Good Harbor Point it was necessary for us to go about four miles off shore for a run of six miles.  Two miles off shore the lake was just about as rough as if the same breeze had been coming straight across from Wisconsin.

Rounding Good Harbor Point we faced a run of twelve miles of open water eight miles off shore, taking the sea half astern and half on our starboard beam.  That run was anything but a picnic, or a tonic for unsteady nerves.  The sea became almost as rough as we had it in the morning before, except the waves were shorter and choppier.  They seemed to be about twelve feet high, and about six feet apart, coming from nowhere in particular, but all fighting each other, and trying to get aboard.

The sea was just enough astern of us to send us continually yawing off our course, and to keep Mr. Woodbury playing an imitation game of roulette at the steering wheel.  We yawed all the way across Good Harbor Bay, and began running for Cat Head Point on a twenty-mile course, that took us about ten miles off shore.  Long before we got there we came to the conclusion that there was a bit more sea running than we had any business being out in.  We were playing hooky from Davey Jones' Locker if we attempted to go on, but there didn't seem to be anything indicated on the chart that looked like a place where we could run for cover.  The village of Leland with a miserable shallow little harbor formed by two wooden breakwaters running out from the estuary of a tiny river, appeared to be our only chance.  We were equipped with a large sea anchor that was fitted with a most ingenious device for spraying oil upon the troubled waters.  With this anchor we knew we could heave to and ride out almost any storm that ever blew, but the shifting of the wind to an inshore breeze vanquished that as a feasible possibility.  If we hove to it would be only a matter of time before we'd be on the beach, and in worse trouble than in the open water.

Leland Harbor

Trying to get into Leland's little duck pond of a harbor seemed to be our only chance, so at two o'clock in the afternoon we altered our course and began heading for Leland.  This put the sea squarely astern of us, compelling us to take te weather upon the part of the boat most vulnerable to swamping, or putting our power plant out of business.  The wind was increasing in violence every minute.  Mountainous waves began spanking us from astern with frothing rooster tails of white water frequently climbing over the motor and coming aboard.  As we yawed along over wave over wave there were times when scarcely any part of the motor except the flywheel was out of the water.  Several times the motor motor sputtered as water was sucked into the carburetor or the ignition parts were doused.  It seemed incredible that any outboard motor could continue to run under such circumstances.  Many times we thought it was going to quit, but it didn't.  It would go almost completely under water as some monstrous wave smote us from astern, and come up sputtering for air.  But, it seemed to have a faculty of shaking the water out of its system somewhat like a dog emerging from a swim. It would miss a few shots, then go on hitting on both cylinders with clocklike regularity as we yawed off down the slope of the wave that all but drowned the motor as we were boosted over.  Running before the sea as we were doing it was evident we were traveling at prodigious speed.  The distance to shore decreased very rapidly, and presently we could make out the dim outline of the Leland breakwater with field glasses.  The use of field glasses under such  circumstances is very difficult.  It was impossible to hold the glasses on any object long enough to catch more than a fleeting glimpse of it.

All this time we were traveling like a surf board over the waves,  When we got within a quarter mile of the shore it was obvious that we were traveling at something like automobile speed.  Of course we almost stood still when we wallowed down between the waves, but as we yawed off down the next slope we'd speed ahead until the motor simply could't hold the pace.  As we slid down the long green slopes the engine would race until it sounded like an electric fan.  In almost less time than it takes to tell it we covered the last quarter of a mile toward the shore.  I took a look at the tiny opening between the two breakwaters with the sea pounding straight into it, waves going completely over the breakwaters, and realized we were going to be lucky if we could hit the hole without crashing.  I backed off on the motor throttle, but when I saw it apparently decreased our steering control, I reasoned our chances were for hitting the opening were best if the motor was given full speed ahead.  With that I gave CLARK all he had, and shouted to Wilton who was at the wheel to steer for as near the middle of the opening as he could possibly go.  The white sand bottom of the lake was flying under us, the tops of the ground swells were tumbling aboard as we bore down upon the narrow channel - seeming at express train speed.

We yawed sideways down a huge swell.  Wilton put the wheel hard over to the right, but the boat refused to change course.  We did the last hundred yards, it seemed, in nothing flat, and were heading almost broadside for the end of the breakwater to the right of the opening.  "Hold her over, Frank - we're not going to make it," I called out to Wilton.  But, the cameraman was holding her over.  He had the wheel over as far as it would go before the boat began to respond, and we shot around the end of the breakwater in a cloud of white spray - missing the end of the rock ballasted piling by no more than six feet.  We touched bottom twice as we shot around in a sweeping circle within ten yards of the beach.  Our bow climbed back through the boiling surf, and in another minute we were heading for the open lake.

