The schooner, the Augusta of Oswego, Captain D.M. Malott, came into our port early Saturday morning and reported that on the night previous, about midnight, she had collided with a large steamer on this lake, a few miles out of this city. The Augusta has suffered seriously in the encounter from the loss of her headgear and was leaking badly. In addition, she had a full cargo of lumber, which had shifted in the collision, in which she struck head-on. Unfortunately, the Captain knew nothing of the extent of the disaster to the other vessel.
Almost simultaneously with her arrival came tidings from Evanston that brought the rest of the tale, in the intelligence of disaster that by eight o'clock a.m. filled our streets and places of the public resort with anxious inquirers, when it was known that the steamer, in the encounter with the Augusta was the Lady Elgin, Captain Jack Wilson, which left this port on Friday evening in her regular departure for Lake Superior. In that line, she had run for some seasons past.
On Friday morning, the steamer Lady Elgin last left Milwaukee on a regular charter from the Irish Union Guard from that city. It brought about three hundred excursionists, gentlemen, and ladies, into Chicago, where the party passed the day to interchange hospitalities and socialities usual to such occasions. On her return, she left as stated on her regular trip to Lake Superior, taking about fifty cabin passengers for Mackinac and pleasure points north, added to the excursion party.
The appalling intelligence came to hand that in a collision with the Lady Elgin, the heavy Augusta struck the Lady Elgin midship, cutting it nearly in two. The Lady Elgin sunk about twelve miles off Port Clinton, sixteen miles north of Chicago.
The early Waukegan train on the Chicago and Milwaukee road, having passengers on board from the North, the clerk, and mate of the [Lady] Elgin, brought the first detailed intelligence of the painful disaster. The terrible news rapidly spread from person to person, and not more than an hour elapsed before it was heard in the outermost streets of the city. A rush to the office of Mesars Hubbard & Hunt, on South Water street, and that of A.T. Spencer & Co., the boat owners, began as soon as the intelligence got abroad. All day long, they were besieged by anxious crowds of those who had friends or relatives aboard and by the thousands of sympathizers who made the cause of the sufferers their own.
Groups of men at every street corner, anxiously discussing the cause and consequences of the awful calamity, were a constant feature of the day. The business of the town was forgotten. On Change, in shops, hotels, offices, and stores, the disaster was the theme. As they were sent down on the trains run on the occasion, the saved were soon surrounded by inquiring crowds, and in many cases, before they were permitted to get off their wet clothing, were compelled to halt and repeat the fearful tale over and over again. Yet, on the other hand, every new item, every gleam of hope, every subtraction from the number of the lost was joyfully received.
At Spencer & Co's, the Agents, the inquiries for friends were most frequent and pressing. Many a hope was dashed, many a heart was smitten with despair, and many a wail went up there. Men, women, and boys came tumbling in and went weeping out.
The excitement continued to a late hour. The issue of an extra from the office of the Press and Tribune, just before noon, containing the meager particulars that had come to hand, only served to whet the public appetite for more. Finally, the hotels were filled in the evening, and not until midnight arrived, and the details were thoroughly discussed, did the crowds there sensibly abate. It was a day the Chicago will long remember.
With commendable humanity and promptness, Superintendent Baldwin of the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad, placed at the disposal of the owners of the [Lady] Elgin and numerous friends of the passengers, a special train which with the Coroner, Physicians, and a large party of citizens, left this city following the regular train at 9:45 a.m. for Winnetka, where the disaster occurred.
Friday evening set in with the wind moderately high, though not such as would have deterred the [Lady] Elgin from leaving; yet it is still likely she would have lain by, but for the return excursion party, who had made no calculations on remaining over. Soon after she left, however, and scarcely could she have got outside the post, a heavy thunderstorm came up about midnight, accompanied by an increase of wind, which grew to a perfect Gale. In such a commotion of the elements, the collision took place, the sea running high, the Gale increasing throughout the night, and most of Saturday.
