Underwater Archaeological Association of Chicago
November 29, 2017
Meeting Minutes
President Dean Nolan welcomed 28 attendees, including 20 members and 8 new guests.
The October meeting minutes were approved.
Elections - The slate of officers have all been reelected this year. They are;
President – Dean Nolan, Vice-President – Colin Bertling, Treasurer – John Bell, Secretary – Carol Sommers.
A treasurer’s report was given. The cost of Our World Underwater will be around $1,000.
Illinois Council of Skin and Scuba Divers – The Underwater Competition will be held in March on a Sunday to be determined at Elk Grove Pavilion. We need to get a team together to compete for UASC. This is a great way to try your gear out in warm water!
Chicago Maritime Museum – Renew your memberships! Jim Jarecki announced that the Third Friday Open Studios event this month will consist of the museums yearly holiday celebration for members only. This special occasion is one of the many benefits members receive with the Chicago Maritime Museum community. The Third Friday Open Studios will again be open to the public with their January 19th event next year. The January presenter will be Dr. Philip Willink, Senior Research Biologist at Shedd Aquarium.
He will be talking about the bio-diversity of Morgan Shoal. Jim and the museum also need help cataloging their vast collection of canoes and small craft at Crowley’s Ship Yard on the Southside.
Our World Underwater – We need volunteers for the booth. A reliable staff that will actively engage the guests of OWU is critical to build interest and membership in UASC. Please volunteer to help us this year and it will be a success! Steve Arnam will be presenting on the Mystery Wreck at OWU. He hopes to expand on what we can do as Chicago divers, what UASC is doing as an organization, and how to conduct a survey. Steve will be talking at the January UASC meeting as our member presenter.
Newsletter – We need articles! We want to have a current Wreck Checker to handout at OWU. Please submit articles and ideas to Dean Nolan.
UASC Holiday Party – Carol Sommers will host us again this year in her home on Sunday, January 14th starting at 5pm. Since it's potluck party, be sure to bring food and RSVP so that she can set up enough tables and chairs.
Tom Palmisano mentioned that he will be diving until the snow and ice keep him off the lake. He recently dove in Michigan on the Hennepin & Ann Arbor 5.
Upcoming Speakers – The January guest speaker will be Russ Green from NOAA. He will be talking about the proposed NOAA preserve in Wisconsin. It was mentioned that a news article was written this week about Francis Brenton. Brenton sailed a catamaran he made from a dugout canoe and pontoon from the Amazon River to Chicago and from Chicago to Senegal. He did this all while collecting artifacts for the Field Museum. The article can be found at;
Member Speaker - Jim Jarecki spoke about Chicago’s first shipwrecks and the early watercrafts of the Chicago area. He asked us to consider, ‘What is in a name’? Around the 1700’s the mackinaw boat was beginning to be used up around the Mackinaw area. This could be how they got their name. They were popular with fisherman and widely used in transport. Extremely common in the area of the Great Lakes, they resembled a canoe with a sail and had a removable mast and centerboard. The mast could be removed and placed in front of the beached boat to help roll it up onto the shore. The only known wreck site of a mackinaw that Jim could find is up in Isle Royale national park.
In 1803 the Sloop Tracy was the first sailing ship to arrive in Chicago area.
The Hercules was the first deck ship in Lake Michigan. It was recorded that she was lost near the mouth of the Calumet river. The wreckage and bodies were found along the shore in late November 1816, 201 years ago. Five crew and one passenger were thought to have perished. Wolves started eating the bodies and this made identification difficult. Jim found a manifest at the Mackinaw customs house that said that in July of 1818 the Hercules was sailing and bringing supplies to Chicago. So how can this be? It didn’t sink in 1816! The history books are wrong! It actually sunk in November of 1818!
200 years ago - The true first shipwreck was in 1817. This was the schooner Heartless. She was lost while attempting to sail into Chicago harbor with supplies and was caught up on the sandbar outside of the Chicago River. The ship was stuck and beaten apart by the waves. In the fall of 1817 the Heartless
became Chicago’s real first shipwreck! The Detroit library has a great amount of manifests from mackinaw boats and early Great Lakes sailing vessels. Without a doubt, the first shipwrecks in Chicago were the unnamed mackinaw boats. Listed in manifests and the detailed coming and goings of ports, they are simply referred to as ‘boat’. There were surely wrecks of these vessels, but without a name, the record is lost. Also In 1817, 200 years ago, the Frontenac and the Ontario were the first 2 steamers to be on the great lakes.