Once out in the open lake again we realized we had come within a hairsbreadth margin of ending the transcontinental cruise right there.  Had we struck the breakwater at the speed we were traveling the boat would have gone to pieces like a pane of glass dropped on a concrete sidewalk.  The pieces of the boat and our equipment would have been strewn along the beach, and the chances are that Wilton and Woodbury would have been killed by the impact.  Sitting in the front end of the boat as they were, they'd have been dashed to death, or run through with pieces of lumber just as many an aviator has perished in the crumpled fuselage of a fallen airplane.  Being in the stern of the boat, it is possible that I might have made a long jump, either for the pierhead or the open water.  In any event, six feet closer and out chances would have been uncertain indeed.

Way cool! It DOES look like a cat head!

When we were out in the open water once more the motor was still shooting on both barrels as if it never know how to do anything else.  The lake was still getting rougher, and we were being unmercifully pounded, but anything seemed preferable to a second tampering with the jack pot from which we'd just emerged. 

We cruised on out into the lake trying to decide whether we should attempt to run around Cat Head Point into Northport Bay, beach the boat, or make another try for Leland.  Our chances for getting around Cat Head Point without swamping were decidedly precarious.  If we attempted to beach through the surf that was running, we'd probably damage the boat to be laid up indefinitely for repairs.  On the other hand, getting in between the breakwaters without hitting anything was a possibility.  We decided to try again.

Below: Leland Harbor fishing boats

Although we got into an awful snarl of water where the current from the stream came in contact with the waves, we got through it, scraped bottom two or three times, and began bucking the current to the foot of the hydro-electric plant tail race at the head of the tiny bay.  In another minute we were tied up at the landing barge, with most of the town of Leland waiting to give us a glad hand. Never in my life have I had more respect for any inanimate object than I had for the Evinrude motor of our's at that moment.  That motor had kept going when by all the laws of nature it should have quit.  And, but for the fact it DID keep going,  and the high efficiency of the propeller method of steering, we certainly would not have been on shore with ourselves, boat, and outfit, all intact.

Current harbor configuration

For the rest of that day, and all that night Lake Michigan continued its rampage.  The next morning, however, the wind had died down a bit.  There was still plenty of sea running, but we decided to attempt the run of fifty miles to Petoskey.  We knew we could expect rough going around Cat Head Point, and it seemed doubtful that we might safely cross Grand Traverse Bay.  But, we decided to try it, shoving out of Leland at 8:30 on Sunday morning.  

Having anticipated rough going that day we certainly weren't disappointed.  The wind had shifted around to an off shore breeze again, but as we had to stay out several miles in the lake to keep clear of dangerous reefs, we got all the benefit of the weather quite as if the waves might have been rolling down from the North Peninsula of Michigan.  Our cruise from Leland to off Cat Head Point was a three hour wallow and dousing with the motor running at about half throttle, and the weather squarely upon our starboard beam.  Cat Head Point seemed appropriately named, for when we got there the water in the vicinity was showing feline fury - teeth, claws, hissing hatred, fluffed up fur, and swishing tail; in fact everything that Lake Michigan can do to make its ferocity comparable to that of irate cats, from tom cats and pussy cats to African leopards and Bengal tigers.

Next came Cat Head Bay, another cat-like, treacherous, reef-strewn bight of water, through which we ran for five miles, and about the same distance off shore into Grand Traverse Bay.  Grand Traverse Bay is usually one of two things.  It is a vast pond of mirror-like placidness, or a heaving tumbling mass of trouble for small boats.  Some years ago I spent part of a summer on Grand Traverse Bay, and had learned that no familiarities were to be taken with it.   Thus, when we rounded the corner of Leland County about two o'clock in the afternoon, and found Grand Traverse Bay in anything but a peaceful mood, I had little stomach for attempting to cross that day.  We were then riding more sea than we had any business being out in, and with every indication that it would be much worse before we could reach the shores that were barely in sight on the other side of the bay.  We decided to run into Northport, a summer resort town on Northport Bay.

Leaving Northport early Monday morning, August  twenty-fourth, we found a very gentle north wind blowing, clear skies, and every indication favorable for getting across Grand Traverse Bay.   Shoving off at 7:30 we slid through about five miles of glassy smoothness out of Northport Bay, and go well out into Grand Traverse Bay before we began to encounter any appreciable roughness.  Then the gentle ripples began to assume the proportions of choppy little waves, which gradually increased in size until we encountered what might be termed average English Channel weather.  Taking the weather quartering on our starboard beam and astern, we wallowed and flopped along on a yawing course for Fisherman's Island, a little snag of land sticking up out of the bay about ten miles south of Charlevoix.

At noon we poked the nose of Transcontinental between the Charlevoix Harbor pierheads, and put-putted up the channel to the United States Coast Guard Station.  Leaving the boat there in care of Captain Partridge, commander of the station, we went uptown for lunch.

