In 1892, Benjamin Trudell was approached by a man in his dream.
Trudell dreamt he was at work, patrolling the beaches of Lake Superior looking for distressed ships, when a wealthy looking man approached him. The man was waving his arms desperately and pointing out at the lake. And then he vanished.
A few days later, a body washed up on the shore, and Trudell came face to face with that same man.
Peter G. Minch was the millionaire owner and captain of the Western Reserve cargo ship, which had sunk a few days prior.
After 132 years, the final resting point of the Western Reserve has been discovered. It lies in two pieces stacked on top of each other at the bottom of Lake Superior, about 60 miles off the coast of Whitefish Point.
In August of 1892, Minch decided to take his family on a cruise aboard the Western Reserve. The family along with some crewmen headed north for Minnesota to beat the Cleveland heat.
It was smooth sailing until August 30, when the vessel was met with rough conditions near Whitefish Bay. The crew dropped anchor for a bit before deciding to brave the storm.
But the ship, lightweight from carrying only human cargo, was no match for Lake Superior’s waves.
The 28 passengers quickly boarded the lifeboats as the ship broke apart beneath them. The first, made up entirely of crewmen, flipped as soon as it hit the water. Only two men were recovered and pulled into the remaining lifeboat.
One of those men was Harry W. Stewart, who moments before had narrowly avoided death while jumping a three-foot gap between the bow and the stern as the ship split in half.
The remaining lifeboat, carrying the Minch family and the few lasting crewmembers, was about 30 miles off the shoreline. As the storm crashed on and the sun dipped below the horizon, they desperately paddled towards the coast.
A ship approached. The survivors screamed and tried to make a fire to no avail. Drowned out by darkness, they went undetected.
After 10 hours of paddling, the Minch family and crew were just a mile from the shoreline when they were turned over by a wave. Harry Stewart was the only person to make it to the beach alive.
After laying on the shoreline for some time, Stewart would trek about three miles down the beach to a lifesaving station, where he would then share the only first-person account of what happened to the Western Reserve on the night of August 30, 1892…
For more on this story, including the discovery of the ship by The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, tune in to episode one of the Michigistory podcast, by Cassidy Hough and Big Mitten Media.
