- Chronicles is made possible by a grant from the Erie Community Foundation, the Community Assets grant provided by the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority support from Spring Hill Senior Living, and the generous support of Thomas b Hagan.

- This is WQLN.

- The USS Wolverine was sold to Ace junk and salvage company for scrap.

For scrap.

We all go that way one way or another, but for some it seems too soon.

She lived a long and storied life.

There's no doubt about that though.

Most who remember her don't remember those stories anymore.

Hell, they don't even remember her before she was renamed.

Back in the days when she patrolled our inland seas all summer long.

It's time we talked about when she was the steamer Michigan.

She was beautiful and impressive.

The only one of her kind in her size on the lakes for years.

An amazing sight to see prowling in the bay, to think of this grand warship and all the stories she had ending up used in someone's automobile or toaster or kitchen sink.

It's truly a shame.

Suppose it's time to write all those stories down and obituary of sorts for the ship with two lives.

It's usually best to begin at the beginning.

The Michigan was born in the aftermath of the war of 1812.

The second war between a young United States and its former ruler, the United Kingdom.

The Great Lakes were of particular strategic importance.

During the shaky piece.

- In 1817, the Secretary of State man, by the name of Rush and his British counterpart Bagot exchanged letters.

There was no formal treaty that limited the amount of armed ships on the Great Lakes to basically just one on each side west of Niagara Falls.

So that treaty set the stage for a long period of peace and calm.

- What happens in the 19th century in the US is that about every 20 years, every generation or so, they would have a recession or a depression.

The recession that hit in 1837 had a profound effect on the Lakes region.

And what happened is people were becoming disgruntled.

Even the Canadians were becoming drun disgruntled.

They started forming what's called the the Patriots Rebellion.

- The Brits build a a couple of steamers to show some strength against the brewing rebellion going on.

Well, that alarmed the Americans.

The Senate appropriated a hundred thousand dollars to build this iron steamer.

- They contracted the firm of Stackhouse in Tomlinson down in Pittsburgh to build an armed cruiser for the lakes.

It would be made out of iron.

This would be the first time that the US Navy would build an Iron War ship.

And Abel Parker up.

Sure, the Secretary of the Navy okayed this.

And he also gambled on building a substantial warship made of the new material.

And by 1843, it had been transported to Erie in pieces by Avaya Canal.

- Everything had to be assembled.

It was like an erector set.

Once the ship was built, it was built on a platform.

And then there was a launch way created to send it down into the water.

And there was a crowd of people from Erie.

Erie was not very big at that time, but several hundred people were there, basically kind of waiting to see it go down to the water and sink, because it was iron and iron.

Iron didn't float.

Didn't everybody know that back then?

- They attempted to launch it on December 4th, 1843.

They set the launch ramp at a, a very shallow angle and it didn't launch and they couldn't get it to launch after having fired off a cannon to alert all the people to come watch the launch.

So it was pretty embarrassing.

- During the night, the builder, Samuel Hart went back at about five in the morning with nothing but a lamp.

And he was going to just try to figure out what he needed to do.

And he got there and there was no ship.

So he walks down on the water's edge and peers out with his puny little lamp, and he sees a shadow down the bay.

And turns out the Michigan launched itself during the night.

- And so the Michigan's first life was underway onto her first assignment, patrolling the lakes.

- So the ship when it was constructed was officially named the United States Side Wheel Barine, Michigan.

And when it was not on a particular mission, it generally patrolled and looking for shipwrecks, establishing relations, you know, on the Canadian side and just kind of keeping the flag out there.

- Now what it was was a very powerful warship.

Typically the, the most powerful battleships of the line in the United States are named after states.

Upshire knew that this was gonna be a very powerful ship.

- The war of 1812 ends in the Rush Bagot Treaty.

And that this is the longest peaceful border in the world.

It doesn't mean it wasn't always tense.

As she goes from port to port along the Great Lakes, she's able to really spread goodwill in many ways.