Library of Congress image of Charlevoix Harbor around 1900

Returning to the station, Captain Partridge suggested that we take the inland route across the end of Southern Michigan Peninsula from Petoskey to Lake Huron at Cheboygan.  We had heard of this route by way of Crooked Lake, Crooked River, Burt Lake, Indian River, Mullet Lake, and the Cheboygan River, but could gain no authentic information concerning it.  If we could get through by this route, it looked particularly attractive, because from Petoskey to the Straits of Mackinac we faced nothing but open water, together with runs of 40 miles, 20 miles offshore, to clear the line of reefs extending from Waugoshance Point almost to Hog Island.  I decided to phone the secretary of the Petoskey Chamber of Commerce, and in a very few minutes obtained the information that we could get through the inland water route except for a three mile stretch at the Lake Michigan end.

The familiar accusation that Chicago running the lake out through the Drainage Canal has lowered the lake so boats can't get through Mud Creek was given as the reason the west end of the route being closed.  The Secretary, however, said that if we were willing to make a portage of about three miles we could easily get through the rest of the way to Lake Huron over easily navigable and sheltered inland waters.  Much as I detested portages, a portage of three miles seemed preferable to a possible delay of several days waiting for weather that would let us into the Straits of Mackinac.  The Secretary also promised every possible cooperation, so I requested him to have a motor truck waiting for us when we arrived at Petoskey at four o'clock that afternoon.

With that arrangement completed we shoved off from the Coast Guard Station and headed up the lake around Big Rock Point and into Little Traverse Bay.  This part of the trip was anything but smooth going.  We got pummeled and pounded by the waves all the way, and when we got into Little Traverse Bay we found it not far behind its big brother, Grand Traverse Bay, for unadulterated, choppy wickedness in a breeze that was not blowing more than twenty miles an hour.  However, the weather was dead astern of us, and despite yawing and floundering around we pulled in behind the Petoskey breakwater at exactly four minutes after four.

(The second half of this installment to be continued.)

1925 - Part 3 Continued - Across the Continent by Motor Boat (with Evinrude Big Twins)

The following day we got an early start because we knew we faced the ordeal of getting over the unworkable lock at Lockport.  

 The run of five miles from Joliet to Lockport was made in an hour despite the swift opposing current.  Still in waters polluted to the Nth degree we faced one of the most difficult labor jobs of the entire transcontinental cruise.  

We came up below the dismantled lock in a rock walled canyon where the banks were from 8 to 20 feet high and practically perpendicular.  Hunt as we would for a place where the boat could be pulled out, the best place we could find was an opening under a railroad trestle where it would be necessary to lift the hull a perpendicular 8 feet with almost no place for men to stand while conducting the operation.  If we could lift the boat out at that point, we could set it down on a railroad push car, haul it to the end of the powerhouse tail race, and manhandle it up the bank into the Drainage Canal.  Around the power house, the lock and there whole portion of the canal where construction work of all kinds was going on, there were derricks, cranes and machinery to lift anything from a bag of meal to a box car - but not a single piece of this machinery was in a location where we could use it.  It was a case of using man power or quitting right there.  We were still on our way to Hoboken, so I went ashore, and recruited twenty men to help us get the boat over the lock.

Below: 

VIEW OF EXTERIOR LOCK WALL, POWERHOUSE, DAM, AND CANAL FROM OLD LOCK.
LOOKING NORTHWEST. - Illinois Waterway, Lockport Lock, Dam and Power House

Powerhouse

Powerhouse

After getting motors, camping outfit, and all our gear deposited on the bank of the Drainage Canal above the lock, we got a rope under the stern of the boat and by shear brute strength hauled the boat up onto the railroad trestle.  We got the boat up onto the railroad push car, tracked it through the power house, manhandled it out the door at the other side, up the steep bank, and to the edge of the canal above.  There was a fifteen foot perpendicular wall on the edge of the canal above the power house, but that was a mere detail because there was a crane there.  We merely slung the boat, picked it up with the crane, and swung it down into the canal.  In another hour we were under way again.

I think this might be the track going through the power house Hoag speaks of in the paragraph above.
The photo is from the Library of Congress.

After all the filth we had come through in the Illinois River and the Illinois and Michigan canal, we had contemplated the Chicago Drainage Canal with horror.  But, strange as it may seem we did not find it by one one hundredth part as bad as the polluted waters we had previously traveled.  The odor of sewage is almost imperceptible.  The water appears to be quite clean, and there is scarcely any indication of the indescribable pollution we'd experienced further down the state.  The reason for this condition was quite apparent.  In the drainage canal the sewage has no chance to become stagnant.  The canal is 226 feet wide, 23 feet deep, and flowing at the rate of three to four miles per hour. The sewage is thus so diluted with an abundant flow of pure Lake Michigan water that the pollution is virtually lost.  It is down state further when the current decreases, where the sewage becomes stale and stagnant that the real pollution begins.  However, we were pleasantly surprised to have our preconceived ideas of the Drainage Canal changed.