On the beach in Winnetka, at around 10 am. on Saturday the 8th, the surf was rolling in heavily and breaking in thunder along the beach, the Gale having risen to a fearful fury, from the north-east, and thus nearly onshore. The shore there is an uneven bluff, ranging from thirty to sixty feet in height, with a narrow strip of beach at its base. At some points, the heavy surf made directly against the bold bluff. However, at most points, a narrow tract intervened unwashed by the waves and so affording a place and foothold for the operations for rescue.
The whole beach for three miles was strewed with fragments of the light upper portions of the ill-fated steamer. Then, out to sea, where the waves were rolling more heavily than is usually seen, even in our September Gales, the surface of the angry waters for miles in extent, as far as the eye could reach, was dotted with fragments of the wreck with what were clearly made out to be human beings clinging to them. At this time (10 am), various authorities make out that from eighty to one hundred persons could have been counted driving at the mercy of the maddened elements, towards the high, rolling breakers and surf washed beach and bluff, their progress, and with pale cheeks noted, as alas, too many, met their fate in the waves.
The work of rescue began about 5 am., a little north of Winnetka, near the country seat of Mr. Gage, where the earliest intelligence was received by the survivors who came ashore in the steamer's yawl, among whom was the Steward, Mr. Rice, to who wrote the narrative we refer to. This boat was followed by another, the last reaching the shore a little later. The neighborhood was aroused. Word was sent to the dwellings at the station below, and a party of men was preparing to go up to the vicinity where the boats had landed when their attention was drawn to their own shore as still more painfully to be the scene of the perils and loss of life, and noble daring of the day. The wind not being directly onshore carried each later arrival a little further south. Now rafts bearing human beings were seen nearing Winnetka, where the country residence of Ex-Alderman Carter of this city occupies the high bluff.
Parties of men were on the alert and ready for the work of rescue. Word was sent to Evanston, and citizens and its entire student community came up in force. Attention was first directed to a large raft coming in steadily but bravely over the waves, upon which were standing a large group of human beings, since known to have been some fifty in number. Around and beyond it on all sides were single survivors and groups of two or three, or more, but painful interest centered about the fate of that larger raft. Finally, it neared the seething line of surf. With a glass, those onshore could see that the company on board seemed to obey the orders of one. Ther ladies and children were there - hearts on shore forgot to beat for an instant and then saw the raft break and disappear in the seas. Of the entire number onboard, only fifteen names appear in our list of the saved. Of the lost was the braveheart who tried his best to save those committed to his charge and perished in the attempt Captain Jack Wilson, the commander of the unfortunate steamer.
The work of rescue, however, did not pause in the agony that wrung the hearts onshore. Men, residents of Winnetka and Evanston stripped off all superfluous clothing and with ropes tied about them, held onshore, dashed nobly into the surf and only by such peril wrested the saved of the wreck. Where many wrought so well, we cannot here particularize. Still, we accord the universal sentiment of the day in the assertion that the Theological teachings of the Garrett Biblical Institute must include a liberal amount of "Muscular Christianity," for Mesars, Spencer, and Combs of that institution were foremost among the heroes of the day.
Thenceforward the scene on the shore until two P.M., when the last survivor was drawn out of the surf, was a scene which the lookers-on will never forget. Of its nature, the best proof is the fact that the from forty to fifty persona saved was less than one-third of the number that came in from the lake to pass the fearful gauntlet of the line of breakers, several hundred feet offshore, was under the very eyes and almost within hail of those onshore, we saw the majority perish. The rafts would come into the line of surf, dip to the force of the waves and then turn completely over. Again and again would raft containing from one to five or more persons gradually near the shore and then be lost where a stone's cast would reach them, yet really as far from human help as if in mid-ocean.
The scenes of these fearful houses would fill a volume. The episode of the saving of the gallant James E. Evison, of Milwaukee, with his wife in his arms, left few dry eyes among the spectators. He had secured himself and his precious burden to the severed roof of the pilothouse, a stout octagonal, canvas-covered frame. As this came in, he was seen upon it holding in one arm women. Again and again, the waves broke over them, and more than once, both were submerged. Still, they came on, passed the first breakers, and midway thence to the shore, their raft grounded, from some projection beneath. There it hung, beaten and swept by a roller after roller, and for minutes making no progress, while the breathless spectators not two hundred feet distant watched and waited for the result.
Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.
