The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Telescope 15 Christmas Trees In The Spring By John F. Miller At Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1868, a three masted schooner was built and listed as #110087:GT 205,NT 119; L. 123«5" x B. 27'6" x D. 8'V and named the ROUSE SIMMONS. After forty-five years of profitable service, handling various types of cargo,mostly on Lake Michigan, she was finally owned and skippered by Captain Herman Schunemann of Chicago, and used by him to haul Christmas trees from the North woods to the Chicago area. The novelty of buying Christmas trees direct from the schooner deck at the Clark Street dock in Chicago appealed to many residents and created a lot of publicity for the Captain, as well as a good profit. On the evening of November 25, 1913, the well-known Christmas Tree Ship, fully loaded above her bulwarks, sailed out of Manistique, bound for Chicago, three hundred miles south. A Captain friend of Skipper Schunemann coming into Manistique, remarked to his men that "Captain Schunemann must be in a hurry to get those trees Into Chicago to start out in such rough weather." The winds gained in strength in addition to heavy snow and freezing temperatures. The Coast Guard at Sheboygan, Wisconsin, went out into the gale, but due to the severe snow storm they never sighted the schooner. The fate of the gallant schooner was confirmed the following spring when fishermen in the area found their nets clogged with balsam and spruce. In addition, a corked bottle was found near Sheboygan with a note signed by Captain Schunemann stating he had lost two crew members and their small boat, and had given up hope of survival. Thus ended the career of another one of the wonderful sailing ships of that era.