Although it was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon before we got under way from Lockport, and the heavy current in the canal retarded our speed, we entered the outskirts of the Chicago industrial district about sundown.  We were anxious to get into the city, so once more we violated all our solemn vows against night traveling.  When darkness closed down around us, we lighted our running lights and pushed on.  Presently we were scooting under bridges too numerous to mention, dodging tugs and barges, and sliding past great industrial plants, grain elevators,  and all the assembly of dingy structures, smells, dirt, grime and noise that it takes to make the least attractive section of the nation's second largest city.

 Below: 12th Street Bascule Bridge, Chicago, Illinois, circa 1900.

This picture was complete, even to an occasional cinder or pinch of dirt in our eyes long before we passed out of the Drainage Canal into the Chicago River.  Our night run through the Chicago River from the point we entered it beside the Bridewell City Prison was another nightmare of nocturnal navigation.  For six miles we forged ahead against the current  with millions of lights dazzling our eyes, both motors roaring - shooting blue fire out the exhaust ports, and the river itself as dark as a cave in the banks of the Styx.  The river was full of every manner of driftwood and debris, and with bridges every few hundred yards where only Stygian blackness between the red lights of the bridge piers indicated the open water spaces for which we should steer.  

This is the Western Avenue swing bridge they went under.  The canal was drained temporarily for construction.
For more fantastic pictures go to this Chicago Tribune site!

All the Chicago bridges were high enough to let the Transcontinental under, although many a time we bore down upon some dimly silhouetted mass of steel without being real sure whether we were going under or not.  Under every bridge, street cars, taxi-cabs, and a hub-bub and jam of motor traffic, shook clouds of dirt down upon us, to keep us wheezing and rubbing our eyes.  

It was with somewhat of a feeling of relief that we went under the Wabash Avenue bridge, and came in sight of the handsome structure that spans the river at Michigan Avenue in the full glare of the floodlights illuminating the Wrigley Building and the massive tower of the Chicago Tribune.

The municipal landing at Michigan Avenue beside the Wrigley Building was where we had planned to tie up.  The spot was as light as day.  We were delighted to find a group of newspaper reporter friends, and plain curiosity seekers, there to meet us.  Among the crowd there was also a representative from the Evinrude Motor Company of Milwaukee, whom the factory had dispatched to Chicago to see that anything the factory might do for us was doe.  The flashlights boomed, and by the time we got through with the handshaking and the interviewing, it was midnight before we got to a hotel. I got a bath, got to bed and asleep, only to be routed out by the jangling of the telephone, and the operator saying - "Milwaukee is calling you."  It was H. Biersach, General Manager of Evinrude Company on the wire _ wanting to know what he might do to help us along, and requesting me to hurry along to Milwaukee. He was holding up a meeting of the company's board of directors until I could get in to give them every possible suggestion as to how a better outboard motor might be built.

Chicago Harbor Light

Although we felt rather hollow eyed and sleepy the next day, and as if we'd enjoy staying in Chicago for a few days, time was getting to be an important factor if we were to put the boat into New York ahead of winter weather and the usual fall storms on the Great lakes. 

So, at nine o'clock in the morning instead of remaining in bed where we'd have preferred being, we were off through the Chicago River heading for the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater and the broad expanse of Lake Michigan beyond.



Our introduction to Lake Michigan was anything but cordial and friendly.  We rounded the end of the breakwater to go slithering up the side of a green mountain of water, and over the top just as the peak curled into a rooster's tail of white spray.  Most of the spray came down on top of us.  We made a sickening descent down the other side of the wave.  Then the boat buried her nose in a trough at the bottom, and we took a geyser of water over the forward deck as it washed back, struck the combing around the cockpit, and shot skyward.  The first wave, of course, was followed by another one just like it, and then another, and another, and another.  

By this time we'd gone into slicker coats and sou'westers, and were heading up the lake with the weather pounding us on an angle of about thirty-five degrees on our starboard bow. We were shipping far more water than was good for us from the standpoint of safety.  Every time we went down a wave the bow of the boat seemed to head pretty well for Davy Jones' Locker before it would rise again.  After having tried the craft out in some very heavy weather in the Pacific Ocean off Los Angeles Harbor it was apparent to me that we were at least six hundred pounds over loaded.  This deduction was made giving due consideration to the fact that most of my boating experience has been in salt water where the waves do not develop the short, choppy, quickness, that characterizes the surface undulations of these inland fresh water seas.