Main speaker – Don Gassell – Jim introduced our main speaker and explained his many accomplishments. Don Gassell has volunteered countless hours with the CMM, has raced in 55 Mackinac races, and has done a lot to further outreach with kids and sailing programs in Chicago. His career in television and movies had him researching the history of Captain George Streeter for a movie he was going to produce and this is what he discovered;
Captain Streeter, the beach pirate! There is a lot of fact and a lot of fiction around this man and Don has sorted through it to find some truths. Life before Streeterville - Streeter lived in the Detroit area and ran a circus tour of animals. This is why he adopted his ringmaster attire which he wore when he first came to Chicago. His first wife ran away with someone in his circus camp and Streeter left Detroit for Chicago. He was also an actor and performed in Chicago. He made money in one venture when he bought a boat and ran guns from New Orleans to Honduras during a revolution. He owned 3 boats in his lifetime. The record is hazy on which boat was owned at what time but the names of 2 are known; Reutan & Vamoose. Bum boats were floating houses of prostitution that sold liquor on Sundays. This may have influenced Streeter as a business opportunity when he bought his ship the Reutan. In 1860, Chicago was in the era of the schooner. Most of the city was dirt roads and Michigan Avenue was known as Pine Street. The area north of present day Navy Pier was known as ‘The Sands’. The wealthy businessman and hotelier, Potter Palmer, bought some of this area and got his wealthy friends to invest as well. Unbeknownst to Streeter, these wealthy individuals hoped to develop this area as a new neighborhood. This property deal was done in secrecy with the city. Captain Streeter first wrecked his ship on ' the Sands' when he was voyaging back from a trip to Milwaukee. This happened because of a southeasterly wind or perhaps an unfamiliar engineer onboard who couldn’t repair the boat after it broke down and the ship ran aground. Evidence from a trial later on turned up testimony from a watchmen of Potter Palmer's reporting the vessel being pulled onto shore near piers on the beach. The watchmen told them to move off the property and the crew beached again at an adjacent property. This is where he decided to set up his squatter camp. 160 acres of land were created by Captain Streeter as he paid contractors in the area 50 cents a load to dump their diggings into the lake. Streeter then sold the land as plots to people. Shanty shacks were built on this marsh, which soon became an eyesore to the wealthy neighbors. Captain Streeter was often told to move off the beach but he would scare off these confrontations with his shotgun and silver tongue. He would get out of trouble with the courts by saying the shotgun was only loaded with bird shot and that he was defending his rights to his own property. The justices were lost as this was still the Wild West and the courts could not uphold laws that were not written yet. Riparian water rights in which the land in front of water and water in front of the land is given legal ownership were still a grey area in the courts. Streeter’s efforts were also strengthened when he organized his residents to defend their land. There were constant fines and efforts to chase off the squatters, but the group was not deterred. He also tried to argue that his veteran status from the Civil War gave him property rights with the Homesteader Act. Court dates came and went and Streeter kept building and selling plots. Land grew from present day area of the Chicago River to Oak Street and Michigan to Lake Shore Drive. The wealthy true land owners who were led by Potter Palmer sat by and watched as their shoreline land grew. In 1900, Streeter attempted to further preserve his right to the land by going to Washington and getting a document signed by President Grover Cleveland that gave him a land grant. This was later found to be a false document manufactured by Streeter. In 1905, Lake Shore Drive was being developed beyond the growing Streeterville area by Potter Palmer and the real estate deal that was originally secretive among the city and wealthy landowners was brought to light. It was discovered that the land was legally owned by Potter Palmer, Ogden, Fairbanks, and other wealthy Chicago politicians. Throughout his time in Chicago, Streeter had a number of different residences. He lived in a tent, a double-storied shanty house, a barge upon which he built a shack, and a railway streetcar. Also, he had a house near 65th and Vincennes. His final residence was near Chicago and Michigan Avenues, near present-day Water Tower Place. This brick residence was raided, the occupants were evicted, and the residence destroyed by the police. This brought an end to residency by squatters in the area of Streeterville and the colorful events of Captain Streeter. Streeter died when he had an accident chopping wood and got a splinter in his eye. He refused medical care and caught pneumonia and died on April 21st, 1921. The was a forty-car motorcade at his funeral. His signature cap sat on top of his casket and he was buried in Graceland Cemetery. A statue of Captain Streeter now stands at Grand and McClurg streets.
A Streeterville real estate developer claims to have an anchor from one of Streeter’s boats.
Recommended further reading on the subject is the book ‘The Sands; the Story of Chicago’s Front Yard’ By Francesca Falk Miller.
The meeting was then adjourned.
The next meeting will be on January 31st.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Colin Bertling