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The Thomas Hume
The schooner the Thomas Hume was built in 1870 as the two-masted H.C. Albrecht in Manitowac Wisconsin. Named for its first owner, the Albrecht was 132 feet in length with a 26 foot beam. In 1876, the Albrecht was sold to Captain Welch of Chicago who in turn sold it to Charles Hackley and Thomas Hume of Muskegon.
The Albrecht's new owners replaced her deck and strengthened her framing to accommodate her for hauling lumber from Muskegon to Chicago. In 1883, Charles Hackley renamed the ship after his business partner Thomas Hume. The Hume was renovated at least once more when a third mast was added to the ship.
On May 21, 1891, the Hume left Chicago empty along side the Rouse Simmons (also known as the Christmas Tree Ship) and encountered a storm on Lake Michigan. The captain of the Simmons feared the weather and turned back to Chicago. The Hume continued on but never made port in Muskegon. Charles Hackley and Thomas Hume sent their trusted friend Captain Seth Lee out to search for the ship but never found it or any wreckage. Although the ship was worth $6000 at the time of its assumed sinking, it was not insured and therefore it was a total loss to the Hackley and Hume Company. Six men lost their lives in the loss of the Thomas Hume.
The Hume Finally Found
In the 1990s, marine contractor A&T Recovery discovered a highly intact lumber schooner while performing other work in the southern basin of Lake Michigan. They turned the wreck over to a team of experienced shipwreck explorers in Chicago: Bud Brain, Tom Palmisano, Jeff Strunka, and Bob Schmidt who began investigating the wreck to determine its identity. After three years, the divers felt confident that the wreck was the long missing Thomas Hume, owned and operated in Muskegon. Because of the vessel’s Michigan connections and the dive team’s familiarity with the work of Valerie van Heest and her team from Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, they offered to collaborate with that non-profit organization to further document and interpret the shipwreck. As MSRA began its research, doubt was raised when original deed documents recorded the Hume had only two masts. Further research uncovered records indicating that the Hume was refit not long before it sank and did, indeed, have three masts. Further investigation into the date markings of several artifacts on the wreck support that the wreck is indeed the Thomas Hume, although no name board or vessel registration number has been found.
The Lakeshore Museum Center (LMC) has partnered with MSRA to research and explore the wreck of the Hume. Unfortunately, the wreck sits in more than 150 feet of water and can only be reached by technical divers breathing a special mix of air. Bottom time is short and the work is dangerous. Fortunately, the MSRA dive team and its Chicago affiliates are made up of qualified technical divers with vast vocational experience in conducting underwater archaeological investigations. Under the leadership of archaeologists at the Lakeshore Museum Center, the shipwreck experts of MSRA and the four members of the Chicago team will recover all the information needed to interpret the shipwreck and its many artifacts.
To bring this fascinating information to the public, the Michigan Humanities Council has awarded a grant to LMC and MSRA to design and fabricate a museum exhibit, a documentary, and a lesson plan for local schools on the Hume and all it can tell us about shipboard life on lumber schooners. For all we know about lumbering in Midwest in the 1870s to 1890s, we know very little about how sailors lived and worked aboard lumber schooners. The wreck of the Thomas Hume holds the answers!
Images courtesy of Robert Underhill, Todd White, Jeff Vos, Jeff Strunka, and Valerie van Heest.