When it became necessary to throttle the motors to keep the boat from swamping, I decided the most discreet thing to do was to go ashore and unload about a quarter of a ton of excess baggage before we put the whole outfit in the bottom of the lake.  The most convenient place to do this was the Chicago Yacht Club's basin in the Lincoln Park Lagoon.  We therefore changed our course, and wallowed along in three miles of seething water until we reached the quiet water beyond the opening of the lagoon.  Meanwhile the wind seemed to have  been increasing in violence. Water had been lapping over our stern before we got into the yacht basin.  But when we got there I went out on the beach, and took a look at Lake Michigan it seemed incredible that our overloaded cockleshell could have lived for a single minute in such a sea.

After pulling out about 800 pounds of miscellaneous gear that we felt could be dispensed with to better advantage on shore than in the lake, we took the boat out again for a trial run, and to observe results.  By this time the lake was much rougher than when we came in, but we found out the boat rode like a different craft.  Instead of wallowing down into the waves like a pig going under a fence, she rose on top of them like a cork.  But, she pounded so badly and the lake was was running such a furious sea that it seemed utterly foolish for us to attempt traveling until more favorable weather.  Accordingly, we spent the rest of the day getting our surplus equipment boxed and shipped.  Accordingly, we spent the rest of the day getting our surplus equipment boxed and shipped.  Getting turned back by the weather, however, was not entirely without its compensations.  That evening I got a home cooked dinner, and a real night's rest at the home of friends in Chicago - something I had contemplated during the forenoon as an impossibility only to be wished for.

Next morning we found the lake still rough enough to satisfy anybody who might have been looking for a thrill in a small boat, but not nearly so angry as it had been the previous afternoon.  If it got no worse, there was every indication that we'd be able to knock a fair portion of the run from Chicago to Milwaukee.  So, we shoved off getting under way at 8:30.  We took a lunch aboard, and for the rest of the day watched the shores of Illinois and Wisconsin slip along past our port side.  After we'd been under way for about two hours, the lake began to calm down to a gentle rolling sea free from white caps. Naturally this helped our speed.  

We lunched in the boat as Waukegan slid past about three miles abeam of us.  As the lake continued to become more placid during the afternoon we increased our distance from the shore.  This took us safely outside the several bad reefs that are charted along this portion of the Illinois and Wisconsin shores, and also reduced the distances which were materially increased if we were compelled to follow the long sweeping curves of the shore line.  At four o'clock in the afternoon Kenosha, Wisconsin, was visible in the dim distance abeam of us.  Then, we changed our course, and began heading for Racine.  At five thirty we put-putted into the harbor, tied up for the night, and flagged a taxi to take us to a hotel.

A telephone call to Milwaukee put us in touch with the officials of the Evinrude Company to inform them we'd be in the Milwaukee River at noon the following day.  It also resulted in a pleasant little surprise for us.  Leaving Racine at nine o'clock next morning we found the lake fairly calm.  We rounded wind point, the long point above Racine keeping about three miles out at sea.  But that time we could see the smoke and dim outline of Milwaukee in the distance.

Wind Point Lighthouse - Source: U.S. Coast Guard

State St. Bridge on Milwaukee River

About ten miles south of Milwaukee we espied a tug that seemed to be prowling around looking for something.  That something proved to be us.  Little jets of of white vapor began shooting up from the tug's smokestack, and above the roar of our motors we could hear a faint - "toot-toot-toot-toot" of her whistle.  
When the tug came nearer we could see that her forward deck was festooned with men, and in the bow waving like a human semaphore the field glasses picked out the countenance and spectacles of Fred O'Neil, Vice President of the Evinrude Motor Company, Ed Wehe, Manager of the Service Department, and a few other familiar faces.  After coming alongside of us and exchanging greetings, the tug led the way into the Milwaukee River with Transcontinental trailing her astern like a Mother Carey's Chicken following a ship. 

Somebody around the Evinrude establishment had done a good job of press agenting.  The newspapers had been kept full of the story of the Transcontinental for several days.  That morning the papers carried pictures of the boat, and a news story to the effect that the craft was due to arrive in the Milwaukee River at noon.  Moreover, it was Saturday.  Hence, when we came up the river trailing the tug, and the tug captain blowing an extra head of steam out of his boilers through the whistle, most of Milwaukee, it seemed, hurried to the waterfront.  The banks of the river were jammed with people.  There was a grand rush for standing room on the approaches of the various bridges - all of which had to be opened to let the tug pass.  Every window in every building facing the Milwaukee River became a frame for a living picture of humanity peering out to get a look at the first boat attempting to cross North America, and now more than 3,500 miles on its way.