- In the years before radio ships could get stranded, sometimes Michigan would come, you know, either pull sailors off of boats that were sinking or would pull ships off of shoals and reefs, things like that.

And they did it for both sides.

- The merchants of the lakes were very happy to have it up there 'cause it was saving ships and people.

And so what they did is they started a writing campaign into Ottawa to make sure that the Michigan stayed up there and it did.

They allowed it to, to stay there, despite the fact that it was more than what was allowed by the Rush Bagot agreement.

- But practically speaking, she's involved with rescues and much of the first years and her entire history for that matter, the security that Michigan offered is the only real federal government presence on the Great Lakes that could do something about a military action.

- Among the many people coming to the Midwest was one Jesse James Strang, a lawyer, a newspaper man, a preacher.

Strang wanted it all.

He eventually befriended a man by the name of Joseph Smith, who baptized Jesse into the church of the Latter Day Saints and moved him West.

Strang quickly climbed the social ladder of the church, gaining power and trust as he went after Smith got murdered out in Carthage, Illinois.

The church presidency was up for grabs.

- In 1844, the church threatened to break apart, and the greatest part of the church went with Brigham.

Young - Strang claimed that he had a letter from Joseph Smith appointing Strang as his successor.

If anything happened to Smith, recent scholarship seems to indicate that it probably is correct.

It was not a forgery.

- James Strang took the people that were following him and settled in a place called Vori in southern Wisconsin.

- One of the problems with the Mormons is they, they were so good at what they did.

They were very good economically.

Whenever they showed up, they were successful.

And that created real hardship for them by the indigenous Gentiles, as they would call the outsiders - To the connation of the people that were already living on the island.

In 1847, the Strite from Vori, Wisconsin were actually starting to settle in Beaver Island.

- Beaver Island had primarily been a fishing hub for Irish immigrants.

They all got driven out.

Now Strang is an interesting character because as he, his power grew and as his theology was shaped by what he was doing, he declared himself king.

He basically ruled with virtually absolute power.

- In 1852, he actually became a representative of that county and immediately separated the Beaver Islands from Mackinac Island.

And there was many accounts of fishing boats shooting at each other, chasing each other down, attacking fishing villages on the, on the coast.

And this eventually brought the Michigan in to the whole freight.

- The captain of the Michigan at the time met with some of the dissidents who insisted that there was mistreatment going on.

And Michigan's Captain Mc Blair was very sympathetic to these people that he was convinced were telling him the truth.

And you had this dangerous dictator up on Beaver Island.

- So in 1856 in the summer, the Michigan pulls into Beaver Island and it re, the captain requests a meeting with Strang, - Ostensibly he was playing federal cop.

So Strang early evening comes down, this is July, so that you know, late Sun is walking down the pier.

And he's accosted by two of these plotters.

- Two gentlemen jump out from nearby trees and they shoot string three times.

The people that shot him got aboard the ship and the captain put them in Ironstone below.

- Mc Blair gives him sanctuary, doesn't let the Mormon authorities either interrogate or arrest them.

Sales over to Mackinac, offloads them in Mackinac.

Mackinac, of course, has been hostile to Beaver Island all this time.

The authorities in Mackinac basically put them up in a hotel, have a mock trial.

Each of them is fined a dollar 25 each, and they're let go.

As heroes, - An armed group of people attack Beaver Island from Mackinac Island, mostly made up of merchants that considered themselves done wrong by the Mormons, and they dispersed the entire Mormon colony.

- They ran, sacked the towns, and they rounded up all of the Mormons and basically shipped them off from the island with nothing but more than the clothes on their back.

So it was a pretty dark time when you consider the actions of the captain in the Michigan, - That is not one of the brighter episodes that the Michigan was involved in, but does tell you that people are humans and you know, they're involved in the same sort of kind of craziness that we see every day.

They can be bribed, they can be lied to - As the decades wore on the Michigan State.

Important.

When war was declared between the states in 1861, the Michigan played her part on the lakes.

- The fact is, is that Canada becomes a safe haven for Confederates and, and access to the Great Lakes for Confederates.