After doing our little grand stand stunt in the Milwaukee River, we proceeded to the Milwaukee Yacht Club, where the club was virtually turned over to us, and we were met by the usual crowd of newspapermen and a delegation from the Evinrude Motor Company.  The yacht club on a Saturday afternoon would have been a lovely place to loaf around - doing nothing.  But there was important work to be done.   We lunched at the club, and by that time a truck was waiting outside to move Transcontinental, and our entire outfit to the Evinrude plant.  While the boat and motors seemed to be in excellent shape, we still had 2,000 miles to go.  The motors have been run from Astoria, Oregon, to Milwaukee.  They had run at full throttle from 8 to 10 hours per day - day after day, and week after week - without ever having been pulled down for an overhauling, and without the replacement of a single part except the underwater mechanism which had been consumed by the silt in the Missouri River.  The Evinrude engineers desired to measure the pistons, cylinders, and other parts for wear.  And, from our standpoint, with the Evinrude plant and boatworks available for any necessary repairs or alterations we'd have overlooked a rare opportunity had we gone out of Milwaukee without having everything right.

1929

In our little run of 80 miles from Chicago to Milwaukee, we'd gained some profitable experience as to the type of boat best suited to Great Lakes weather.  While Transcontinental had lived up to most of our expectations both as a river and deep water craft, certain alterations were desirable.  For one thing we had learned that we could get along better in the Great Lakes with one motor than we could with two.  Two motors, of course, gave us greater speed and more power to buck the headwinds or currents.  But, against this advantage was the disadvantage of being compelled to throttle down in very rough water even when driving with one motor.  The use of two motors also doubled gasoline consumption, and the weight of the second motor made the stern a little sluggish in rising over a heavy sea - especially when running before the weather. 
 Although we had a full 18 inches of freeboard astern - ample for the roughest river work we'd encountered, we found it was none too generous for the infamously choppy seas of the Great Lakes.  Some sort of spray hood over the bow of the cockpit was also desirable.  The boat had not leaked a drop since first put in the water, but she had begun to look as if a coat of paint wouldn't do her any harm.  

So, we hauled the boat out to the Evinrude plant where the most skilled mechanics and carpenters who could be mustered into service for a Saturday afternoon and Sunday job were put to work.  Never have I seen any group of men who worked so carefully.  Every man of them seemed to feel that the success of their company's product in driving the first boat across America depended entirely upon him.  While the carpenters were sawing out boards to make an 8-inch spray combing around the stern, and the after six feet of the cockpit; the mechanics in the service department dissected LEWIS and CLARK.  Meanwhile an awning maker was stitching a heavy canvas together to form a curved hood over the forward end of the cockpit to keep the Great Lakes from climbing aboard.  

The motors, however, gave us the biggest surprise.  In spite of the terrific punishment they had received, a systematic "micrometering" of parts yielded no appreciable wear.  There was not a single part to be replaced - nothing to be done but put them together again and touch them up with a new coat of paint.  In selecting a stock of spare parts for the remainder of the cruise we also profited from past experience.  We had no more Missouri Rivers to cruise, hence there was no necessity whatever for taking along a stock of stuff that probably would never be used for anything but ballast to be chucked overboard in case of squally weather.  So, the stock of parts we took along was no more than could have been carried in one's hat.  Of course, we had two motors, and never intended to use but one until we reached the Trent Waterways in Ontario.  This gave us a whole motor in reserve, and to rob parts from it if necessary.

By Tuesday morning the paint on the hull of the Transcontinental was sufficiently dry to permit launching other boat again, so we trucked her to the Milwaukee Yacht Club, and into the water.  A trial run into the lake, out beyond the Milwaukee Light Ship, in a sea that was far from calm revealed that we were much better fitted for deep water cruising than we had been when we entered Milwaukee.  During our stay in the city that malt beverage made famous prior to Mr. Volstead's essay on enforced temperance, we got acquainted with Captain William Kincaide, commander of the United States Coast Guard Station at Milwaukee. 

The Milwaukee light ship. She was in service until 1932.

During this time we had been considering the feasibility of attempting to cross the lake to the Michigan side instead of carrying out our original plan of going up the west side of the lake to the Straits of Mackinac.  This plan of crossing the lake seemed attractive because it would shorten the distance for us, and restore several days to our much belated schedule.  When we discussed it with Captain Kincaide he promptly frowned upon it.  "Too dangerous," was his only comment.  

The thing appeared so to me, and I would have been cold-footed on the subject from the start but from having observed the tremendous number of ships that ply up and down the entire length of Lake Michigan. It seemed to me impossible to cross the the lake and be out of sight of a ship at any time.  Moreover, most of the ships are slow freighters, with very little, if any more speed than we had.  With fair weather, it seemed reasonable that we would be able to get across the lake in a daylight day and without the slightest difficulty.  Of course, if we got caught in a squall out in the middle of the lake, our predicament would be anything but safe or comfortable.  But, if we did get caught by unfavorable weather, it seemed certain that we could count on being close enough to a ship to permit going alongside and yelling for help.  



So, after much careful thought we decided to attempt the dash across the lake at daylight the following morning - providing weather indications were favorable.  We got everything ready, and then spent most of the night around the coast guard station grabbing every weather report and watching the barometer.  When the first rays of daylight began to show in the east every weather indication appeared to be in our favor.  We were about ready to shove off when Captain Kincaide came down, and stood on the shore watching our preparations.  He stood there stroking his chin as if in deep thought.  Finally, he spoke saying: "Boys, if your'e going to try it, I'm going to go with you."  He handed me a telegram - an authorization from the Commandant of the Coast Guard Service at Washington for the Captain and a crew of men in a motor life boat to accompany us safely across to the Michigan side of the lake.  I thanked the Captain for his his spirit of kindly cooperation.  To this he replied: "Well, me and the boys would like to take a little trip anyway.  There hasn't been much doing on the lake this summer.  Besides, I'd rather go WITH you, than to come out AFTER you.  Shove off whenever you are ready, and we'll catch you with the life boat a few miles beyond the light ship.

This sudden and wholly unexpected co-operation on the part of the Coast Guard was thoroughly appreciated, for it took out the element of uncertainty, and about 99 per cent of the risk out of us getting across Lake Michigan.  We shoved off from Milwaukee feeling much less uneasy as to what we might encounter on the run of 98 miles of open water between there and Ludington.  In a few minutes we were outside the breakwater with Transcontinental burying her nose  in the choppy sea of a morning breeze.  Half an hour later we cruised pass the lonely Milwaukee Light Ship took our course from the compass, and headed straight out across the lake.  The shores of Wisconsin were getting somewhat hazy and dim in the distance when a tiny white speck coming up astern of us loomed in the field glasses as Captain Kincaide's life boat.  The life boat had scarcely half a knot more speed than we did.  Consequently, the scenery consisted of sky and water before the convoy caught up with us.

By rare good luck, the favorable weather that had been forecast turned out to be even better than we'd hoped for. By the time we'd been out of Milwaukee two hours the wind died down completely.  It became unbearably hot, not a breath of air stirring, the lake flattened out like a bowl of soup.  It was one of those rare days to be expected about once in an average human life time on Lake Michigan.  Luck was certainly with us.  We cruised much of the time within twenty feet of the convoy, often talking with Captain Kincaide and his men through a megaphone, or using the megaphone as an ear trumpet to pick up voices from the other boat over the roar of our engine.  

At noon we took our position, found we were approximately in the middle of the lake, and with a mill pond surface as the prospect for the rest of the day.  The barometer remained absolutely stationary.  The torrid weather we were experiencing out on the lake gave us sympathy for the heat sufferers in Milwaukee and Chicago that day. 



   

About one o'clock in the afternoon a chipping sparrow came fluttering down out of the sky, landed on the bow of the Transcontinental.  After roosting there for a while, apparently recovering his breath, he hopped off and went aboard Captain Kincaide's boat.  The appearance of this small land bird called attention to the fact the Great Lakes are a death trap for billions of of land birds and insects every year.

Numerous flies, flying beetles, and butterflies were observed in the air and on the water.  They came aboard in such numbers as to become an intolerable nuisance.  We put on several active fly drives, swatted flies right and left, and shooed them overboard, but only to pick up a new cargo of the pests within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.  We saw butterflies, and other insects go fluttering down into the water, apparently so exhausted they could remain in the air no longer.  It is very evident that these flying creatures get carried by the air currents out into the Great Lakes, dropping to their doom when they can remain a-wing no longer.  

While we were usually trailing our convoy, we really had no more need for it than the average man would have for a hundred hats.  The weather remained the same across the lake, and there was never a minute during the entire day that we were not in sight of from one to a dozen different ships.  Al this, of course,  while the fine weather lasted.  We were just as well satisfied to have the convoy with us.

About the time the sun dropped big and red into the world of water around us we began to smell land.  A peculiar haze also appeared in the east, indicating the presence of land.  But, darkness settled down around us, and still no land was in sight.  About nine o'clock in the evening a little light bobbed up on the eastern horizon, and began to blink at us.  I glanced at the chart, and thought I identified the light as Little Sable Point - just south of Ludington.  

Cruising on for another half hour three more lights appeared in the east, but to save our lives we couldn't make the various lights jibe with the charts.  Presently a great cluster of lights came into view indicating a town - evidently Ludington.  During the entire day we left most of our navigation problems to Captain Kincaide because we reckoned with his large binnacle and steadier boat, his reckoning was apt to be more accurate than ours.  About the time the lights of the town came into view Captain Kincaide's boat suffered a breakdown.  We went alongside asking if he needed a tow, but he assured us he'd be under way in just a few minutes, and suggested we cruise on.  So, we went on towards the town, but still deeply puzzled over our inability to identify the various lighthouses on the shore and check them with our chart.