- Confederate operatives who were going up through Canada were actually outfitting armed ships on the lakes to attack the union positions up on the lakes, especially Johnson's Island in Sandusky.

- The plot was that they would take over a lake steamer, sail it to Johnson's Island where the Michigan was guarding the Confederate prison camp.

They would seize the Michigan and the prisoners would riot against the guards and they'd all be freed.

There was another smaller lake steamer, they're gonna pile all the prisoners on, arm them, and then carry out this insurrection.

Well, fortunately for the union, cause they were very good in finding out about these multiple Confederate plots.

- It was a hopelessly ambitious plot that that never worked.

But had they been able to do that, the Michigan was the only warship on the lakes.

And if it was manned by Confederates, they could have sunk the, you know, every merchant ship up there.

- Ambitious plots and high tensions continued after the Civil War, including from one particular group.

You see a lot of Irish folks escaping the famine.

And the British made it to our shores, right as we ramped up to war, while the Irish Republican Brotherhood rose up across the pond, the Phon Brotherhood had big plans.

Big plans for sure hold the British dominion of Canada hostage until Ireland was free.

- The, the phon invasion of Canada took about 1500 men.

The phons classed with the Canadian militia twice.

And the second time, British regulars got involved and they were armed.

But at that point, the Michigan swung into action and kept any more reinforcements from going over.

Also pushed back the Ians two around Fort Erie, which is just across from Buffalo on the Canadian side.

And with the Michigan stopping supplies coming over, being in the river, the phons backs were to the river.

They know where to go.

So they surrendered.

And the Michigan helped supervise taking them all outta Canada.

- It, it seemed like it was this close to bringing Britain and the US to another war, but it didn't, didn't happen.

The, the Michigan actually got into action and with the help of the two tugboats, they stopped the phon.

And I think from then on the Ians realized, what were we gonna do with Canada anyway?

How do you hold an entire country ransom?

It was a, a harebrained scheme from the beginning, and it was never gonna work - After the Feeing raids.

Considering all that had happened before, the intensity of the Michigan's action began to tail off - For the rest of the 19th century.

The Michigan is involved in doing a hydrographic survey.

One of the problems with the lakes is that it was completely uncharted so you could end up on rocks someplace and that not really know it.

And, and so they aim to solve that.

- I think people lose sight of how enormous our country is to understand the Great Lakes.

It it's not the middle that's the problem or dangerous, it's those hard edges that are so much of the problem.

And again, you look at how much our shoreline changes, just our little part of the Great Lakes, the charting that she did was probably one of the most important things she did.

- And they would go around and survey water depth and, and things like that and map in the lakes with great alacrity.

So it actually probably saved more ships doing the hydrographic surveys than it did when it actually went out.

- Despite the fact that she really is the, the Great Lakes grand old lady.

She's still, her sailors are still being trained state of the art.

They are being trained on the newest technology wireless, and we're talking radios here.

- The whole idea in hand sensing is to produce these sounds and silences the bits das and spaces in a swinging kind of rhythm.

That in time you will learn to - Feel they are learning how to use this.

There's really no one that can answer them because nobody else has the technology.

But this is important when you start to look at what's on the horizon, you know, that these people are serving where maybe we can't.

They're here, they're here to protect us.

You know, who doesn't like a sailor?

- The Navy pushed a lot of officers through the Michigan over those second half of the 19th century.

It also, again, represented families.

So many of those young sailors ended up marrying Erie women.

Thus the mother-in-law of the Navy.

It was a central emotional part of Erie's heritage.

- There was a baseball team, there was a football team.

They invite people from Erie onto Wolverine especially, but they're also a, a part of the community in so many ways.

They've met the beautiful women in Erie, found their hearts here, made their homes here, even though they might have come in from somewhere else.

- Times were changing for the Michigan and the world.

It was then that her second life began - After the turn of the century.

The British who were the most powerful navy in the world created a brand new battleship, brand new style, brand new gunnery scheme armor scheme.