At midnight we pulled in between a couple of breakwaters.  Our harbor chart of Ludington was broken out, but the whole scheme of lights and landscape ashore seemed to be askew with our charts.  Several years ago I had been in Ludington, and I still had something of a mental picture of the town and its harbor.  But, this place, into which we poked the bow of Transcontinental after sixteen hours of steady traveling, was nothing that I'd ever set eyes upon.  

We pulled in between the breakwaters, and when I espied a man on sore, I shut down the motor, and called out: "What port is this-please?"  "Manistee," came back the reply.  "Manistee. Holy cats," I exclaimed.  "NO wonder we have been sixteen hours getting here."

We'd cruised 120 miles that day instead of the 98 miles we expected to cover from Milwaukee to Ludington, and we were about 25 miles nearer to New York than we expected to be.

Presently, Captain Kincaide joined us, and I ventured to ask him if he knew what port we were in.  "Sure I do," was his answer.  "This is Manistee. I've been heading for it all day.  When I saw the kind of weather we had on the lake today, I knew you wouldn't object to getting lured along a little farther on your route."  With that the Captain burst into an uproar of laughter, and we joined by the crews of both boats.  The biggest part of the joke on us was that our compass had been off about half a point all day.  We'd been heading for Manistee when we thought we were headed for Ludington.  We were only 25 miles off on a course of 120 miles - just a mere detail for a trio of landlubbers trying to navigate the Great Lakes in an 18-foot put-put.

While we were delighted to be in Manistee that evening in preference to Ludington, the unintentional alteration of our route cost me about ten dollars for telegrams.  When we  left Milwaukee, the Milwaukee newspapers carried the report that we had struck out for Ludington.  When we failed to show up at Ludington,  a couple of reporters who'd been mastheaded on the breakwater all evening, drew the logical conclusion that we were LOST.  Forthwith, the report went out on the wires that we - "were lost in Lake Michigan without food or water."  It would certainly be a terrible thing to be lost on Lake Michigan without any drinking water - especially on a hot day.  Nevertheless, I had to get out a handful of telegrams to our relatives and  friends to let them know the report was grossly exaggerated.  I learned later that Mrs. Hoag read the report in the Los Angeles paper, laughed over it, and ten minutes later received my wire announcing our arrival in Manistee.

It was a good thing for us we got across Lake Michigan on the day we did rather than to have attempted it the following day.  We got a short night's rest in Manistee, and were on the job for a dash up the lake next morning - but we didn't go anywhere the next day.  We came out of the hotel to find a violent gale blowing from the northwest.  Captain Kincaide, with his non-capsizable, non-sinkable life boat was preparing to shove off for Milwaukee.  He advised us to remain in port, but time was getting to be such a precious element with us that we

1960 breakwater at Manistee

decided to travel if it might be possible.  Due to the direction of the storm, we'd get set on the beach if we came to grief, and the nature of the shore for sixty miles or more north from Manistee is such that a small boat could be beached with little difficulty.  Leaving Captain Kincaide at the Manistee Coast Guard Station, we struck out down the Manistee River, and around the breakwater.

Lake Michigan was literally boiling.  Never in all my travels have I seen such a mess of green mountains and white froth as we encountered that day.  The first wave that struck us all but capsized us bow over stern, and for an instant I couldn't see the sky for the water going over the top of us.  When we climbed the green wall of water and topped the summit we went hull out of the lake completely - dropping with a sickening thud into the foaming aquatic chasm below.  Every time we went up the muffler of the motor went under with a loud hiss and gurgle.  Then we'd go careening skyward again, take to the air, and drop like a thousand bricks.  Meanwhile we could scarcely see for the spray, and our gimbel-mounted compass was doing flip-flops like a foundry tumbler.  Water was coming aboard about as fast as our double-action bilge pump could put it overboard.  Although Transcontinental was a mighty staunch and seaworthy little hull, it was obvious to me that no boat ever built could stand that sort of punishment very long.  It was obvious too, that we could take the punishment of pounding around all day in that sort of sea, battling to stay afloat, and have nothing but bruises and strained nerves to show for it at the end of the day.

In an hour of ceaseless hammering, we'd made just about two miles up the Michigan shore from the Manistee breakwater.  At this juncture we came to the agreement that live cowards get more out of life than dead heroes - and there's a vast difference between and adventurer and a fool.  We decided to put about, and run for Manistee.  Just how we ever got turned around in that sea without swamping is something I'll never be able to explain, but somehow we did it, although while we were making the turn water was coming aboard by the bucketful.  In another instant we went yawing off down the tail race of a green mountain of water.  Then we stood still - wallowing between waves slowly climbing to the next foaming summit, taking the spray, and yawing off again.  We managed to get back to the opening between the breakwaters in a series of yaws, wallows and dousings.  
When we reached the Coast Guard Station we found Captain Kincaide still there. 
 "Decided to take my advice - eh?"  
"Aye, Captain" we responded.  
"Well, you show good judgement."

(To be continued)