It was like going from a biplane to a jet.

And it was called the HMS Dread Knot.

So very quickly, many other countries, including the United States, realized that their navys were all obsolete.

So the United States decided to build its own class of dread knots.

- They wanted to use state names.

And so the Michigan lost for name was renamed the Wolverine, which is the state mascot for Michigan itself.

So she loses her name, regains a new name in 1905.

- So in 1912, the Navy loaned the ship to the Pennsylvania Naval militia.

And since they're their part-time sailors would sail the ship for two weeks out of the year.

They would do patrols and they would do gunnery tests with the new weapons.

So they would train in on that.

- So the Navy is training.

It was good Friday of Easter week in 1917 that Commander Morrison gets the call war is declared.

Our Congress has declared war against Germany.

And the very, very first reserves to be activated in Pennsylvania are the four divisions of the Pennsylvania Naval militia, c and d here in Erie.

And then of course, the other divisions at Philadelphia.

These men immediately end up in the Navy's frontline, so to speak.

In World War I.

When you look at the crew lists and the, the family names that change over the years, this is a history of Erie's population too.

And the generations of New Americans that we welcome here to this day in Erie, we've got the Irish and the Welsh.

We move through the 19th century and we see a strong component of black sailors here, the Swedish and Scandinavians who came into Erie.

And were involved in the fishing industry.

Poles are some of the, some of the most enthusiastic recruits.

- And then later on what happens is it, it goes until it has a major breakdown.

They break a piston rod in 1929.

And so it's no longer serviceable.

So it's brought back to Erie and left to just anchor there and becomes dilapidated.

I mean, nobody is fixing it, nobody's doing anything.

- So she was sold to the foundation for the preservation of the original USS Michigan Inc. That was in July of 1948.

They failed to raise anywhere near enough money.

And so they decided to cut her up for scrap and make whatever money they could.

- My father, Sam Tannenbaum, was the person who purchased the scrap rights for the Michigan.

So he could, he could cut metal, he could weld.

And he worked in a, a shipyard.

But then he was ultimately drafted and became, you know, an army, army infantry.

So he came back and basically built a little scrap yard over on 17th and Holland.

He said he just really wanted to make a living.

He like, he had a family.

So he immediately got into the scrap business, which is something that he knew, but he did that in Erie.

So he buys the thing, right?

It's his, they drag it over, he owns it.

The city fathers of the time came back and said to my dad, oh my gosh, we made a mistake.

We'd like to have the bow.

But of course my dad owned it, you know, so he didn't have to do anything.

And they asked him how much would it cost?

Like how much can we buy this back from you so that we don't scrap the bow, the orts ornate.

And so my dad said that he would, he would sell them the bow for a a, he was selling 'em 10 feet of the bow for a one pound box of Palcos chocolates.

So that was, that was the deal for my mom.

And so when they came to get it, dad had cut 20 feet and they gave him two one pound boxes.

Alright?

And he was very, very, very proud that this thing that he did when he came back from World War ii, and he was a young buck of 25 years old.

And I'm thinking, here's my dad, - 25.

- And we think about like what somebody did at 25.

And, and here's this thing that this kid, you know, father of two trying to make a living back to Erie, Pennsylvania, no college education, high school grad vet, just, just did it.

Just worked hard, did it.

And now we still, we have something to talk about today, which is great.

- And that's how it goes for many a ship, whether lost at shore or lost at sea, they live on in the stories and tales we tell of them.

And I would've Tail of Michigan had a career out on the lakes patrolling and saving lives.

A retirement in Erie, building a community around her 106 years from launch to scrap.

That's a fair few more than most of us get.

Somehow still seems like not enough.

Those who loved her, loved her for a reason.

May the grandest lady, the lake's rest in peace.

I'm sure some of us will remember.

Her - Chronicles is made possible by a grant from the Erie Community Foundation, a community assets grant provided by the Erie County Gaming revenue Authority support from Spring Hill Senior Living and the generous support of Thomas b Hagen.

- We question and - Learn.